
Ask HN: I'm being stiffed by a client. What are my options? - fandawg195
Hi,<p>Long story short, I keep getting the run around from a freelance web development client and sometimes no response at all as to why my last invoice bill still has not been paid. Originally when we started working together we didn&#x27;t sign any contractual agreement, just word of mouth and then I sent an invoice every month for billed work. I did get paid for a few months but then after that things went silent.<p>So what are my options now? I&#x27;d just like to get paid without having to pursue any sort of legal actions and put this behind me. But if legal action is needed what do I need to do?
======
ColinWright
Here's what I would do, and have done in similar circumstances.

Stop working.

Write a clear letter saying that you're disappointed that they are not holding
up what you thought was the agreement, especially since they obviously also
thought it was the agreement because they had paid the first few invoices.

Issue a final invoice, and say that you look forward to receiving payment and
having a discussion resulting in a signed agreement as to how to go forwards.

Be professional. No agreement is worth anything except to be a clear statement
as to what's expected. The exception to that is if you are prepared to go
legal, and that's an entirely different ball game.

Look at your possible outcomes, and consider what actions you must take to
achieve the best possible, given that you cannot control what the client does.

Would you really go legal? Would it be worth it? Unless you are owed many
thousands, it won't be. Getting a lawyer to write your letter is one way to
increase the chances of getting paid, but up the stakes if they continue to
refuse.

It's game theory - draw an explicit decision tree with probability estimates
and expected payoffs. It's what I did when I participated in a semi-hostile
management take-over.

~~~
bawigga
Could you tell us more about that management take-over?

~~~
ColinWright
Sadly not, because of confidentiality issues. I do intend someday to write up
an equivalent tale with enough changed to circumvent the issues of privacy,
_etc.,_ but that will take significant amounts of time.

------
brudgers
That sucks. Move on.

That means making a decision about whether it's worth the hassel of trying to
get paid by a deadbeat. If so, that means taking legal action. In my
experience sometimes it's worth suing a deadbeat, sometimes it isn't. The high
order bit on when it isn't worth it is when the deadbeat has gone broke. The
high order bit on when it is is a relationship that has devolved into "Fuck
you, Pay me." It's rare that the emotional value of getting paid is worth the
emotional cost and financial risk of suing. There are opportunity costs for a
small business when resources are devoted to chasing deadbeats instead of new
work.

Personally, I always use written contracts with clear payment and termination
terms. Typically I require a meaningful retainer. The retainer gets applied
against _final_ invoice and is large enough that I shouldn't have to go upside
down where the client owes me money. This puts it in their interest to tell me
explicitly if the project dies rather than implicitly via unpaid invoices.
Whenever a client doesn't pay an invoice without a heads up, I stop work and
call.

Here's the thing: good clients are clients who intend to pay, and good clients
are never offended by written contracts. The times when things need to be
loose with good clients is when speed is critical and there's an established
working relationship, and when speed is critical then all it takes is a check
to get started. A client who balks at a contract or writing a retainer check
is a red flag. If they can't write a retainer, then they haven't allocated the
funds for my work. That's not a good omen.

Good luck.

------
jwr
Stop working, move on immediately to other work. If the amount merits legal
action, go for it, if it's too small — just forget about it and move on.

Moving on is the most important thing: don't get fixated on this situation and
its negativity. Every hour you spend thinking about this is an hour wasted.

In the future, monitor the amount of outstanding unpaid work closely. It seems
you were doing that, which is great — you should always be aware of what that
amount is. Don't let it grow, because once it grows too large, the client
gains power over you. As long as it's small, you can always move on, and it
seems it's what you should do in this case.

~~~
eatonphil
Why does the client gain power over you if the outstanding unpaid work grows
too large?

~~~
pluma
Sunk cost fallacy. You're exerting more effort with no reasonable expectation
to see it repaid. The work you have already performed is a sunk cost, it's
gone. The unpaid invoices are money you are owed but they apparently have no
intention of paying you.

