

Ask HN: Have you been scammed as freelancer and what did you do? - AndriusSutas

Hi all,<p>I was wondering have you ever been scammed as a freelancer &#x2F; consultant by not getting paid and what did you do?
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trcollinson
Scammed? No, I wouldn't say that. Not paid? Certainly!

Generally, I have a pretty straight forward and easy to understand contract
that everyone must sign before work starts. This helps to keep this situation
from happening too often. I also bill regularly which means I don't have a
huge amount of accounts receivable at any given time. I do not believe in
billing the entire amount after delivery.

These tactics don't always work and things happen where I don't get paid.
Usually I speak to the client directly and ask them to just pay up, working
with them on terms that will work for their situation. Most clients are super
happy and relieved to get this type of help from me. This works about 80% of
the time. It works 100% of the time when the client would like me to do work
in the future.

If they don't pay at that point I do two things. First, I don't work with them
any more, thus I stop my own financial bleeding. Second, I will start to make
demands. Depending on how much I am demanding this could be a simple written
letter saying "Please pay before further legal steps must be taken." Generally
almost all clients will pay at this point. If they don't, at times, honestly,
I just let it go and write it off as lost funds and move on.

I have, on two occasions, taken clients to court for the money. This never saw
the light of a court room and both cases were settled out of court almost
immediately. These are drastic steps which I do not recommend.

With all of that said, is this something you are having trouble with? Your
situation may vary and more details will help us to know how to help you.

~~~
slimer
I've had clients who told me they never really had the money, when I sent them
the invoice. I then started taking deposits as a principle with new clients. I
used to not ask for a contract, but pinning down the scope is essential. Some
clients would try and postpone payment as long as possible based on ambiguous
scope. I guess after a while I started getting the hang of who I should and
shouldn't be working with to avoid trouble.

~~~
shortoncash
I'd be interested in knowing what you think are good indicators that someone
will be a good client instead of being a bad client.

~~~
trcollinson
For me there is a feeling of openness that comes from a good client. Bad
clients seem to try to over compensate for their lack of openness by spewing
what I think of as pretend openness. They might say things like:

We really don't need consultants to work for us but...

We have a TON of capital...

We could hire more people but...

Our product works amazingly well and doesn't need new features except...

The list goes on and on. The point here is that they aren't being truly open,
they are just puffing themselves up without offering an honest view of their
needs.

On the other hand, a good client will often admit to a short coming ("We don't
really understand deployments well and we would like you to help us with both
the automation and the understanding of deployments for the future"), honest
about product and employee needs ("We need this feature faster than was
expected but we don't feel like we want to encumber the business with
additional employees right now"), and things like this. Also, most good
clients don't just randomly bring up how wealthy they are. There is no need.

Obviously this doesn't cover every case. But I have found that it is
relatively easy to sniff out honesty and shy away from clients where "it's too
good to be true".

------
atsaloli
I moved on! Called it a learning experience. Now I'm more picky. If I get a
bad feeling about a potential engagement, I listen to it, and do not engage.

I have a policy now that if a client is dissatisfied and asks for a refund, I
refund the money and never work with them again.

