I have a particularly bad client who is flat-out refusing to pay his final bill. It was a straightforward time & 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.
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?
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.
Any suggestions?
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.