For all you know, they're not paying because they're bankrupt and dead in the
water. That means not only will you not ever see the money they already owe
you, but if you do any more work, it's effectively pro bono for a lost cause.

If you're perfectly rational, there is no psychological disadvantage to
continuing to work for them but it's obvious to you why you shouldn't in the
first place. Chances are, you don't act as rational as you think you do.

If a major client skips payments, it's perfectly understandable that you don't
want to risk burning any bridges by insisting on being paid. But this is the
fallacy. Whether the client is big or not doesn't matter if they're not going
to pay you. Unless you want to build a business on not being paid.

------
quietriot
Consider working in the future on a pre-paid basis. I have had great success
by charging clients [especially new ones] for "blocks" of hours. If your rate
per hour is $100, consider selling your client a 5 hour block for, say, $450 -
or 10h for $925. When you receive the check and it clears then get to work and
keep going at your own pace till their "hours balance" goes to zero. Then ask
for another check if they want you to continue on the project. They can buy
more at any time. I keep track of time to the 1/10 hour. Tell them they can
direct your efforts however they desire within the scope of what you are
offering for a given rate. Offer greater discounts for larger block sizes.
Unused hours expire or are fractionally reduced after 18 months... progress
reports generated every 10 days or 10 hours used... generate your own
policies.

Start with the cash. Saves many a headache billing/invoicing/etc.

I have sold weeks at a time. Accept credit cards.

~~~
quietriot
Example:

"""

I offer my services in blocks of prepaid hours.

Hours are utilized out of a block as they are applied to your business. All
time is exclusive and timekeeping resolution is 0.1h. You may add additional
hours to your account at any time or take your balance to zero. I offer blocks
of other types as well (IT/Telephony, Media Production) and each is accounted
for independently and may be used in any order you please. There is no charge
for miles. I can be as self-contained or as interactive as your team desires.
You, or anyone from your team, can dictate specific tasks at any time. You can
file with the IRS as a simple 1099-MISC if we end up over $600.

Progress updates are generated at a minimum of every 10 hours used or 20 days
passed as long as you maintain a positive balance > 1.0h and have utilization.
Hours unused, after 10 months, decay by half each quarter year thereafter for
four quarters then age out completely.

    
    
         Social/SEO Blocks
        Qty. (h) 	Rate ($)
          5           400
         10 	  725
         15 	  980
         20 	1,225
         25 	1,425
         30 	1,625
         35 	1,825
         40 	2,000
         45 	2,150
         50 	2,250
        à la carte 	   85
    

If you would like to proceed [direct them how to send a check or pay via CC or
other method].

"""

~~~
JPKab
I like this approach. Thanks for putting such a detailed methodology up here.

~~~
quietriot
Glad to do it.

Use a spreadsheet to grow the discount of your hourly rates as the block sizes
increase. Analyse mine. Encourage the purchase of larger blocks with larger
savings per hour for your client and larger upfront checks for you. Build a
range of what is acceptable to you from highest to lowest then spread them
proportionally to the block size and manually round off the numbers to make
them easy for humans to process.

À la carte hourly rate is your typical billable invoice rate plus an
incremental premium. Set this higher to allow for, yet discourage, purchase of
only one hour at a time for small projects or to allow them to buy enough time
to finish off a project without buying time they don't want or need.

Yes these rates are very low. Make a different set and quote different block
sizes for each type of job/skill/service.

------
mymotta
If you are in the USA and the amounts aren't huge (see:
[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-
ho...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/small-claims-suits-how-
much-30031.html)), then go to small claims court in your state to collect. But
you should be sure to show (a) you were paid previously (b) what you are
charging is justified, and (c)you have some proof that you tried to get the
payments made (certified letter, etc.)

~~~
hahamrfunnyguy
Small claims is probably the best option here. After winning in court, if they
don't pay then the next step is to file for a lein. When they go to get a loan
or sell their house, they will have to take care of the lein. So you may get
paid eventually.

