

Ask HN:  Good Collection Agency for Freelancers? - consultantguy

I have a particularly bad client who is flat-out refusing to pay his final bill.  It was a straightforward time &#38; materials job, with good documentation that he asked for the work to be done and that I did it.  Still, it seems there's no convincing him to pay his bills.<p>It's a couple thousand dollars outstanding, so I'd rather not let it go.  I'm thinking the next step is to hand this over to a collection agency to deal with this for me.  Can anybody here recommend a good one for this sort of thing?<p>Ideally, I'm looking for the sort of disreputable thugs who will show up at the fancy restaurant while he's having a business meeting and demand payment in the most damaging way possible.  But at the end of the day, anybody that simply gets him to pay his bills would work fine.<p>Any suggestions?
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jacquesm
That sucks. One strategy that I have with people that don't pay - and this
used to happen in the past, it has not happened to me in a long time - is to
simply call them _every_ bloody day.

Once at 9 am, once at 2 pm and once at 4:30. To ask if they've already paid
the bill.

Be very polite, make sure you get the right department.

Pretty soon they'll figure out they can't disconnect their phone, and that you
won't go away.

Suggest payments in terms, take $300 today, arrange for a pickup in their
offices and bring a buddy with you.

But make sure you stay 'clean', don't do anything stupid because that would
give them leverage to get rid of you instead.

good luck!

And next time make sure you get labour+materials up front, and your profits on
delivery (and make sure they have nothing if they don't pay). That's good
business sense anyway when you're a freelancer.

Some customers it is much better not to have, the paying ones you want to keep
the trouble makers you want to get rid of.

~~~
consultantguy
Yeah, this guy seems to have a standing policy of just plain not paying. He
was at $18k outstanding for a while before I talked at least a little sense
into him. The developer before me is still owed about $8k.

I suspect I'll never see the balance, but it would be nice to inflict $2000
worth of pain.

~~~
jacquesm
I sympathize with you.

For that kind of money I'd get a lawyer buddy to write a threatening letter
and simply sue the bastard for breach of contract.

Bad on you though for letting it get that far.

You have to split your bills into smaller portions so that you get some idea
of the credit worthiness of your customers before it starts to hurt real bad.

The 'cousin Vinnie' approach is attractive but it will only get you into
trouble with the law, I would definitely advise against it.

Simply get the law involved and make sure it sticks.

And get the developer before you on the docket as well.

