
I Wasn't Paid - laurenceputra
http://iwasntpaid.com/
======
patio11
This is not a way forward.

1). Work with better clients. You can have invoice collection problems at
$50k, too, but they're much less likely than at $500 and you have _much_
better options for... escalation methods at that point.

2). If you're not a bank, stop taking on so much credit risk. Businesses can
deal with substantially sterner payment terms than you'd think to offer. If
your clients balk, see #1. (Thomas has some suggestions here, too, many of
which reduce to "Work for Thomas' clients and charge enough that dealing with
their purchasing processes is worth your headaches rather than chasing
deadbeats for Snickers money.")

3). Showing up on iamachumpconsultant.com will not enhance your professional
reputation, bill rate, or client pool.

~~~
edw519
Patrick, I completely agree with you, which is why I have never publicized my
difficulties with problem customers.

But something in my reptilian brain really still likes this. Let me tell you
why...

You say "Work with better clients." Working with better clients means avoiding
the bad ones. Avoiding the bad ones means being able to identify them. Being
able to identify them means being warned.

It's almost like seeing an obstacle in the highway and wanting to warn others
going in the opposite direction. But how do you do that? I once had the idea
of putting a giant tattoo "Avoid me." on my bad clients' foreheads.

The biggest problem with bad clients isn't that they took you, it's that they
never go away; they just keep popping up over and over, only to take advantage
of others.

One former client of mine is the perfect example. He never paid his bills, he
was extremely abusive, he was often very unethical, and would do _anything_ to
make an extra buck. He would pop up all over the country with a different
name, starting the cycle all over again. I recently noticed he just got out of
jail with a brand new name and web site. If only I could find a righteous way
to warn others, "Run the other way!"

~~~
patio11
If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the
community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your
experience and teach people how to pattern match.

Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build
v1.0 I'll pay you _a whole thousand dollars_ and you might get equity if it
works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there,
but it won't weigh on my conscience.)

~~~
edw519
_"I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole
thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well."_

If only all the assholes were so easily self-identifying.

The real problems are the charming, smooth talking, dream clients offering
cool projects, top dollar, and paying on time...until they don't and decide to
start making your life hell because you're in so deep already. They're no
dummies.

~~~
daeken
Agreed. I had a project a couple years ago, just like this. Everything started
off fine -- solid contract, good communication, etc. Payment was solid for the
first few months, then it stopped. I was accused of putting together templates
with no functionality behind them, and they demanded their money back. When I
informed them where they could put their demands, so to speak, they threatened
litigation. I had done the work and knew the contract was solid, but I
couldn't have afforded a lawyer. Thankfully, they soon disappeared... But not
before stealing their customers' funds. Ugh.

In retrospect, there were a few warning signs fairly early on, but it's hard
to see that when you need the money to eat.

~~~
rmc
_In retrospect, there were a few warning signs fairly early on_

Care to elaborate to teach the communtity?

~~~
anthonyb
Hindsight is 20/20, but typically any sign that they're weird and irrational
(trail of angry developers/no business model), or that they'll try and screw
you out of a fair payment (won't do commencement payments) are a red flag.

Even if you can't afford a lawyer, I would have something along the lines of
terms and conditions, what happens on non-payment (usually work stops), etc.
The "Fuck you, pay me" is a pretty good introduction to the field.

For web design you'll have milestone payments on commencement, initial design
(with a couple of rounds of changes), conversion to HTML (with no changes) and
installation on the site. Payment terms are 7 days, or as short as you can get
away with. If they need more changes than agreed, or they change their mind,
then they pay the balance and you requote for the new work. If they decide not
to use your work, then they pay the balance. If they delay on any part of the
work (eg. won't provide content for six months) then they pay the balance and
you do the work later on. You get the idea, I'm sure.

If they balk at any of your conditions without a good reason, that's usually a
sign that they'll be trouble and that you'll need to keep them on a tight
leash and/or handle them with kid gloves.

On the flip side, if they're a good client, good payer and you're happy to
work for them, then give them a lot of leeway. But the deadbeats get held to
the letter of the agreement.

~~~
rmc
_trail of angry developers_

Hehe. Reminds me of a former client (sorta) who would always wind up working
for assholes. Everyone he had worked with turned out to be an asshole would
couldn't do what he wanted. Turns out he was the asshole.

It's almost impossible for everyone else to be an asshole. It's like the old
poker tip. If you look around the table and can't find the sucker, it's you.
If you think everyone is an asshole, you're probably an asshole.