I took a roofer to small claims court and won. He didn't pay, but I didn't
bother with the leins because I really didn't want the extra aggravation. In
retrospect, I probably should have.

~~~
Spooky23
Why? Every hour spent on this nonsense is non-billable. You lose more time,
roll the dice on winning, and then get to waste more time on collection.

Cease contact, turn down anything you are hosting for them and don't answer
the phone from them ever again.

A roofer or contractor and you as an individual is different.

------
kazinator
Previous discussion about nearly identical topic:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023327](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023327)

    
    
      diff https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9023327 \
           https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10203102
    
      @@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
       Did development work.
      -Had written contract.
      +Had verbal contract.
       Got paid for while.
       Then didn't paid.
       What to do?

------
mrestko
For future reference (F*ck You. Pay
Me):[https://vimeo.com/22053820](https://vimeo.com/22053820)

------
notlisted
(Not a lawyer, but…) Definitely stop working. Do announce to them why you are
stopping, so nobody can claim you abandoned the project.

While a call is useful, always follow it up with an email summarizing the call
(date/time of the call, summary of what was discussed or what you mentioned to
them). Useful for the timeline, and in small claims court, or handing the debt
to collection services.

If there are any remaining deliverables, provide proof of the deliverable
being ready via email, but provide it in an unusable format (e.g. with
copyright message, watermark, smaller size) and state that it will not be
released until payment is received. It sets up a timeline. Don't fall for the
"just send us X and we will pay you".

Tip for the future: If a client exhibits a tendency to pay late, I place key
assets (javascript, CSS, images) on my own server and link to them from their
site. Once the work is paid for and/or the project completed, I upload stuff
to their server on the hand-off. If they don't pay, I have some leverage, e.g.
archiving these key assets on my server ("to make room for new projects") will
impact their site. Depending on the assets you chose to self-host, it won't be
easy to hand off your work to another developer either until they've paid for
it.

PS If you need the client as a reference or is a big name that might lead to
more business, staying on good terms is sometimes the better decision. Still
stop working!

------
err4nt
I have been stiffed by a number of clients and theres already some great
advice in here. Here are some things to keep in mind:

\- as unthinkable as it is, some indididuals will contract you for work they
never intended to oay for from the start

\- usually a client who stiffs you is also VERY good at playing the victim, do
not do or say anything mean that gives credibility to their charade

\- be firm and professional, not angry or making personal appeals

Its not a hard equation: 'You do the work, you get paid'

Also, the 'F You Pay Me' video can help show you how to be forceful in a
proper way.

Ive definitely gone through all of the feelings and doubts and auestions youre
having. I really hope you can find better clientd, good work should be a
win/win for both of you.

~~~
tacone
> as unthinkable as it is, some indididuals will contract you for work they
> never intended to oay for from the start

It happened to my company (for a work I had no involvement with).

At a certain point they explicitly said they won't pay ("I knew it was too
high, but I needed to get things fast"). When threatened of legal action, they
immediately had their lawyer send a letter accusing us of scam with ~40
pointless complaints and threatening legal action. At that point, they had the
advantage of initiative.

Some people just don't care about fairness, they know that the big fish eats
the smaller and act accordingly.

That's to say: if you think they are doing this serially as their modus
operandi, act first or just leave them alone.

I still don't have any clue of the final outcome.

~~~
err4nt
Oh man, my heart goes out to you! 90% of the time you wont recover the money,
be cautious of the fallacy of sunk costs and its wiser to move on to paying
clients.

------
arethuza
Have you phoned them? People find it a lot harder to ignore phone calls than
emails.

I've known companies (and larger companies are often actually worse for this)
who practically have a policy of stalling all payments unless it actually
causes problems.

Also, in a company of any size the people who pay you in their finance team
("accounts payable") will probably be completely separate to the people who
you are working for - see if someone internal can apply pressure to the
finance folks.

