Client Advice
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- lyrek
So I have this client that me and another designer did about 10K work for in total. He started getting late on monthly payments (as we had a $500.00/mo arrangement) and I told him that we needed to ensure things were paid regularly if he wanted us to continue working.
Anyway, one day he stops returning phone calls. Skipped town while he still owed about 1/2 the balance to us. We try calling him a bunch of time but he screens us. Then we go to one of his old hangouts and use the phone there. He picks up, surely enough. And when he finds out its us, he says "hello...hello...hellooo?" and hangs up. upon callign back we get voicemail.
Anyway, we sent invoices to his apartment in NY and they were forwarded to him in california (where we found out he moved) as we never got them bounced back. Six months go by w/ us trying occasionally to get him via email and phone.
Then today, I get this:
"Hello gentlemen,
I hope you both are well! I could go into a very long story as to what happened to me over the past 6 months but I won't bore you with the details.
I do want to apologize for having dropped the ball the way I did, I assure you if I can that it wasn't intentional!!
All that being as it may. I would like to pick-up where we left off. starting with continuing to pay my bill. I no longer know what I did with all the client information you gave me regarding how to connect to the client site. If you would please send me the information so I may look at my bill again and refamiliarize myself with the details.
I don't expect you boys to jump through hoops at this point, (once bitten twice shy I know). But I would like to see if we can recover our website. I have none of that info as it was all done on your server side.
Once again I hope you are both well. My cell phone is the same for now otherwise you may just repond via email.
take care.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU WERE ME? I was thinking I'd send him a letter, dripping w/ forgiveness, and promise him the world. As a gesture of good faith on your part though Mr. Client, we request that the balance be paid in full before we begin. And we'll have to restructure the agreement to be more cautious. And then, when (and if) we get all the money, cut off all communication with him.
What do you think?
ps. he's an eccentric gay guy. that's why he refers to us as "boys" and is so flambouyant w/ his letter. :) The web site, btw, was shut off because he didn't pay the bills. And (being as we were the technical contact), the host and DNS reg. hunted US down rather than him.
- Krimzen0
I think you have the right idea. I'd guess the client would pull the same garbage on you if you started working for them again so... take the money and run hehe
- lyrek0
thx bro. i hate to be a dick, but sometimes it's necessary.