~~~
anthonyb
Bonus points if you find angry rants from the previous developer in PHP
comments :)

------
ljf
What if this happens:

I work with a difficult dev/designer for a couple of months trying to bootstap
a product. In the end it's not working, we agree to go our own ways, but I
keep the name of the product. For what ever reason they get shitty with me,
and a month or two down the line when I'm working with someone else they post
about me on 'iwasntpaid' - not just once, loads of times - they know a lot
about me so they can make it look like a string of unhappy dev/designers are
annoyed and I can never be sure who it was posting this.

Would the site owner let me/help me remove these? Will they be asking for
proof? If not I can see them getting in some interesting legal battles pretty
quickly.

I think something like: <http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3/> is great
- but it is totally open and honest - you state who you are and why you feel
you've been ripped off.

This anonymous sniping isn't going to help anyone. If someone rips you off
write a blog post about it, tell people you work with, or better yet talk to
the offending party in person.

This feels like bitching-meets-4chan. At least <http://www.grouphug.us> tries
to keep both sides anonymous.

~~~
gk1
FYI: <http://youthoughtwewouldntnotice.com/blog3> leads to a giant ad for some
Canadian pill site.

~~~
ljf
Really - no adverts when I visit it?

Edit: Some sort of IE7 hack/virus/attack? (sorry can't reply to your message
for some reason)

<http://i.imgur.com/r8u2I.png> \- screenshot is with adblock turned on, but I
also tried it with it turned off and didn't get it.

~~~
gk1
I'm on IE 7 (don't ask), so perhaps the ad is the site's way of telling me "F
U"?

Edit: Screenshot - <http://i.imgur.com/5lnJ7.jpg>

~~~
iamandrus
Your computer probably has malware. Run ComboFix and that should fix the
issue.

<http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/combofix/how-to-use-combofix>

~~~
gk1
I'm on a highly secured military network. While it's not impossible that
there's malware on my computer, I think it's more likely that something's up
with the website.

Edit: There's no choice of browsers on this network. It's IE 7 or nothing.

~~~
darkmethod
May I suggest that you refrain from surfing the Internet using IE7 while on a
secured military network.

~~~
gk1
Unfortunately there is no other option. You use the software you're given, and
that's it.

~~~
corin_
If you're browsing random sites that could well be infected, even if you
weren't using IE7 the fact that you're on a "secure military network" doesn't
stop you from being just as vulnerable as anyone else browsing random sites.
Sounds to be like the security of your network has at least one hole in it.

------
gee_totes
I was involved in the case involving Carlos 'Storm' Martinez, who is an
amazing post sound mixer and a stand-up guy. I am a little perturbed to see
him mentioned on the site.

The design of the site in question was good, no doubt, but it was also riddled
with a stolen Neutraface2 font face and the HTML didn't validate. And there
was no RoR backend; the whole site was hosted on a GoDaddy shared server.

From my understanding of the dispute, the site was delivered many months late,
and then the designer doubled his price. When Storm refused to pay double for
late work, the designer linked in an overlay from a file hosted on Dropbox
that announced 'This site was stolen'. That was the 'kill switch'. The
designer also made a few blog posts and tweets bragging about his 'kill
switch', which he later took down.

This lead to a panicked call from Storm to me to move the site over to my
servers until the dispute could be resolved. A few days after that, I received
a very aggressive e-mail from the designer threatening to sue me for stealing
his work.

What iwasntpaid.com needs is links to conflict resolution and contract
negotiation books, which are important freelancing skills that the designer
sorely lacked. You never introduce yourself to a fellow freelance web
programmer with "Hi, my name's Jeff, and I'm going to sue you over this
dispute I have with another party".

Given the designer's history of posting complaints about how he's been screwed
out of $500 and then taking them down once he realizes that it might be bad
for his reputation, I wouldn't be surprised of that post about Storm gets
taken down as well.

Also, from my web-stalking around this issue, I wouldn't be surprised if the
hours that the designer put in trying to smear Storm across the internets,
billed at the designer's normal rate, exceeded the payment he was expecting
from Storm.

tl;dr: Settle on a rate before you start doing work, and if it's not a flat
rate, keep the client up to date with projections of the final bill.