~~~
tonyedgecombe
Or even turn up in reception, I've done this on occasion.

------
lordnacho
Get a lawyer to explain how the worst-case scenario works. Obviously if you
send the client a lawyer letter don't expect him to want to work with you
again.

Try to decide whether the client is just very busy or actively trying to stiff
you. How do you know the person, since you're doing everything by word of
mouth? Do you know other people at the company who can remind them to pay you?
I've worked with a freelancer once where we forgot to pay and he asked me to
ask our business guy. Sent the money the same day.

If you decide he's actively trying to stiff you, down tools. Tell him you need
an income and there's people who will pay you for your work.

~~~
brudgers
Generally, if a client doesn't pay and goes silent, it's a stiff. As the
organizations on both sides get larger and more bureaucratic, then it's
possible for things to fall through the cracks, but conversely the odds of
working by word of mouth drops and the odds that everyone is already lawyered
up anyway increases.

On the small scale, it's not worth optimizing on repeat business with clients
who don't pay.

------
aplummer
I lost 2 grand this way when I was 17. I chalked it up to an (at the time)
expensive life lesson. In retrospect it was cheap. I wonder how many other
people learn the verbal contract lesson the hard way, probably way more than
admit it.

~~~
meesles
The thing is, that lesson isn't quite right. Contracts do not need to be in
writing most of the time unless you meet certain criteria. A verbal contract
is as legally binding as one written on a napkin as one written on 30 sheets
of legal paper. I'm trying to find the original case law but I can't remember
their names. Basically some guy agreed to sell something at a restaurant and
then tried to back out later saying he was drunk or joking, the courts
enforced the sale.

~~~
karmajunkie
For it to be enforceable you have to have proof of what it was, which is very
difficult to get unless you have recording of your interactions.

------
EnderMB
If you do speak to a lawyer, bring up the possibility of getting a debt
collector involved.

I've worked with debt collectors before, and lawyers often know some really
good ones. It might be in both your best interest and the lawyers best
interest for him to pass the work onto the debt collector, take the
commission, and to have it done with.

The last time I worked with a debt collector, the client initially wouldn't
pay the full price for the work we did for them. The second the debt collector
was involved they couldn't wait to pay us. By the end of the day, all sides
had their money, and all sides had moved on.

------
at-fates-hands
It's a little extreme but I had a friend who had several clients attempt to
stiff him on work.

The one thing he taught me was to always have control of your work until the
client pays in full. This means setting up a url from a host you control, so
when work is done, you can deploy and client can review it as you move through
the design / development process.

Client doesn't pay? Take down the site, send a notice saying nothing further
gets done until they pay.

Since you own the source code and the client has nothing since you control the
domain, they usually pay up. If not, you're out some hours of work, but your
work can be used for other clients and the deadbeat gets nothing.

Remember, always maintain control of the data until the project is completed.
Even if your designer or developer, you should always maintain control of what
you do until the client pays in full.

------
paulsutter
Start by telling the client that it's very important that you get paid. I know
this seems obvious but maybe he's just very busy or absent minded. Send these
reminders twice a week. Don't be shy or indirect at all.

If this doesn't work, have a collections lawyer send a letter. I once had
someone refusing to pay a six figure invoice, and I got paid three days after
a letter from a collections lawyer.

But please, communicate super clearly with the client first. Tell them if you
don't get paid you can't keep working on the project. If you haven't already
spelled this out clearly to them, it's possible that the guy is just
disorganized. Maybe he's even here on Hacker News discussing to do lists and
tips for overcoming procrastination. Be super clear about your needs.

------
karmajunkie
Prevention is best here. What I do with new or small clients where I'm
concerned about this possibility is require them to work off a retainer
agreement—they prepay some block of hours or days or weeks, however I'm
billing them, and I send them a bill at some frequency <= block of time (e.g.
if they prepay for 2 weeks, I send them the bill weekly). The retainer is a
clock ticking towards 0, and when the countdown hits zero, I stop working
