At $65 / hour, how big of a bill could the designer have possibly generated over three days?
Just pay him and get it over with - anything under $1,000 is chump change.
YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
111–120 of 175 posts
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#112How much does it really matter in these situations whether or not you have a "signed contract"? My understanding is that any agreement to do work for compensation is a contract, and these days even a "signed" contract is likely to just be a PDF which is as easily faked as an emailed "$65/hr? Sounds good, go ahead and get started." Is it just one of those things where someone's less likely to try to rip you off if the…
It matters a LOT. A you-said they-said dispute over a verbal contract can be expensive to resolve --- almost certainly way more expensive than the total value of this dev contract. Startups who hire outside vendors should be very careful to foreclose on any potential verbal contract --- "do not start working for us until we have a signed master agreement and a statement of work" --- and that's for a lot of reasons, n…
It is worth noting that there are reasons beyond enforceability for having written contracts - making sure both parties are on the same page about important elements of the contract such as scope of work, deliverables, acceptance criteria, and payment terms.
I'm not implying that this is what happened here, but it isn't at all uncommon for two parties to verbally negotiate something like this in good faith and come away with different understandings of subtle, but important, elements.
Writing it down doesn't prevent this entirely, but it goes a long way to clearing up possible misunderstandings.
Certainly, nobody deserves to go unpaid for their work, but anyone starting work without a clear written understanding of the facts is setting themselves up for all sorts of problems.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#113I'm going to go out on a limb and register a slight discomfort with the increasing use of HN as a "court of public opinion" in very fact-bound disputes like this one. I can sort of see resorting to it out of desperation, but I'm afraid the Internet Lynch Mob has a very high ratio of outrage to effort spent actually investigating. This post has 84 upvotes in 21 minutes, which suggests a very quick investigation! So, t…
On the other hand, this is a vibrant case study for both inexperienced founders and freelancers about the importance of doing the boring shit right. Sign a contract. Set a price. Get paid. Make sure there is a meeting of the minds , as the lawyers like to say. This, right here, is exactly why we do these things.
While I agree this is a good learning experience, and so deserves some attention, we disagree on the lesson. The actual lesson, for the founder, is this:
>>Verbal contracts are binding.
You cannot legally agree to something on the phone and then change your mind when it comes time to sign the written form of the contract. Period.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#114Earlier quoted context omitted.
On the other hand, this is a vibrant case study for both inexperienced founders and freelancers about the importance of doing the boring shit right. Sign a contract. Set a price. Get paid. Make sure there is a meeting of the minds , as the lawyers like to say. This, right here, is exactly why we do these things.
While I agree this is a good learning experience, and so deserves some attention, we disagree on the lesson. The actual lesson, for the founder, is this: >>Verbal contracts are binding. You cannot legally agree to something on the phone and then change your mind when it comes time to sign the written form of the contract. Period.
There's a lot of grey in the details that were left out. Unless you write it down and come to a crystal-clear agreement, this stuff happens.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#115Not handled professionally on the designers part. He could have turned this into a win by being their go-to-guy for future contract work or getting referrals to other YC residents instead. I don't think it was worth resorting to public shaming for a few grand. I guess Eligible got some free press out of this now. Well done!
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Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#116Not handled professionally on the designers part. He could have turned this into a win by being their go-to-guy for future contract work or getting referrals to other YC residents instead. I don't think it was worth resorting to public shaming for a few grand. I guess Eligible got some free press out of this now. Well done!
Ah, yes, that's brilliant. I never thought of that one. Continue dealing with a company that will not pay as promised for your previous work.
Can you give an example where this course of action has ever worked out well for the designer?
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#117I don't understand this, people. They're YC funded, in the worst case they have how much now, 10k? Risk your reputation for a few hundred dollars, having a few thousand in the pocket, why?
Probably more like $160K.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
If what the designer saying is true, then Eligible breached contract. Verbal contracts are binding in CA. And he is within his rights to get paid for his work. It should not damage his reputation at all.
Oral contracts are binding everywhere in the US. What's damaging to his reputation isn't pursuing the invoice based on an oral contract. What's damaging to his reputation is if he jumped the gun, whipping up drama about a receivable that he reasonably could have expected to get paid if he simply invoiced persistently. I suspect this thread might be a bit of a litmus test for people who have done a lot of freelancing.…
For once, I sort of agree with you. But I chalk it up to inexperience, not malice. It sounds like the OP was intimidated by the (probably meant to be tongue-in-cheek) referral to the "legal department, and genuinely doesn't know what to do.
And, it's one thing to have a client drag their heels on a bill, it's quite another for a client to say, "No, we won't pay that, talk to legal if you have a problem with that." The former is a good opportunity to persistently invoice, the later is a good opportunity to explore the small claims court system.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
Small claims court? How many days outstanding is the invoice? You want to take a guess about the longest it's ever taken us to get paid for an invoice? Net-30 (meaning, let's just pretend we're going to pay you within 30 days of getting invoiced so we can stop talking about this part of the contract) is a standard term. Is it your expectation that when you don't have a contract, you can expect "Net-1" payment?
Of course not! "Small claims court" doesn't mean now . To even file a claim you must have sent a demand letter. So he's still got some hoops to jump through. That said, I don't think he has to wait 30 days if the client has already indicated that they've decided to breach the contract. What he needs to do now is send a real-life letter demanding an agreement to pay within the week, and if that agreement is not forthc…
Nothing that's been published to date indicates that his client has breached contract. Clients are allowed to question invoices.
Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
While I agree this is a good learning experience, and so deserves some attention, we disagree on the lesson. The actual lesson, for the founder, is this: >>Verbal contracts are binding. You cannot legally agree to something on the phone and then change your mind when it comes time to sign the written form of the contract. Period.
There's a lot of grey in the details that were left out. Unless you write it down and come to a crystal-clear agreement, this stuff happens.
Doesn't matter. The founder hired the designer verbally. I imagine that the judge will first determine if there was a verbal agreement, and then, if there is disagreement about the terms, use common sense and vague standards to determine the correct remuneration. It's not actually that complicated.