PS Carlos 'Storm' Martinez and his team at Creative Mixing are amazing,
talented people and I would recommend them to anyone looking for post-sound
work. It saddens me to see the post on iwasntpaid.com

~~~
john_flintstone
>and the HTML didn't validate

Stupid as it is to go down the publicly naming route, what has the HTML
validation status of the code got to do with anything? This is a measurement
that only means something to guys who measure things - it has nothing to do
with business generated, traffic, or the user experience of a website (the
true yardsticks of good work).

~~~
gee_totes
True, it doesn't have anything to do with anything. It was just a pet peeve of
mine.

We need to adhere to standards, dammit!

------
crag
One dangerous thing that stands out is this "kill switch". VERY bad idea. Now
you are liable for damages.

The way to handle this is: When you get the judgement against your "client",
slap a lean on his properties equal to the amount owed (and throw in your
court costs). That inclues his accounts. All you need is an order from the
judge. That's it.

That's about all you can do really. Is to go after his assets. Also I'd let
the BBB and your local Chamber know. You'd be surprised how effective both
these organizations can be.

~~~
shabble
I wonder if it's legal to state upfront in your contract that 'technical
measures' are implemented in your work to prevent theft of service (or
whatever you call the use of the work product without payment), and are to be
deactivated & removed following completion/final payment?

The software licence-key approach seems somewhat similar, and I've yet to come
across legal proceedings "because we didn't pay the guy and our 30-day demo
ran out", although I'm sure it could get more complicated for services rather
than actual shrinkwrapped products.

On the other hand, you've got the fact that it's laid out in the contract
(which is presumed read, rather than just clicked through like a shrinkwrap
EULA), and the interesting potential for DMCA/WIPO96'alike anti-
circumventation proceedings against clients who refuse to pay and extract the
kill-switch code to reactivate.

In that theme, is:

    
    
        final_invoice_paid = false;
        if (!final_invoice_paid) { exit() }
    

a valid "means to descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work,
or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate, or impair a technological
measure, without the authority of the copyright owner"?

My immediate thought is yes, assuming you're still the copyright holder (and
you have a copyright assignment on payment clause in contract), but
jurisdictional work-for-hire terms might screw you.

~~~
rmc
Reminds me of the talk "Fuck you, pay me", where they talk about how the
client only gets copyright assignment upon reciept of final payment. Thus, if
they stop/don't pay, then they do not have copyright on the work, and hence
are guilty of copyright infringement if they use it.

~~~
Ergomane
It is always a good idea to keep ownership until final payment. This also
increases the chance that you'll see money when a client goes bankrupt and is
sold or undergoes a restructuring ("doorstart").

(nb: all based on NL law)

------
mgkimsal
Similar situation, but closer to $9k. Filed a lawsuit in court - _still
waiting_ 3.5 years later (NYC). I suspect it'll take a long to collect even
after a judgement.

Yes, don't extend so much credit - lesson learned (the hard way).

I consulted with a number of people debating whether or not to blog about this
situation with the person's name. In the end I chose not to at that time, but
realized later that this person had another non-payment suit pending which had
been filed the day before I started working with him. Had I researched a bit
more, I might have found that (but then again, I might not have - you often
don't think to do court record searches on potential clients). I ended up
_not_ disclosing his name in my blog, but did disclose the location I filed a
suit. Anyone wanting to know can go check the public records and find out for
themselves. Felt like a decent middle ground, and it's not irrevocably
commiting myself to having been the "name and shamer". But without more naming
and shaming, this behaviour by some people will continue. I found out later
that this guy had also stiffed multiple other parties, who were then coming to
me for advice about how to collect. "File a NY lawsuit" was the only answer I
had.

Perhaps some public naming and shaming would either correct this person's
behaviour or at least ward off others from working with him in the future.
_one_ person complaining about no payment can be written off as a crank. 5
devs in a 5 month period, all from different areas, would be harder to
dismiss.

~~~
vacri
Another middle ground would be to name and shame just to thing that are
factually part of the public record: "I am suing John Smith in court for non-
payment of $9k for work done 3.5 years ago". Don't go into fiery detail, keep
it to the facts that are part of the court record.