until the bill is paid. If I like them or there's trust building, I'll let it
go a little into the red, but never more than I'm comfortable walking away
from. I've learned this lesson way too many times and give clients very little
rope to hang themselves with here.

The other thing to build into your contracts is that IP transfer is contingent
upon payment. There have been a small but very educational number of times
where I've been able to suspend a client's license to my code for non-payment.
Enforcing it is somewhat more difficult if you don't also retain control of
infrastructure (and this should also be spelled out in your contract), but
just the understanding that they have no legal rights to the code without the
consideration enumerated in the contract is enough to keep them at the table
unless they're going out of business anyway (which is a different thing
altogether.) And if the amounts are great enough it can be worth going to
court for an injunction and you have the tools to do it this way.

------
donatj
I was in a similar situation owed a couple grand by a company I had used to
work for but was doing freelance for now. I started cc:ing in people I knew
lower and lower down the hierarchy. Never got a response from anyone. A while
later I heard they had declared bankruptcy, so I contacted their lawyer who
informed me that only debts from the last 6 months were collectable, and at
this point I'd been fighting with them for a year and a half. I'm still grumpy
about the whole ordeal.

------
dwkns
It's not 100% clear from your question whether your client is an agency (doing
work for other clients) or an ordinary business whom you are freelancing
directly for.

If they are an agency and the work is ultimately for someone else then this
route has worked for me before...

In the UK (possibly the same in the US) in the absence of any written
agreement (even if you are being paid) then all the intellectual property
rights in what you create for your client remains with you.

Remind your client of this fact. And state to them that if they do not pay
you, then you will be forced to contact the end-client and tell them that they
are using your intellectual property without permission.

Usually just the threat of this will make your client pay up. On one occasion
I was working for an agency that still didn't pay me (after I used this
threat) so I did contact the CEO of the end-client, I was paid within 24hrs
and the end-client fired the agency I was working for.

It might be worth a try.

------
Cshelton
This happens quite a bit in many other service industries.

Like others said, stop doing any additional work. If you are hosting it right
now, take it down. Even the demo.

Legally there isn't much you'll be able to do that won't cost you more than
the amount they owe you. You can try small claims court in the county where
the offense took place, so where you live. That's usually under $100 to file
and have the defendant be served, depending where they live.

Unfortunately, this is part of business. I have seen many times where after 6
months..1 year...even 2 years later, the client comes back and now needs to
finish it. This could be for many reasons, maybe the found somebody else and
it was a shitty product and now they have to double down on their mistake.
Either way, if they come back, get an upfront retainer! Plus all previous
invoices they haven't paid of course. If I know a client is sketchy and they
pay late or sometimes never, any additional work will always be paid upfront.

You would do well to have an accounting system you use. So If somebody owes
you money, that is a balance on your accounts receivables. If they don't pay
it, you can write it off as an expense of unpaid earnings. This has tax
advantages, depending on your size and all. So possibly look into that. It's a
good thing to have. Even if you are a sole freelancer, there are many free
apps out there to do this.

Another suggestion is anytime you do work, have a client engagement letter.
This type of thing is required in many service industries, accounting, law,
etc. but it really is a good idea. Legally it may not help you at all, but it
makes sure that the terms are more clear to the client and not just an oral
agreement. It's a simple way to have something in writing rather than having
an entire detailed contract. Which for bog jobs, I would definitely have a
contract.

At the end of the day, learn from it, it will happen again, trust me, and move
on.

------
scotty79
For recurring jobs take 1 month of pay in advance or bill weekly or every
other week, whatever you can afford to loose.

For small projects double your price before communicating it to the client and
take 50% as advance. Most likely client will pay but you'll have two times as
much work as you initially estimated. Sometimes client won't pay, but then you
