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I Wasn't Paid

iwasntpaid.com

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Re: I Wasn't Paid

#111

Post by WettowelReactor »

getsat wrote: post #67
dangrossman wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site wouldn't be liable. A lawyer would tell his client that. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicatio... Anyone could post libelous statements on the 50+ million blogs and forums out there, yet you've never seen "Warn HN: Monitor your blog comments for libel" -- that's because you can't be treated as the publisher or speaker, so can't be held liable for what was said.

This, and the fact that the truth can not be libelous. As long as you're not misrepresenting a claim, you're fine.

You still need to defend yourself against the suits no matter how unjustified. That is not a free activity in terms of money or time.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#112

Post by junto »

This is what nasty bad ass debt collectors are for. They'll collect (really they will) and then take a cut. Carlos won't know what hit him. Get some recommendations for good debt collectors in your local area. You are wasting your precious time trying to collect this yourself. Employ them and then you can inform Carlos that it is longer his debt to you but his debt to some burly tattooed biker.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#113

Post by paulhauggis »

patio11 wrote: post #57

This is not a way forward. 1). Work with better clients. You can have invoice collection problems at $50k, too, but they're much less likely than at $500 and you have much better options for... escalation methods at that point. 2). If you're not a bank, stop taking on so much credit risk. Businesses can deal with substantially sterner payment terms than you'd think to offer. If your clients balk, see #1. (Thomas has…

This is one of the reasons I always ask for a percentage up-front (usually along the lines of 30-50%). A client that is willing to do this will more than likely pay you when the project is finished.

Before I did this, I had tons of clients that just wouldn't pay me or lie and tell me the "check is in the mail"..when it really wasn't.

When I was young and naive 6+ years ago, it put me out of business and I had to get a job.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#114

Post by groby_b »

This strikes me as an exercise in futility.

If you can properly document that you should have been paid and haven't, go to court. Posting on a website won't do anything to actually recoup the cost.

If you can't prove that, you're setting yourself up for a libel claim.

So what exactly is the gain of posting there, except giving in to a temporary desire for revenge?

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#115

Post by ryen »

I recommend to ask for payment at pre-defined milestones. Waiting to get paid at the very end is just asking for trouble.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#116

Post by jeffreymcmanus »

pavlov wrote: post #110
jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Pattern matching" is like astrology for smart people.

Maybe you can drop the "for smart people" -- the same kind of magazines that blather about horoscopes tend to run lots of stories along the lines of "How to recognize a narcissist".

no, dumb people just use guessing, actual astrology, etc.

smart people use "pattern matching" because it makes bigotry (which is a form of guessing) seem smart.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#117

Post by pjscott »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #103
patio11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your experience and teach people how to pattern match. Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there, but…

"Pattern matching" is like astrology for smart people.

Pattern matching is a general term for what you do every time you see a letter and recognize the pattern of light, or hear a word and match it to a concept. Don't give it a bad name just because human pattern-matching is flawed and unreliable in the (relatively rare) edge cases.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#118

Post by paulbaumgart »

jeffreymcmanus wrote: post #103
patio11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your experience and teach people how to pattern match. Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there, but…

"Pattern matching" is like astrology for smart people.

"Pattern matching" is just another phrase for applied Bayesian probability.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#119

Post by knewter »

edw519 wrote: post #69
patio11 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to perform (for lack of a better word) a mitzvah for the community, rather than picking out a single abusive customer, use your experience and teach people how to pattern match. Memo to young Rails developers: "I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." has never had a happy ending. (Slight overstatement there, but…

"I have an idea for a website. If you build v1.0 I'll pay you a whole thousand dollars and you might get equity if it works very well." If only all the assholes were so easily self-identifying. The real problems are the charming, smooth talking, dream clients offering cool projects, top dollar, and paying on time...until they don't and decide to start making your life hell because you're in so deep already. They're n…

We invoice weekly. Depending on our terms with the client, if they aren't paying on time we stop work. This results in at-most 2 weeks of unpaid work, and typically they have a lot invested in seeing it through to completion because already have (largeish-n)% of their money. We also send emails EVERY TIME a work unit is created in xrono (our open source app-to-run-a-software-consultancy) showing both the current work and their current uninvoiced total.

Our clients never, ever, ever tell us that they were unaware of how much money they'd agreed for us to spend without us laughing a lot. It typically ends well.

Re: I Wasn't Paid

#120

Post by jebblue »

gavingmiller wrote: post #31
gpcz wrote: post #22

This fantastic speech by Mike Monteiro ( http://vimeo.com/22053820 ) explains how you can avoid ever having to use this site as a last resort to get your grievances resolved.

This is an absolutely brilliant talk. And if you do any freelance or contract work you can learn something from it. The quote: 'when you hire a lawyer [to handle contracts] you switch from being a design amateur to a design professional' really spoke to me, and it applies equally to programmers.

I was about to watch it but the page starts out with an F Bomb, if I wanted to aspire to that level of communication I could have stayed in the Navy.
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