Of course, the hard part is keeping all the opinion stuff out of the blog
posts around the fact-only one.

~~~
mgkimsal
right... well, that's almost what I did. saying where it was, letting someone
google my name in nyc and look for court records. i've only sued one person in
nyc - it wouldn't be that hard.

But, publicizing on my blog, yeah. In some ways I think the moment's passed.
If/when we ever get to court, I'll release the name then, unless there's some
gag order (am I being too dramatic?)

~~~
vacri
The difference is that if someone is googling John Smith, they won't find your
blog post without his name on it.

Thankfully I've never had to experience court on either side - it looks like
it gets expensive very very quickly.

~~~
mgkimsal
I'm representing myself, so it was only the trip to NYC, filing fees, and
hiring a processor. The processor could _not_ get this guy, so we filed a
notice saying he'd attempted 3 times. I suspect this guy has avoided process
servers before, but not sure.

Yes, the googling aspect doesn't help too much. Interestingly, having to
remember back to 2008, this same situation happened with someone else they'd
contracted. This particular contractor was in tennessee, and was owed ... much
less than me. He blogged about it by name, and the NYC guy apparently (per the
TN guy's story) went ballistic threatening to sue and such, and said he would
pay when the post was taken down. So... it was taken down. Then never paid.
The TN guy eventually gave up through these bullying tactics. I'm not going to
give up.

It's so far in the past now that, while $9k would be great, I don't need it,
and won't settle for half, nor will I settle for any conditions about not
blogging about it.

------
jeremymcanally
While I sometimes wish something like this existed, it seems ripe for abuse
and/or open to some sort of libel law violation should it get out of control.

~~~
Alex3917
Isn't it already explicitly illegal to post lists of customers who haven't
paid in your store? IANAL, but I seem to remember that the case law is already
pretty settled on this one.

~~~
stevoski
illegal where? Perhaps in some juridictions - which one are you referring to?

~~~
shareme
The difference will be whether its stated as factual and is factual or stated
as opinion..

As I understand it if its factual stated and grossly wrong the poster can be
charged civilly

~~~
regularfry
Whether truth is a defence against libel also depends on the jurisdiction.

------
stroboskop
Anonymous accusations, no verification and guaranteed reputational damage to
those accused: This is a bad idea.

If you have legal claims, press charges instead of going down this road.

Edit: the first post, an anonymous accusation (by the site's creator?),
disappeared shortly after the site showed up on HN. Also, now suddenly
submittals are subject to review (by whom?).

------
ChuckMcM
In general this sort of site gets sued a lot. For the exemplar site see
RipOffReport which has almost more lawsuits than posts it seems. So if you run
it for any length of time be sure to have a good legal team already in place.

The other thing is that there is an endless supply of bad business deals gone
wrong so any individual deal that went south may make the person venting feel
better (until they are sued) but they don't contribute to the overall success
rate of other folks (except perhaps if they are also dealing with a specific
individual or business mentioned).

Contrast this with the Nolopress (www.nolo.com) guys who, by example, provide
both tools to successfully navigate what may be new territory and provide
suitably anonymized examples which demonstrate the problems that you want to
prevent. That is a positive outcome to a bad experience, which is shared
learning and signs of things to avoid.

~~~
ohashi
I worked on a similar project a while back and definitely got legal threats
constantly. Not one ever followed through but I grew tired after a couple
years of dealing with it.

------
bradly
ZenCash is new startup that is solving the problem the right way. It can
connect with your invoicing service (FreshBooks, Harvest, Blinksale) and then
they will contact the client when the refuse to pay. They work with a
collection agency so now we the lone web developer can actually force someone
to pay.

<http://www.zencash.com/>

------
rglover
Not the best route to handle this. Make sure you have a decent lawyer on hand
(and a good contrct) when dealing with delinquent clients. Something like this
will guarantee that you'll never get paid.

~~~
barefoot
At what point does it make sense to involve a lawyer? $5,000? $10,000? Isn't
it expensive to legally fight for your payment?

~~~
gavingmiller
Stipulate in your contract that the losing side has to pay the legal fees for
the other party. That way getting paid doesn't cost you more.

~~~
tsotha
I used to work for a company that put a late-payment clause right in the
contract. If you didn't pay us you were on the hook for a fee plus interest on
the outstanding balance. So essentially it was like owing money to the IRS.

As far as I know nobody ever gave us trouble about payment.

