Ah, the terrible true tale of a telecommuting techie’s fiscal traumatization at the hands of a dim-witted client. Last week a new small business client bounced their initial check for $1,000, and then followed that up via email saying “…sorry, but we don’t know when we can pay you the total due of $3250″ for the site (they’ve said repeatedly they think it’s great) because their products weren’t selling.
The bounced $1,000 check was the deposit on the project, which I held after beginning work on the project because they told me it might not clear “for a few days.” Well, finally, I did deposit it 9 weeks later, and it did bounce like they said it would.
I spent a few weeks of my life to design and build them a nice-looking, ridiculously easy to use, database-driven interactive web site, and then trained the managers, office staff and sales team in how to do all the site tasks they need, like editing and publishing pages, managing users, etc. But since the site went live nobody in the company or the sales team has even logged in lately, letalone edited or added any content [Hello Success Story, or gosh! a video] or manage a user account.
The site is dead in the water of owner/user non-activity. And now I don’t get paid on time because they can’t sell their product. I wonder if there’s a correlation.
Gee, Mr. Company President who can perfume the pig for hours just like Zig Zeigler but can’t balance the company checkbook, when I write a check for business or pleasure it’s spent money and NEVER spent twice. Accounting 101. Sheesh.
My harshest recourse is to take down the site. Who turns off the power when the bill goes unpaid, right? I could turn up the heat a bit and put up a SUSPENDED for NON-PAYMENT page. I’ve read that other developers have done this with some success, although this technique for collecting a past due invoice tends to destroy what’s left of the developer-client relationship. And there’s always Small Claims.
So there are options, but none of them is as good as simply getting paid for services without a load of crap.
I can’t solve the problem of clients who are broke, untruthful, lazy, too busy or stupid but I’m here for [paying] clients, 24/7.