don't need to go extra mile to make him happy so you won't work as much and
price will be fair anyways. If your client turns out to be awesome offer
discounts at the end of the project. Customer will love you for that as much
as you came to love him.

------
grandalf
When I used to freelance I'd ask for 50% upfront. This serves to purposes: It
reduces your risk of total nonpayment, and it also forces the client to make a
psychological commitment to the project and to you.

------
Encosia
Can you describe what you mean by getting the run around? Are they giving you
feedback that they're unhappy with the result and don't _want_ to pay you? Are
they saying/implying that they don't have enough money and _can 't_ pay you?
Is this your only client? How many months behind are they? Do you have other
prospects so that you could walk away from this client today and be okay
financially?

With all due respect to the advice posted so far, it's difficult to offer
useful advice without a bit more information about your situation.

------
alexandersingh
We can help make sure this doesn't happen again to you. You should check out
Domino (www.askdomino.com). We're a community of freelancers and have a lot of
collective experience and have made many mistakes in the past. Learn from us!

You can find a bunch of content on the site and you're welcome to join our
Slack channel for more detailed Q&A.

A few of our members are lawyers (in the U.S.) in case you want a service
contract drafted up to help mitigate these kinds of issues in the future. NB:
We don't take a commission.

------
gargravarr
All very good advice here, and you're not alone in having this problem. In
fact, there's a whole site dedicated to it, mostly for entertainment, but also
some tidbits of advice here and there:

[http://clientsfromhell.net/Deadbeat%20Clients](http://clientsfromhell.net/Deadbeat%20Clients)

------
BrandonBradley
I lost a good college friend due to this.

Watch the 'F*ck You, Pay Me' video. Get a lawyer and always do contracts.
Period.

------
tired_man
IMHO, it is important to share such an occurrence about a contracting employer
with those in your field who take contract work.

Standard & Poor had that habit in the 90s. It wasn't worth the grief to pursue
them, but I did pass along my experiences with them to others in my field.

------
miesman
Make sure you split up any invoices such that no amount is over the max for
small claims court. You can then take them to court over each individual
invoice.

In big court there are 4 people involved. You, them, their attorney and your
attorney. Only 2 of those people are going to win.

------
spiralpolitik
Speaking to a lawyer is probably a good place to start. If you are going to
escalate you should escalate in the right way, legally speaking.

------
orn
You also need to bill every 2 weeks to cut down on the cycle. What's your
location ?

------
awjr
This happened to a friend of mine. I warned him when he was 2k in the red that
he should get out, by 7k I'd absolved responsibility, at 10k when he got out
and was subsequently "blamed" when the business failed for not being there to
do more work...

Expensive lesson.

------
pluma
Your jurisdiction may vary but in Germany a lawyer explained to me that the
lack of contract in this situation isn't as big of a problem as you may think.

You've been working for someone and invoicing them for it, they've paid those
invoices. This went on for some time and you've continued to work for them.
That means you've had some kind of mutual agreement (an informal contract) on
how you should be paid for the work, i.e. they must continue to pay you if you
continue to work for them.

Unless they can prove that the relationship was terminated before you started
with the work you are invoicing them for, the invoice is valid and outstanding
payments have to be completed.

The only problem is that because of the lack of a contract you are in a
position where you have to prove that you did the work covered by the unpaid
invoices and that you had reasonable grounds to assume the relationship was
ongoing at that point (any correspondence with the client or source files
might suffice).

So without a contract you're in a weaker position (because the contract would
be more difficult to dispute than an informal agreement) but you likely still
have a case.

That said, pursuing legal action should be the last resort. I would recommend
the following step-by-step escalation:

0\. Stop all work for that client immediately. No pay, no work. Any additional
work you do now is work that may end up remaining unpaid (e.g. if the client
is not paying because they are secretly bankrupt). Try to find other client
work so you can afford legal costs. Don't expect that you will see your
invoices fully paid and all your costs covered -- your client hasn't paid, so
your current situation is that you have no money and the client is at an