~~~
jacques_chester
> I used to work for a company that put a late-payment clause right in the
> contract. If you didn't pay us you were on the hook for a fee plus interest
> on the outstanding balance.

This is so common in the business world -- terms -- that there's a short hand
minilanguage for describing your terms on invoices, purchase orders and
contracts.

Here's a decent list:
[http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=10...](http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/bdotg/action/detail?itemId=1073791761&type=RESOURCES)

------
corywatilo
Actually collecting isn't that hard (in the U.S., at least). I won a similar
case in small claims and the defendant didn't pay. All I had to do was file a
form for the Sheriff's office to collect from him and pay the filing fee (I
think around $45, which was then added to the amount to collect). I provided
the defendant's bank account info, and when he was unresponsive to the police,
they withdrew the amount from his account into an escrow account and then cut
me a check for the amount owed and mailed it to me.

This can probably be a little more challenging if the account doesn't have
sufficient funds in it, but I was happy to see that the system worked. It was
a learning process for me (first time I had to do it, and thankfully, knock on
wood, the last), but in the end, justice was done and I got paid.

------
itsmicks
This is basically a rite of passage for all freelancers/lawyers/service
workers unfortunately. My rule of thumb: If someone doesn't want to give you
at least 20% upfront for a project, you don't want to work with them. Always
give yourself checkpoints in the project for partial payments instead of a
lump sum at the end.

------
gk1
A much more useful approach would be to educate people about protecting
themselves from non-payers. Eg, use an agreement or contract, check
references, etc. That would be far more beneficial than a collection of libel
and rambling.

For instance, the entry from Jan 31 says the person worked for _four_ months
without being paid! Why would you work for four months straight without a
single intermitent payment (or an advance)?

------
fredleblanc
I agree with others on the legal view, but also, to me this site just focuses
on sour grapes. As a result, I can't see anything positive of helpful coming
out of it. I'm not going to search a blog each time I get a client to see if
they've been written about here. And aside from that, this site will only ever
tell one-side of the case.

What if the developer did really poor work, missed every deadline by weeks, or
the client still says there's work to be done before being paid? All this site
shows is angry developers complaining about less-than-ideal clients. For me,
that's the kind of talk you have over beers at a bar — you say your piece and
then you move on — not something you permanently record into a collection on
the web.

~~~
derefr
> What if the developer did really poor work, missed every deadline by weeks,
> or the client still says there's work to be done before being paid?

Then make a place for that kind of post too. Perhaps even create an index that
correlates the two accounts, so that people can see both sides of each story,
and weigh the evidence for themselves.

------
gpcz
This fantastic speech by Mike Monteiro ( <http://vimeo.com/22053820> )
explains how you can avoid ever having to use this site as a last resort to
get your grievances resolved.

~~~
gavingmiller
This is an absolutely brilliant talk. And if you do any freelance or contract
work you can learn something from it.

The quote: 'when you hire a lawyer [to handle contracts] you switch from being
a design amateur to a design professional' really spoke to me, and it applies
equally to programmers.

~~~
jebblue
I was about to watch it but the page starts out with an F Bomb, if I wanted to
aspire to that level of communication I could have stayed in the Navy.

~~~
minsight
You'd rather not hear profanity than learn how someone managed to eradicate
basically all of their client-payment problems?

------
ramy_d
Everyone here is saying it, anonymously calling others out by name is wrong
and profesionally destructive.

This is why we pay lawyers: [http://www.dvafoto.com/2011/04/fuck-you-pay-me-a-
discussion-...](http://www.dvafoto.com/2011/04/fuck-you-pay-me-a-discussion-
of-adventures-in-contracts-negotiation-and-payment/)

