client dodging payment. a love story.
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- shellie
Now almost 120 days late in payment, this email i sent caused a serious screaming ho down over the phone this afternoon:
Hello (insert fucker's name here),
I need you to go ahead and cut me a check by tomorrow afternoon. I can pick it up if you can’t get it here on time. If you can’t do it, let me know now. I can go ahead and file the necessary paperwork to assist you in paying me. I have bills to pay and things to do. Sorry to escalate this, but I don’t appreciate the lack of communication on your part. I need to take care of myself. No hard feelings but I gotta do what I gotta do.
You know my number. I expect a phone call.
Shellie
562-477-____---
Then he calls me all fiery and ready to fight. Out of nowhere my hibernating super human verbal beat down skills reared its ugly head and i tore him to shred. He hung up on me. After realizing i was completely right, he called me back with his nice kindergarten teacher voice on like "can we start this conversation over?"
I was like "sure dood. So here we go. You don’t return my calls, you don’t return my emails. When i don’t get communication from you i figure you skipped the fuck out of town. Give me my money motherfucker and we're square. I know we're "friends" but your company problems are not my problem.
I don’t want to drag you through the fucking mud man but you can’t dodge me and expect it to be all cool gravy. If anything makes me more fucking batty is when people don’t talk to me. Anything that’s happening now is 100 percent your problem and your fault. Don’t give me that karma blah blah bullshit I'm not hearing that *la la la*. this right now is the result of your failure to be a decent fucking human being.
Then he tries the "you don’t know what its like and what i go through"
Then i told him that basically I've been working with clients for about 3 months that he's wanted to get for 3 years, and i certainly know what money and responsibility looks like.
"Believe this. I’ll take it there. Are you good for it on Friday?" I said.
He said yes... but i know that’s a pile off bullshit.
GODDAMN I WANT MY MONEY PAY ME AGGG.
I was telling a friend... "I'm like on the edge today if my fiance even looks at me funny tonight i'll knock his ass out."
oh teh drama.
- BonSeff0
you should definately take it there. that's not cool gravy at all
jk, but that rant was funny
- shellie0
I aim to please. Anybody ever "go there"
- machito0
AHH to young and aggrevated...
I would recomend just taking it to court while the 'company' is still in business.but as my favorite song says - Whatever!
- MLVR0
you go... fuck you almost made me pay you... :-)
- shellie0
its a pain. if he cant pay.. its cool man. i have money coming from other places. but i'll be goddamned if he wont tell me whats going on.
- function820
its not really cool if he can't pay, is it? i mean, if hes using your work you're entitled to compensation.
- shellie0
If times are tight... I'd gladly take a dollar a week if thats all he can afford. Its the principle... PAY FOR SERVICES RENDERED.
Has anyone taken it beyond this point? Did it end up being worth the trouble? I wonder if I should have my final horah and scream at him one more time for shits and giggles and cut my losses.
- function820
is it a large sum? and are you sure that times are really tight?
if its a small amount of money, sometimes its not worth your effort, especially when taking them to court would cost more than the contract pays
shady business people tend to win because they find a way to ignore you, in the end it usually bites them in the ass, but it sucks for designers, because we end up loosing out
- shellie0
Its a very small amount. it was like a day work after I finished a much larger contract. It just makes me so crazy angry that he thinks he can get away with fucking me for the tail end of what we agreed on.
"I paid you on time every time before" doesnt do it for me. I want the rest... or you'll hear it from me for a bit... if anything to make myself feel better.
- MACAS00
Damn, and I tought Virgin Islands women were rough. Pay up mehboy!
:)
- function820
hmm, i'd keep hounding, you could also try adding discounts and surcharges to your invoices to try to deter this in the future, but i guess if hes not going to pay to begin with, that wont help
ie. 15days, 5% off, 30 days, full charge, 60 days 5% surcharge
- enobrev0
Went there a little more than a year ago. Dude eventually paid little by little, including a barage of insults and bullshit with every payment.
After the last payment I took about 15 minutes and flipped through the email / im / phone notes history and came up with some gems.
I then called him and laid an even hour of thorough ear ripping, with a 'mothafucker' after every 3 or so sentences, quoting him, insulting him, and giving evidence of just how much of a prick he was. He was silent for about 5 minutes, then got off the phone. He called back 10 minutes later and apologized.
I billed him for that hour...
Anyways.. he called me last week begging me to do work for him again.
Funny world.
- nosaj0
Had to serve a client papers a couple of years ago to get paid. It's sucks to have to do but some people will just walk all over you if you let them. Some bridges gotta burn.
- shellie0
oh fuck that cockhole, mark. tell him you'll do it for 500,000 dollars and a stripper in a birthday cake delivered to your doorstep.
- enobrev0
i knew you were a sweetheart shells, but wow... that's just plain adorable.
'cockhole'... must remember 'cockhole'.
- shellie0
wish you were in SF for my birthday killa. oh the good times that will be had. puhlease? you wont be able to make it by friday willya? heh
- enobrev0
by friday? sheeit.
savin up for all the drinking il be doing on my bday in 2 weeks.
- ad10
i'm in london shellie.
you're way past the nice calls now nad it's good that you've been cool cos now is time to get heavy.
nice polite straight to the point letter:
dear ....
the invoice dated xxx for xxx still remains outstanding.//having made numerous appeals to you to settle this matter i now ask that you settle the outstsnding amount of xxx in full within the next seven days. failing that i will pass this matter over to my leagal representitves with the instructions to recover the full amount outstanding plus costs and interest acrued.
yours
shelliethis rarely fails unless they genuinely don't have $$$ its the costs and interest that gets them and to which you are (here in london) legally entitled.
here you can issue a summons - through the samll courts - costs £50 but if they don't pay their credit is fucked
good luck girl
- r00tarded0
why not find a collections agency that specializes in small companies and smaller invoices? Some will do it for $10/contract or a percentage of it. I'd doing that with a deadbeat client this month.
- imnotnate0
Shellie.
The same client owes me money on 2 separate projects. Has never paid me a dime, and I busted my ass twice helpin' him out on last minute rush jobs.
(I heard it through the grapevine who it is you're talking about, and I know of a handful of other freelancers who are experiencing similar problems with the same guy/company.)
I think you or I should post who it is on here to warn other wary digital travellers.