Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Science and Technology > Internet
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 09-27-2007, 03:54 PM
 
Location: Vero Beach, Fl
2,976 posts, read 13,355,776 times
Reputation: 2265

Advertisements

I would like your opinion. I have several web developers who free lance. They are exceptionally good at what they do.

I will discuss the one in particular. She designed a website among other business graphics for a client with a three payment plan - 25% up front - 50% upon final changes - 25% due upon final acceptance of the website at which time final payment is exchanged for deliverables. Two months have gone by and she has not received her final 25% payment. She has sent several reminders including a certified letter. Now she is telling me that if they don't pay, she will take their site down. I am not so sure that is such a good idea professionally speaking. What would you do?

Thank you.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 09-27-2007, 04:11 PM
 
Location: Vero Beach, Fl
2,976 posts, read 13,355,776 times
Reputation: 2265
BTW - please don't beat me up because I put this in the Technology forum - it might have been better placed in Business. Thank you.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-27-2007, 04:41 PM
 
Location: Colorado, Denver Metro Area
1,048 posts, read 4,340,634 times
Reputation: 404
1. You need to change the structure of how you collect payments.

2. Until then, if the client does not pay and does not give any reasons for this and after reasonable number of contacts: what does the contract state that will happen?

To me it would be reasonable to turn off their site but if it is not stated in the contract, it may be an issue.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-27-2007, 06:38 PM
 
2,197 posts, read 7,381,163 times
Reputation: 1702
I would think long and hard before taking the site down. We live in a very litigious society and that might be grounds for a lawsuit, since the designer has been paid 75% of the fee. The designer might be in the right and might well prevail, but defending litigation is expensive and emotionally draining.

Plus, the damage to a freelancer's professional reputation could cost a lot more than the unpaid balance. Unfortunately, getting stiffed is the least appealing part of the freelance life. I work with web designers and if I worked with one who took down a client's site, that would definitely be construed as unprofessional among the clients I work with. Gotta keep the big picture in mind. Actually, these days, two months isn't a write-off. I have government clients who routinely pay 90 days late-- and consider that preferential treatment! Good luck!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-27-2007, 06:55 PM
 
4,271 posts, read 15,235,034 times
Reputation: 3419
If the client is "ignoring" her then they are obviously being jerks and want to skimp out. If the agreement was discussed that she would take down the site if payment was not received then I see nothing wrong with that. She is in a bad situation of course because she deserves to be paid for services rendered. I would say send out a couple more letters stating on top "if you don't pay, I'm taking down the site!" in nice red bold print.

The previous poster made an excellent point though that perhaps taking the site down isn't very professional. I guess it depends on what she finds more important: her reputation or getting paid.

Good luck
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-27-2007, 11:37 PM
 
Location: Tejas
7,599 posts, read 18,380,771 times
Reputation: 5251
Them structures of payments are fine, they are similar to what I use when I dont trust people. I had a similar situation. The guy didnt pay, and after a month of phonecalls and letters and voice mail I took his website down. Wasnt an issue for me. I disabled all email, took all files down and put up an index.html holding page that said "Account Suspended due to non payment. To get this rectified please email *insert address* or call *insert number* immediately"

THis guy is a businessman, so is the person youre dealing with. They know how it goes, non payment is bad for business.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-29-2007, 07:58 PM
 
Location: Charlotte,NC, US, North America, Earth, Alpha Quadrant,Milky Way Galaxy
3,770 posts, read 7,530,045 times
Reputation: 2118
Quote:
Originally Posted by jhlcomp View Post
I would like your opinion. I have several web developers who free lance. They are exceptionally good at what they do.

I will discuss the one in particular. She designed a website among other business graphics for a client with a three payment plan - 25% up front - 50% upon final changes - 25% due upon final acceptance of the website at which time final payment is exchanged for deliverables. Two months have gone by and she has not received her final 25% payment. She has sent several reminders including a certified letter. Now she is telling me that if they don't pay, she will take their site down. I am not so sure that is such a good idea professionally speaking. What would you do?

Thank you.
Is this your client and you sub-ed her out to them, or is this her client and you're asking on her behalf?

Either case, I believe she's done all she can do professionally and the client is being very unprofessional. I understand the "not make waves" but having been in business now for nearly 8 years, you want to weed out "bad customers", and establish yourself as a professional- it is professional to retract your product on non-payment. If you miss payments are your car, even the last one, they will repo it.

If any future client has a problem with her retracting her work after being "stiffed" then most likely they won't be a good client. I've found that "good clients" have no problems with those terms as they always pay their bills.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 09-30-2007, 01:25 PM
 
Location: SE Florida
9,367 posts, read 25,173,218 times
Reputation: 9454
I think I would make some or all of the site stop working. When they notify her of the problems, she can tell them that she won't do any more work on the site until their overdue invoice is paid. Don't know if this is legal or not, though. But sometimes things just happen on websites, ya know?!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-01-2007, 02:34 PM
 
Location: Vero Beach, Fl
2,976 posts, read 13,355,776 times
Reputation: 2265
Thanks for all your replies - no, no, it's not my client. It is a client of one of my developers and she wanted to know how to handle this situation. I was more conservative in my approach in that I didnt think taking down the site would be in anyone's best interest unless all avenues were exhausted and even then think about it twice. This is her fourth freelance job. I told her I would see what the forum had to say.

I told her and I am also sharing this with anyone who is curious, that it is imperative that you create an iron clad agreement with your customers. I don't think she had such an agreement and, to top it off, the person is/was a friend of a friend. I told her that business is business and friendship is friendship and, as you mentioned Mike - you need to pick your clients wisely.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-01-2007, 03:06 PM
 
Location: Denver
9,963 posts, read 18,464,800 times
Reputation: 6181
I have done freelance web programming in Java, Perl and .NET for over 10 years. The payment plan is fine, although I prefer to get an hourly rate paid per week due to the fact that requirements change often.

The client is withholding funds for no reason, to me that is violation of this part of the contract:

Quote:
25% due upon final acceptance of the website at which time final payment is exchanged for deliverables.
I wouldn't even have started FTP'ing the files up to the production server until they paid the last 25%.

As far as reputation goes; I don't think it will hurt at all. The developer provided a product and were not paid in full.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Science and Technology > Internet

All times are GMT -6. The time now is 03:45 AM.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top