------
benjohnson
My Dad had a folder labeled 'Deadbeats' at this small consulting firm. It was
in the conference room - anybody was free to look at it. In the field he was
in, word got around quickly so there was a few tardy clients that paid but
stipulated that he remove their transgressions from the 'Deadbeats' folder.

~~~
jacques_chester
Sounds like he also needed a "Deadbeats Who Eventually Paid Up" folder as
well.

------
jagbolanos
We are currently bootstrapping our startup with some consulting work in iOS
and Rails. This is the process that we follow:

1) We discuss the project with the client stating our hourly rates clearly
from the beginning and that we also work in our startup so we won't be a
"full-time" developer 2) We then make a clear estimation of time and
deliverables for the project + time for testing/debugging/QA + time for calls
+ time to prepare for publication to the App Store. 3) If they accept we make
a clear contract with several payments and deliverables. 4) We ask for 20% to
40% upfront payment and then the rest divided by time and deliverable
completion. 5) The last payment is conditioned to App Store approval (in case
it is iOS) 6) We only give the source code after the last payment is done 7)
We keep sending weekly updates usually via TestFlight (when iOS) and use a
Google Doc for any observations that they have 8) We have discovered that some
clients also want time spent so we always use toggl as time tracking tool.

I know there are still risks but at least with the upfront payment and
deliverable payments you always keep healthy cashflow, the clients feel they
are protected and you feel protected too.

This way it's also easier to detect a red flag, in that case you can just stop
your development until the payment is done (We actually did that once now and
it worked really well).

~~~
Kesty
I completely agree.

That and a (very) detailed list of requirement and goals is the best way to
go.

------
frederico
Upon reading this article I seem to think that in most cases it's actually the
developers fault. Don't be retarded; create a contract for the work you do
with your potential employer.

I've been doing freelance for quite some time; and did have two clients try to
screw me over; however due to the contracts which I setup ahead of time, and
having a lawyer send a simple note upon their threat of not paying, quickly
remedied this non-paying issue.

1) Cover your ass 2) Setup a reasonable Payment schedule 3) Don't be stupid

------
dangrossman
> People who feel that they have been wrongly accused can now send in feedback
> that they have been wronged and we will look into it

That sounds like a bad idea. You either publish submissions through the
website, or you don't publish at all. If you manually take the 'feedback' and
turn it into a story, you're now the publisher and lose the legal protections
of the Communications Decency Act.

Your site was a better idea, legally, before you posted that.

------
e-dard
I'd do something about the kerning of the h1 element, it's not particularly
pleasant in my opinion.

------
jkolya
They should force the developers to put their names. That way people know
which developers to stay far away from. Don't go near anyone that would post
to something like this.

~~~
laurenceputra
thanks, we have started to enforce it alr :)

------
k-mcgrady
I just read the first story on the site. Taking someone to court over $1000 is
a waste of time. $1000 may be a lot of money to you (it is to me) but I have
faced this problem twice and you are much better spending your time on new
projects and forgetting the client.

I have found the key to getting paid is milestones. I will not work with
someone unless they are willing to pay 50% of the total before I start. This
way if they cancel the project you are getting some money for your time. I
also make clear to the client they do not need to pay the final 50% until they
have the project from me. This way they need to trust me enough to pay the
first 50% and I need to trust them that they will pay the final 50%. I've been
using this system for the past 12 months and haven't had any problems with
clients since.

There is a good thread on Programmers Exchange about charging clients
(particularly for freelancers):
[http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/63042/recomme...](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/63042/recommended-
payment-schedule-for-freelance-development/63062#63062)

------
davidpoarch
I think this issue is very significant these days, with the boom of
outsourcing and remote freelance work. For scenarios with no down payment
requirement, there's no guarantee the service provider will receive payment at
all (and no guarantee the rest of the payment will be paid for the down
payment scenario either). And for scenarios where a down payment (or full
payment) is paid, there's no guarantee the service will ever be delivered to
the requester. And how about scenarios where the wrong service was delivered?
And how about if the service provider and requester are not in the same
country (how do you go about taking legal action)?

I am a co-founder of a nascent third party payments aggregator (TPPA) called
PayGuard. We are currently building our Beta, but our system specifically
targets such scenarios. And with such capability, our system inherently solves
the same issues with material products as well (a market PayPal currently
dominates, though it does so extremely unsatisfactorily).

------
tomkarlo
One of the big problems with web consulting and clients that don't pay is that
unlike other business situations, these clients often lack physical assets and
storefronts that can be used to collect on a judgement from a court.
Traditionally, if you had a small claims judgement and it's not paid, you
could have the Sheriff or the like serve notice or even put a lien on assets.

When a client's business is entirely virtual, there's a risk they'll simply
change their mailing address or otherwise dodge a judgement, and it can be
very difficult to enforce the claim (or at least not economic to do so.) I've
seen this happen a number of times in recent years in situations where the
amount ranged from $1500 to $10,000.

------
gavingmiller
Ultimately it's your fault as a contractor if you don't get paid. And a site
like this does nothing to teach developers, freelances, designers, and the
like how to avoid these pitfalls which is why I'll never use it.

Why is it your fault? Because _as a professional_ you've not taken the
time/money to have a contract created to cover your ass. Contracts exist to
protect both parties from each other. And it is your professional duty to know
what's in your contract (not a piece meal that you dug up on the internet.)
You should be able to explain to your clients what is in your contract, why
it's there, and how it benefits them and you.

