I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
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Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#2The late fee needs to be in your contract and clearly stated on the invoice. (And even then, companies will sometimes push back against that at contract negotiation time.)
If you don't have a signed contract, you don't have real receivables.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#3Disclaimer: I'm not sure what the legality of this was so I'm not recommending it - but it proved effective in my case.
I was owed several thousand dollars by a client and they were several months late in making a payment. They strung me along for a while but at some point it was no longer worth my time.
Realizing I wasn't interested in any future work from the client I simply took their site down and emailed the owner asking for payment. I suspected they'd try to get the site back up (it was in their AWS account) but the owner replied right away asking for my Paypal address.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#4I think a better strategy would be to send an email as soon as the payment was late, saying a late fee would be assessed in x days if payment is not received (or just include the late fee in the contract, I suppose). Attaching an arbitrary late fee without any notice seems strange to me, but I don't do freelancing so I guess I don't really know. It just seems like any fees should be documented somewhere, and people should be allowed to accept/reject them before entering into a contract.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#5This is how I’ve handled it in the past. I remind them about being late, if they pay immediately, I let it go. If they don’t, they get put on a retainer agreement for all future work.
Only one time I had to go nuclear and send a dunning letter with the “If I don’t receive payment within 45 days, I will have no choice but to pursue legal remedies”. The check arrived on day 43.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#6Disclaimer: I'm not sure what the legality of this was so I'm not recommending it - but it proved effective in my case. I was owed several thousand dollars by a client and they were several months late in making a payment. They strung me along for a while but at some point it was no longer worth my time. Realizing I wasn't interested in any future work from the client I simply took their site down and emailed the own…
I was sooo tempted to do this with a client who owed me $30K
But I was worried about getting sued by that client.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#7It's pretty ridiculous to me to charge a late fee on net-30, especially when you want to work with a client again in the future. My best paying clients (e.g. multinationals) generally always pay late by one to a few weeks.
As long as you know they're good for the money and know they will pay it is a cost of doing business.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#8Disclaimer: I'm not sure what the legality of this was so I'm not recommending it - but it proved effective in my case. I was owed several thousand dollars by a client and they were several months late in making a payment. They strung me along for a while but at some point it was no longer worth my time. Realizing I wasn't interested in any future work from the client I simply took their site down and emailed the own…
I was sooo tempted to do this with a client who owed me $30K But I was worried about getting sued by that client.
Yes. What he did is generally not good advice / a good course of action.
What you do is let them know you expect payment in X days, and if not start legal proceedings. And then you follow up on that.
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#9Earlier quoted context omitted.
I was sooo tempted to do this with a client who owed me $30K But I was worried about getting sued by that client.
Yes. What he did is generally not good advice / a good course of action. What you do is let them know you expect payment in X days, and if not start legal proceedings. And then you follow up on that.
Meh. I wasn’t going to bother getting a lawyer involved for a balance of a few thousand dollars. I did threaten legal action though it proved futile.
Out of curiosity, why was it not a good course of action? Did the client have any leverage after being 6+ months past due on their payment?
Re: I was owed $5k. I tried to hold them accountable
#10Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes. What he did is generally not good advice / a good course of action. What you do is let them know you expect payment in X days, and if not start legal proceedings. And then you follow up on that.
Meh. I wasn’t going to bother getting a lawyer involved for a balance of a few thousand dollars. I did threaten legal action though it proved futile. Out of curiosity, why was it not a good course of action? Did the client have any leverage after being 6+ months past due on their payment?
I was more referring to the $30k example above. In your situation probably fine for a few thousand, but if someone owes you a significant amount of money then I don't think you should act in this way. You just sue them (if all else fails).