advantage (whether they can make any use of it or not), you're only seeking to
re-balance this, nothing more.

1\. Try to talk to them, preferably in person. While e-mails are good
ammunition if you need to take this to court, personal interaction tends to be
more direct and more difficult to ignore. Remember to stay calm and orderly --
for all you know they're just unintentionally careless and mean you no harm.

2\. Send them payment reminders. Make sure to mention the due date and the
current date. If possible, make sure the post office sends you a signed
delivery confirmation (yes, this means sending actual letters).

3\. Repeat step 2, but inform them that failure to respond will result in late
fees (if your jurisdiction allows for them -- in Germany there's a fixed
percentage you are generally allowed to charge per day over due but YMMV).

4\. Repeat step 2, but now add any late fees as well as a notice that a
further delay will result in more fees and possible legal action.

5\. If you haven't yet talked to a lawyer (it's a good idea to talk to one
before this, if only to make sure you know your exact rights), now it's a
requirement. Have your lawyer send them another copy of the invoice with a
cover letter informing them that they must pay. Make sure your lawyer has all
the relevant information (e.g. any relevant correspondence).

6\. Everything after this point can and should be handled by your lawyer. Most
people want to avoid taking this kind of thing to court, so you may suddenly
hear from your client and if they're unwilling to pay they may at least make
an offer.

7\. If the client still isn't showing any signs of paying, the lawyer will at
this point likely ask for your permission to take this to court. Depending on
your jurisdiction this is the start of a long, slow (and maybe expensive)
process.

8\. Early into the trial, the client may want to make you an offer via their
lawyer. It may be worth taking even if the sum offered doesn't fully recoup
your losses: the exact values on the invoices are purely philosophical at this
point, your goal is to come out of this with some kind of positive result and
if you only get enough to pay the legal costs, that may be good enough for
you.

9\. You win. Or maybe you don't, in which case you have to bite the bullet and
pay any additional legal fees you incurred. If your lawyer is any good and you
gave them all the relevant information, the outcome shouldn't be too
surprising. Even so, it can be a bit of a gamble.

I've actually only had to take an unpaid invoice (two months, actually, plus
some short change on previous invoices) to court once and it was painful as
hell. We didn't part amicably so the client threatened to sue me for work he
claimed I would owe him (which I didn't) and refused to pay the invoices until
I did so (which would have cost me about another month of work, unpaid of
course).

In the end my lawyer suggested I take his offer because he offered a deal that
practically meant he would pay the invoices in full (sans legal costs and late
fees) if I signed a statement that I had destroyed or handed over any
confidential project files I had left (which I had already done anyway). The
alternative would have been a prolonged trial that could go both ways because
most of our correspondence had been in person without witnesses. Needless to
say the entire ordeal pretty much burned the bridge and neither of us will
ever want to do business with each other again. In the end it was pretty much
a zero sum game for me, but the reason I took it to court was mostly to make a
point for him: I inconvenienced him and in the end he had to make an offer
that pretty much reimbursed me for the money I originally asked for without
doing any of the work he had initially demanded in return.

To summarize:

1\. Stop working and talk to them, preferably in person. Don't plan on getting
the money, don't rely on it in any financial decisions.

2\. Remain professional and respectful, assume stupidity rather than malice.

3\. Collect evidence, document their refusal to pay and your attempts to
remind them.

4\. Lawyer up. A lawyer's letter head is often enough to make someone talk to
you.

5\. If you have to take them to court, expect bridges to be burnt. Your
business relationship has failed and the trust it is based on (i.e. the
expectation that both ends hold up their part of the agreement) is gone.

------
venomsnake
Ask a lawyer.

------
zoner
Hit him hard on the nose. Always satisfying :)

------
puppetmaster3
n00b. check it: \-
[http://youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U](http://youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U)

------
bengali3
The proposal and invoicing process isn't fun. Check out some tools that may
make this task less painful in the future? something like BidSketch comes to
mind.