~~~
Kesty
Contract are only really usefull for big company and with big accounts.

For private freelancers and small/medium jobs suing someone for breach of
contract will probably not be a viable option.

The amount of time, effort and money that you need to sue someone and win
sometimes is seample not feasible.

Yes, having a contract written by a laywer may work as a deterrent for some
clients. But if they don't accept you still need to file a lawsuit.

And there is also the problem that sometimes they simple can't pay. They look
and act like they have all the money in the world, but they are actually
betting all they have in a website because "making a website is easy and I
will make millions with my great idea".

Then even if you win they are simply going bankrupt and you will never see nor
your money nor the ones that you spent on lawyers.

~~~
feralchimp
It is foolish to do "contract work" with no contract, period.

The other key deterrent is to keep a handle on your deliverables until the
client pays you. That does not mean "kill switch" in an app running on someone
else's servers, it means (whenever possible) _don't put the deliverables on
someone else's servers until they pay you_.

If the work depends on their pre-existing code or assets, get the dependencies
into your private and properly secured development environment (with a tightly
scoped license and NDA to protect the client).

And make sure your contract says that until they pay you, everything you
create is your property. You can't claw fees out of a bankrupt client, but you
can at least keep exclusive rights to your work.

------
unreal37
This reminds me of ol' F'd Company. Can't be sued for libel if the story is
true.

~~~
scott_s
Yes, you can. You can't _lose_ a libel suit if you're able to prove what you
said is true, and it goes to decision.

I am not being pedantic. The difference between the two statements is huge,
because the amount of time and money it may take you to prove your case could
easily bankrupt a person.

~~~
unreal37
Good point.

------
EGreg
How about instead, we have a pool of customers which are GOOD CUSTOMERS but
which you in the future might want to move on from, for various reasons? Other
developers can pick up the slack -- and some work! They would also be able to
have a transition period. This website could even make a small commission from
the handoffs.

The best way to avoid bad options is knowing where to find a lot of good ones.
Then the others have to prove themselves to you, and you can take them or
leave them :)

------
barefoot
How about making it a paid subscription service instead? I would subscribe to
that.

Developers have their identity confirmed (to avoid anonymous business-bashing)
and can freely discuss bad (and possibly good) experiences with businesses.

The membership agreement could explain that no emotional or biased comments
would be allowed and would encourage some level of explanation of why the
client did not pay along with proof in the form of bounced checks, etc...

------
Gustomaximus
In an ideal world this is great but anonymously posted data only could
increase problems with people posting one or many stories about others they
just want to harm for personal reasons.

While self naming probably increases the chance of legal issues I think people
should have the choice to say I am the person he did this to to help
credibility. And if one have it all documented there should be nothing to be
worried about.

~~~
lizzard
It strikes me that the anonymity is mostly pointless here. It may be meant to
protect the accuser of taking a hit to their own reputation, but the accused
can just post the accuser's name and their own side of the story in comments
or on another site. So in the long run, there wouldn't be much benefit to
posting anonymously.

We had a discussion about this last weekend at She's Geeky. There are some
women's lists that pass around information like, say, managers at {big
company} who are known harassers and should be avoided. If we stick to
backchannels to share this type of information, we aren't helping, perhaps,
the very people (new to a company or a scene) who need it most. If we put the
information in public, we suffer the blowback on many fronts; and our
vulnerability is greater than that of the accused. I tend to come down on the
side of greater transparency, but it may be that the most privileged person
still "wins" -- except, as someone pointed out earlier, when 5 developers
report similar experiences.

