What will you do...
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- frannyc28
If you are presented with the following shitty situation:
The client that you have been devoting all your time for over 7 years and even when you are supposed to be a freelancer for them they suck all your time, owes you $11,500 and offers you only to pay half the bill and start the new year CLEAN, due to (or with the excuse) "UNAUTHORIZED WORK" you were asked to work on by their employees or to call it quits and loose it...
- monNom0
BS, they can take it up with their employee. How would you possibly be able to judge if it were an 'authorized request' or not?
stick to your guns. you did the work, why should you have to take a haircut for their misbehaving staff?
- Machuse0
wow, good luck. Thats from the heart, unfort. my brain has no help for you.
- brains0
Definitely stick to your guns on this one. It's up to their administration and company to make sure that everything is kept in order. If you were given work that wasn't authorized, that's on them. So in other words, I'm with monNom on this one. Fight! You put in the hours, it's time for them to pay up. Keep it professional, keep it firm.
- frannyc280
Thanks guy for the advice... totally looking for validation so I didn't feel bad about getting firm! ;P
- drgss0
Give me his address
and I will kill him
- lowimpakt0
owed 11,500... holy fuck.
i would have got firm long ago.
- jaylarson0
I hope you have a contract.
- BuddhaHat0
If you have a contract and it doesn't specify that you receive work requests from specific members of staff then you are not to know, and it should be paid.
- ecowatt0
if you have emails that initiate the work (emails from the staff).
if you have emails that dont flag that the work was 'unauthorised'then you ask them to pay the work. if they have a problem paying it then discuss payment over time. If they refuse to pay it you go to court.
they loose a designer they werent gonna pay. you get money from a client you really dont wanna work for.
then you walk away and find your self a client that isnt so fucking sketchy.
- locustsloth0
Like BuddhaHat said, unless they can show that you were only supposed to take orders from specific people, it's their poor management that led to them spending so much. And it's not like it's a day or a week or even a month of your time. 11k of work is an awful lot of work to go unnoticed. Sounds like their trying to cut costs in whatever dastardly way they can.
- formed0
Yup, if you have the records that their employees asked you directly to do something, then that seems pretty authorized to me - their fault if they didn't have one person telling you what to do.
But I'd get that 50% asap. The way the economy is, you will have a tough time getting more quickly.
I'd push for all of it and explain that they should control their employees (assuming you have records and a contract). If they still won't budge (many of my clients have "asked" if they can pay late, which so far I have said yes. It works out, they pay a little later, but I get it all and they are happy - some have asked for a month delay, some to pay monthly) then I'd say TAKE the 50% NOW, and tell them they can pay the rest off over the next few months.
Companies are falling off the face of the earth left and right. You want to get ALL your money asap, so talk with them. They are probably asking all their vendors to 'work' with them.
Deleting 50%, though, is bs if you've done the work and they are not bankrupt. Find those emails!
Good luck. Tough times out there. I can assure you aren't alone.
- LIoyd0
how much do you stand to gain if you do take the cut and stay with them?
can you afford to lose a client right now?
how much have you made with them the past 7 years?yes, it's easy to get angry about this, and everyone will rally around your battle-cry to give them a huge middle finger, but remember, work is getting harder to find these days.
- paying clients are harder to find...monNom
- there's a trust problem here that might mean he won't want to work for them anymore.zarkonite
- but you make an excellent point about taking the long view on this one...zarkonite
- we've taken really shitty hits from companies being dick heads, but sucked it up and re-couped the loss on later invoices ;)Hoax
- invoices ;) 10% extra on future jobs, they're coming back cause they think they got one over on us.Hoax
- kgvs720
If someone owes you $11,500 and want a clean slate by only paying you half, is BS. The mafia would've gone out business if things worked that way. Any business for that matter. Demand what is owed to you. Good luck!
- zarkonite0
I put "I am authorized to bind the Company" next to every signature line on my contracts to avoid this kind of shenanigans.
They're obviously trying to rip you off, my advice is to focus on the work. If it was done according to the parameters they set you so there's no reason not to pay for it.
- LIoyd0
i had a similar situation, and like said above, the long view payed off.
i was working with a new company for a few months and had made just under 10k a month each of those months. on the 4th month, they had me do some work which was not ultimately not needed. they asked if they could pay only half of the bill. and i agreed.
i could have easily told them to pay in full, but it would have been the end of that.
it didn't come down to trust, it came down to how much i stood to gain, and how much they had previously payed me.
- akrokdesign0
for a small fee of 40% i could break some bones. lol. (j/k)
nah, for real. its pretty sad, i hope it works out great.
- babaganush0
A. They suck all your time (which smacks of disorganisation)
B. They don't know they're arse from elbow with what is going on
C. Probably heading into liquidation with practices like that.Be professional and say that they aren't (maybe offer to talk about some kind of arrangement that isn't Half the outstanding fees - a joke).
If they baulk at your request they're really not worth thinking about long term as you obviously haven't been happy with their methodology for 7 years. Be flexible but firm (half is a joke, say you'll defer payment or something and get an agreement written up). This way at least YOU are trying to be proifessional and not letting them take advantage. Good luck.
- Also, you could suggest purchase orders (if you don't already have them...)babaganush
- Juan_Dumplo0
tell us whats the company/studio so nobody else got on their pervert hands.
- GetRefresh0
Seek clients who respect you. Cut your losses and move on when they don't.