> Now in January when we present an invoice, the client says that they aren't > paying. Because they still are not happy with the design, and it took so > long to do. They are moving to a new developer.
I'm sorry to hear you're in this position, it's never fun. Back when I ran my own shop our contract spelled out what would happen if payment wasn't received. I know others have mentioned not putting the site up in the first place, but since it's up and they haven't paid, do not feel bad about taking it down. Don't be vindictive about it, just take it down and simply not have a web page up on their domain. Just make it a dead end. Besides, they don't like it and wouldn't want it representing their brand anyway at this point. If they complain about it being taken down, then apparently it's not as bad as they claimed and if they want it back up they will have to pay. If their other site is paid for and their hosting bill is current, don't touch that one. Leave it up and treat it as though it were a different client. If I have two cars and stop making payments on one of them, they can't come repossess my other car that is bought and paid for (or where payments are current). You should apply the same principle here. Others have suggested having an attorney write them a letter. This isn't a bad idea if you can afford it and the money owed is substantial enough. If it's a small amount, just write them a letter yourself saying that you did the work according to their specifications, include a copy of the contract with the payment terms highlighted, give them ten days to respond, send it certified mail, and outline what you're going to do if they don't pay (take site down, sue if you plan to do that, etc.). If they don't respond, then perform those actions promptly. > Or should I adhere to the school of thought that the Customer is always > right, and be as accommodating as possible. Maybe we can work together in > the future, shake hands and move on? At this point, no. They're not really a client since they haven't paid, and given their actions, is this somebody you REALLY want to work with again in the future? I've actually had "clients" refuse to pay for work like this in the past and we just moved on (amounts weren't high enough to justify going to court over it, and we never put their sites up since they didn't pay). On one occasion one of those people called us back several months later to have us do another site for them. We just told them that we'd be happy to work with them, but we would require a 100% up-front payment because of their payment history, and everything for them would have to be paid in advance if they wanted to work with us. They ended up going elsewhere which was just fine by me. -Justin ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:334405 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
