wordpress developer has locked theme?

[Jon the bear]

i have recently taken over as an administrator for a school website which was recently developed (at a ridiculous price by a dreadful developer.) and i am trying to fix the mess we have been left with. the problem is that i have an admin account but cannot change the theme, header, widgets, create templates etc. as they dont appear on the tool bar under appearance. when i change theme it does work but not with this one, i think the developer has locked it somehow and they are being very difficult and not unlocking it without a fight, is there anyway that i could unlock it.

[tess]

Try checking the plugins. There might be a plugin added that stops you being able to find these items.

This is a very unconscionable trick some developers do to try to continue charging you for work. If you can't see the plugin folder, then check down the dashboard and click on all the links and see if any of them allow changes to the admin settings.

You might be able to remove the offending plugin via FTP. Go into your FTP client (you will need your hosting username and password) and look in the plugins folder. Check all the plugins and any you don't know, do a Google search for them and find out what they are for. If one of them changes admin settings then delete it.

You can also get a lot of help at the support forums at http://wordpress.org/ Ask your question and you will get an email when there is a reply. The support is excellent there.

If you need any more help, please don't hesitate to contact me via http://goviralnow.net/contact/