The lesson here is never piss off someone with a blog and an audience. His name will forever show up in Google as the guy who didn't pay up.
I Wasn't Paid
181–190 of 201 posts
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#182I was involved in the case involving Carlos 'Storm' Martinez, who is an amazing post sound mixer and a stand-up guy. I am a little perturbed to see him mentioned on the site. The design of the site in question was good, no doubt, but it was also riddled with a stolen Neutraface2 font face and the HTML didn't validate. And there was no RoR backend; the whole site was hosted on a GoDaddy shared server. From my understa…
I would like to see the following unfounded claim supported:
"Given the designer's history of posting complaints about how he's been screwed out of $500 and then taking them down once he realizes that it might be bad for his reputation ..."
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#183Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's my mitzvah: Don't do work for individuals or very small companies. People are much more reasonable when your fee isn't coming out of their pocket.
I would love to stop doing work for small companies or individuals. But how do I get bigger clients? I really don't know how.
It took me a while to make the jump. I started by earning my dues working too hard for two little pay with some small-time clients early on. I built up a decent portfolio that I could show off and started using that to market myself. I sent it as a link to adds I saw on craigslist. I did a couple projects on spec that I worked really really hard on and sent links to the company offering it for free. You'd think that would be a huge risk, and frankly, it is. But in fact, both of the times I did it, I got major clients. Kept building myself from there.
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#184One dangerous thing that stands out is this "kill switch". VERY bad idea. Now you are liable for damages. The way to handle this is: When you get the judgement against your "client", slap a lean on his properties equal to the amount owed (and throw in your court costs). That inclues his accounts. All you need is an order from the judge. That's it. That's about all you can do really. Is to go after his assets. Also I'…
You can structure the "kill switch" as temporary licenses that expire after a while. Give them an 1-month license to try out things. Give them the full license upon receiving of full payment. If they want extension, give them another 1-month license.
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Re: I Wasn't Paid
#185Earlier quoted context omitted.
In retrospect, there were a few warning signs fairly early on Care to elaborate to teach the communtity?
Hindsight is 20/20, but typically any sign that they're weird and irrational (trail of angry developers/no business model), or that they'll try and screw you out of a fair payment (won't do commencement payments) are a red flag. Even if you can't afford a lawyer, I would have something along the lines of terms and conditions, what happens on non-payment (usually work stops), etc. The "Fuck you, pay me" is a pretty go…
trail of angry developers
Hehe. Reminds me of a former client (sorta) who would always wind up working for assholes. Everyone he had worked with turned out to be an asshole would couldn't do what he wanted. Turns out he was the asshole.
It's almost impossible for everyone else to be an asshole. It's like the old poker tip. If you look around the table and can't find the sucker, it's you. If you think everyone is an asshole, you're probably an asshole.
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#186Earlier quoted context omitted.
right... well, that's almost what I did. saying where it was, letting someone google my name in nyc and look for court records. i've only sued one person in nyc - it wouldn't be that hard. But, publicizing on my blog, yeah. In some ways I think the moment's passed. If/when we ever get to court, I'll release the name then, unless there's some gag order (am I being too dramatic?)
The difference is that if someone is googling John Smith, they won't find your blog post without his name on it. Thankfully I've never had to experience court on either side - it looks like it gets expensive very very quickly.
I'm representing myself, so it was only the trip to NYC, filing fees, and hiring a processor. The processor could not get this guy, so we filed a notice saying he'd attempted 3 times. I suspect this guy has avoided process servers before, but not sure.
Yes, the googling aspect doesn't help too much. Interestingly, having to remember back to 2008, this same situation happened with someone else they'd contracted. This particular contractor was in tennessee, and was owed ... much less than me. He blogged about it by name, and the NYC guy apparently (per the TN guy's story) went ballistic threatening to sue and such, and said he would pay when the post was taken down. So... it was taken down. Then never paid. The TN guy eventually gave up through these bullying tactics. I'm not going to give up.
It's so far in the past now that, while $9k would be great, I don't need it, and won't settle for half, nor will I settle for any conditions about not blogging about it.
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#187I was involved in the case involving Carlos 'Storm' Martinez, who is an amazing post sound mixer and a stand-up guy. I am a little perturbed to see him mentioned on the site. The design of the site in question was good, no doubt, but it was also riddled with a stolen Neutraface2 font face and the HTML didn't validate. And there was no RoR backend; the whole site was hosted on a GoDaddy shared server. From my understa…
You didn't mention if he really lost the case in court as noted in the post. Did he? Has he refused to pay the settlement? Was there a contract that he refuses to pay? Seems to me that you will have a hard time excusing the details if any are true.
Only Storm and the designer would be able to answer those questions about the court case.
But in my experience doing web work for Storm over the past five years, I have never had any payment disputes. We also have an ongoing relationship because he does post-sound work for my films. It's a shame to see him smeared in a public forum because I don't think he deserves it.
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#188Earlier quoted context omitted.
I wonder if it's legal to state upfront in your contract that 'technical measures' are implemented in your work to prevent theft of service (or whatever you call the use of the work product without payment), and are to be deactivated & removed following completion/final payment? The software licence-key approach seems somewhat similar, and I've yet to come across legal proceedings "because we didn't pay the guy and o…
Reminds me of the talk "Fuck you, pay me", where they talk about how the client only gets copyright assignment upon reciept of final payment. Thus, if they stop/don't pay, then they do not have copyright on the work, and hence are guilty of copyright infringement if they use it.
It is always a good idea to keep ownership until final payment. This also increases the chance that you'll see money when a client goes bankrupt and is sold or undergoes a restructuring ("doorstart").
(nb: all based on NL law)
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#189I was involved in the case involving Carlos 'Storm' Martinez, who is an amazing post sound mixer and a stand-up guy. I am a little perturbed to see him mentioned on the site. The design of the site in question was good, no doubt, but it was also riddled with a stolen Neutraface2 font face and the HTML didn't validate. And there was no RoR backend; the whole site was hosted on a GoDaddy shared server. From my understa…
I would like to see the following unfounded claim supported: "Given the designer's history of posting complaints about how he's been screwed out of $500 and then taking them down once he realizes that it might be bad for his reputation ..."
At the time, I didn't bother to take screenshots of the tweets that were later deleted or the blog posts that were removed (since I didn't care enough and the designer had a relatively small audience).
In my heart of hearts, I was hoping the designer was just blowing off steam. I've been in the same situation before, where I think I'm right about a payment and the client disagrees, and it sucks, and I learned from the experience. I certainly didn't expect the designer to still be sore over it six months later, even after he claims he won the court case.
Re: I Wasn't Paid
#190Earlier 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.
That depends on your location. In NL the truth can get you in a lot of trouble.
Also not that the TOS tries to make the submitter liable for all damages _and_ cost : http://iwasntpaid.com/terms_of_submission