Ask HN: Difficult Clients

[stanmancan]

I don't do a ton of contract work, so I don't have much experience with difficult clients. I'm curious as to how everyone else deals with them.

In particular, I currently have a client I was doing some regular work for for around three months. It was all contract work, but I was working as an employee (no papers signed, just a verbal agreement).

Fast forward three months and I quit. I wrap up what I'm working on, send in a final invoice for the little work I was owed for ($400), and went our separate ways.

Fast forward another month. I had been told on four separate occasions "I'm sending your payment {as we speak|tonight|tomorrow|today}". He threatened to sue me five separate times for things that even a childs imagination would have difficulty coming up with. Every time I contact them it bounces between "I'm going to sue you" and "I'll send your payment right away". The threats of being sued are comical, but I've heard stories that he's not afraid to "make stuff up" if needed (while working there I witnessed first hand him faking documents for a mortgage).

$400 isn't a ton of money, and I'm pursuing it more out of principle than all else (he's done this to past contract workers and gotten away with it). At what point do you generally give up and write it off?

[scottharveyco]

Mike Monteiro gave a recent talk discussing how he handles client payments and in particular dealing with contracts. It's not only an entertaining talk but has some good information as well.

http://vimeo.com/22053820

As for me, In the past when dealing with smaller clients I always get some money up front (usually 50%) to "cover costs" along the way. In your case it's difficult to justify too much time chasing down $400 so you might be better off thinking about that as money spent on learning to be a contractor and quickly move on to the next job.

[wdewind]

At the point that it costs you more than sending a reminder email every week or so. For $400 just take the lesson and

a) Never work off contract again. Even in small projects that you wouldn't want to go to court over even in the worst case, sometimes they can help prevent the worst case. At worse they can give you a list of assumptions and clear up some misconceptions before you start (most of my simple contracts for small projects were just assumptions like "If you get me all content by DATE, I can have ABC Feature done by DATE2" etc

b) Always downpayment up front

c) Incremental releases and payment structure (I release this feature, I get this payment, etc., instead of lump sum 50% remainder at the end)

d) Trust your gut: I imagine you knew this guy was shitty going in (I almost always have, and in retrospect clients who didn't pay me I almost always had a bad gut feeling about and then convinced myself to do the work anyway).

e) Internalize the concept that time not wasted on shitty clients can be used more effectively to look for good ones.

Good luck!

[Blankwood → wdewind]

I don't think it's realistic to always get down payment up front.

[esw → Blankwood]

It depends on your history with the customer, the amount of money, and your risk tolerance. I always ask for a deposit unless the amount of money is completely trivial.

[Blankwood]

I guess my initial question would be how many hours did you work for him? If it wasn't a lot of time, just accept that you aren't getting paid.

If you did put a lot time into it, then I would push more but make sure you understand why you are trying to get the $$. You won't convince him you were valuable or get a recommendation or reference (I have seen others think they can convert a bad client into a good one).

Finally, understand that bad collections are a fact of life. Everyone has it, and regardless of whether you have a contract or not, you are going to have to expect some amount of losers.