------
junto
This is what nasty bad ass debt collectors are for. They'll collect (really
they will) and then take a cut. Carlos won't know what hit him. Get some
recommendations for good debt collectors in your local area. You are wasting
your precious time trying to collect this yourself. Employ them and then you
can inform Carlos that it is longer his debt to you but his debt to some burly
tattooed biker.

------
mikecaron
I have started to put a clause in my own contracts that's paraphrased like so:
I do some work for you and submit it to you for verification. You have x days
to verify it. If you fail to verify it or tell me a scheduled date for
verification by that date, it goes on github for the world to see and use for
free. I.E. "F __* U, Pay Me."

~~~
kaffeinecoma
Interesting approach, but what stops the client from using this to his
advantage? "Hmm, if I fail to pay, the code becomes open-source, and then I
can use it for free."

~~~
mikecaron
Depends on how much they want to deter competition. This particular company
was a hardware video switch; competitors could easily port the same app to
their machines and then the client loses the advantage they had previously.

------
ryen
I recommend to ask for payment at pre-defined milestones. Waiting to get paid
at the very end is just asking for trouble.

------
groby_b
This strikes me as an exercise in futility.

If you can properly document that you should have been paid and haven't, go to
court. Posting on a website won't do anything to actually recoup the cost.

If you _can't_ prove that, you're setting yourself up for a libel claim.

So what exactly is the gain of posting there, except giving in to a temporary
desire for revenge?

------
brador
Anyone know what indian libel laws are like?

------
swombat
How long before this gets sued for libel?

~~~
dangrossman
The site wouldn't be liable. A lawyer would tell his client that.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicatio...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act)

Anyone could post libelous statements on the 50+ million blogs and forums out
there, yet you've never seen "Warn HN: Monitor your blog comments for libel"
-- that's because you can't be treated as the publisher or speaker, so can't
be held liable for what was said.

~~~
getsat
This, and the fact that the truth can not be libelous. As long as you're not
misrepresenting a claim, you're fine.

~~~
Ergomane
That depends on your location. In NL the truth can get you in a lot of
trouble.

Also not that the TOS tries to make the submitter liable for all damages _and_
cost : <http://iwasntpaid.com/terms_of_submission>

~~~
getsat
If you stole money from me, I sued you and won the lawsuit, and then published
an article about how you stole from me, that could be construed as being
libelous?

~~~
Ergomane
No, because our law separates defamation into two parts.

\- Libel (laster) where allegations are not true or the defendant should have
known they are not true.

\- Smaad where allegations are true, or it's reasonable for the defendant to
assume they are true.

In your example, you could be convicted of Smaad, unless you could show that
you

1) acted in the public interest.

2) or needed to defend yourself against eg a counterclaim

3) or did not intend to harm someones good name

See <http://lexius.nl/wetboek-van-strafrecht/boek2/titel16>

~~~
getsat
Interesting. Thanks for the explanation.

------
motters
Well, it's a nice idea but I think this is high risk. In the very distant past
when I was young and naive there were occasions on which I didn't get paid for
commercial work, so I can sympathize with that. However, naming and shaming
rogue customers could just be a recipe for libel lawsuits.

------
Jayasimhan
on the iwasntpaid.com site:

I was eager that the service would let me search for the client names and get
reviews on them quickly. And providing a very basic template for each story
for the author to enter metadata around the story. I think that would be a
much better experience for readers and contributors.

~~~
iclelland
> I was eager that the service would let me search for the client names and
> get reviews on them quickly.

That's what I was expecting -- I tried to search for "Martinez" and "Padbury";
two of the names prominently featured in the front page stories right now, and
got a "0 results" page for both terms.

------
meapix
How about freelancers who never complete work but still get paid? it happened
to me.

------
Simo
just for argument sake: 1 - freelancers union is working very hard to pass the
Freelancer Payment Protection Act (S4129/A6698) that grant freelancers the
same wage protection as traditional employees and require the Department of
Labor to pursue freelancers' unpaid wages holding deadbeat executives
personally liable for up to $20,000 and jail time. 2 - on the union website
you can find the Contract Creator, a free tool that allows you to easily
create a strong (and nationally accepted) contract to protect yourself.
my2cents

------
dgunn
Just build a kill switch into the code. If they don't pay, use it.

------
joshfraser
The lesson here is never piss off someone with a blog and an audience. His
name will forever show up in Google as the guy who didn't pay up.

