

Another Person Who Didn't Pay His Web Guy? - amdev
http://easyautoinsurancequote.com

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kls
This is a universally bad idea to do, while I sympathize with being screwed by
less than savory business people, this kind of action will most likely not
result in getting the money owed and can only serve to cause you more
problems.

Potential clients are going to be leery of dealing with you if they ever get
wind of such a stunt and any legal standing that you had just went out the
window.

If this was a final act to try to extract payment, you should know, they are
not going to pay. For whatever reason, whether it be that they where unhappy
with the results or they where just trying to scam you, they are not going to
pay.

They will find another sucker to build it and not pay them as well. Eventually
they will get someone who they either like or who they can play hardball with
to get the work at a fraction of the price after the fact.

9 times out of 10 these situations result from a newer developer and a client
that feels they did not get what they want. If that is the case with your
situation, I would use the situation as a learning experience and next time
document everything and get client sign-off further demand 50% up front, if
they are not willing to meet you half way walk. Many times new freelancer will
be afraid to ask for 50% up front for fear of loosing the gig, but working a
gig for free is worse than not getting the gig at all.

Finally, while one a moral level I totally agree with your actions, you broke
the law and you have ceeded a huge upper-hand to your ex-client. If they so
chose to do, they could via the courts force you to hand over the source code
and be awarded damages that far exceed the compensation that you would have
received. You could end up owing them money if they force the issue and that
is just the civil dispute you have also violated some criminal charges that
they could pursue if they chose to be dicks about the whole thing. The have a
totally separate case for slander as well.

If you want to disabling non-paying customers in the future, you need to
specifically set up the contract as a license in which you own the source code
and license it to them. Further you cannot access their machines and disable
the code, it must call out to a licensing server that you own and operate. You
can make ownership of the code transferable upon final payment of the contract
but this is the only way to get around civil and criminal charges for
disabling a clients software and the disabling has to be performed on a system
that you own and operate.

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cfontes
If this is not a scam, well done for him.

