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A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

joseph-smith.co.uk

71–80 of 115 posts

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#71
post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disable the account or change DNS records are the easiest.

This is illegal in most places unless the contract says otherwise. You don't have a lien on a website or domain the way you do for a car.

How is disabling the account when it's not being paid for illegal? Beyond some grace period, if I'm not paid, I'm not accepting your mail. If I'm not being paid, I'm not answering DNS queries on your behalf either.

I'm not going to interfere with your contract with a different party that handles your mail or DNS if that's how you manage your mail or DNS.

I'm a nice guy so I'll signal a temporary error and if you arrange payment (or at least claim that you will arrange payment shortly), hopefully your correspondents will retry and you'll just have delays and not lost messages.

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#72
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

because social shaming is faster and cheaper than the legal system and doesn’t involve physical violence like the mafia

I guess its something you can do if you don't care about your reputation and you need the money now, this is because It's very uncomfortable to work with people who throw a scene just like that. We haven't heard the other side of the argument, have we? Maybe it's not as simple as services delivered payment withheld.

[deleted]

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#73
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If contract broken, sue them. Why throwing a scene? Haha! tell me about it. A client of mine ended his contract in 2010, pretending he did not use my software anymore. He had the source because I had to compile on site for technical reasons. A disgruntled employed called to tell me and my associate he was still using it. It took me 3 years to find a proof, lawsuit started in 2014, the expertise began in 2016 and end…

Shutting down services upon payment issues is much more different than getting into laud public dispute. Also, there's always some number of problem clients out there, never good idea to stray away from civility. There are problem merchants too, which is much more socially acceptable to shame publicly.

I meant to add that I don't advertise it and just invalidate the account. Omitted it for brevity.

There is also the long time friend you do a site for, with an agreed upon price. And he forgets to renew the bank transfer every year... for months.

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#74
post #42
post #17

This probably explains why they're not paying: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... > Company status: Dissolved > Dissolved on 16 December 2025 His other company: > Company status: Liquidation People are now attacking the guy on Instagram because I guess the developer or someone, made a Tiktok video about it.

The thing about dissolving a company is that they generally should have done it before getting a bunch of services without paying for them. Like a gambler they think the big win is coming any second and they drag it out too long, leaving a bunch of unpaid bills behind then.

[deleted]

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#75
post #17

This probably explains why they're not paying: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c... > Company status: Dissolved > Dissolved on 16 December 2025 His other company: > Company status: Liquidation People are now attacking the guy on Instagram because I guess the developer or someone, made a Tiktok video about it.

My guess is it wasn't deliberate. They might not even know it's dissolved yet.

It's dissolved by "compulsory strike-off", which means the registrar did it as a penalty for late filing of accounts about 4 months after their due date, and failing to send an email saying "the company is still required" to the registrar, which is enough to prevent the dissolution.

It happened before in 2021 to this company. The company was restored a few months later, which is permitted when it's been dissolved by the registrar for filing accounts late.

Restoring a company also restores its liabilities (debts), so it's clear they were not doing it in 2021 to get out of debts.

My guess is it's an oversight by the owner, who is prone to filing things late and doesn't have an accountant. It's quite common in the UK for single-person companies to not have an accountant, and to not know all the rules.

Plenty of health conditions or life events can cause an oversight like this, especially for someone who is already prone to filing close to the deadlines.

After the company is dissolved this way, it's unlawful to continue trading, which includes paying suppliers from company funds. The owner immediately loses all company assets. Their bank accounts may be frozen or closed quickly, so they might suddenly find themselves without access to their funds. That can be a awkward if the owner wasn't expecting it, or if they don't even know it's dissolved. Business banks in the UK freeze account access for other inscrutable reasons sometimes, so it's not always obvious when the reason is dissolution.

This doesn't excuse not replying to the supplier to explain, unless they are really unlucky and lost access to their paid Google account or similar as a side effect as well. Or if they had the kind of sudden health condition or life event that causes a person to miss filing deadlines.

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#76
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. A lot of freelancers and agencies have amateur or no contracts. A neutral service suspended message or no response from the server is more defendable if the client goes after you. If you actively communicate on their website, it could be argued you tried to cause reputational harm etc. Even if you're right, provoking a legal response from a client is more than a lot of creatives and developers can handle, espe…

if the company is big enough to have legal staff, said staff would probably have advised them to pay in the first place.

You would think so! :)

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#77
post #48

I have no idea what the contract says, what was paid, or any of the other conversations they've had. All I see is someone complaining publicly about a private matter. When that happens, I assume they're wrong. Normal people don't air petty grievances on the internet. They use the courts and other mechanisms. According to another comment, the business is dissolved. They don't care if their site goes down. So this guy…

It looks like the company's owners didn't give a simple heads up to their providers before dissolving it. In my eyes, that's way worse than what this particular provider has done. If the sums aren't large, they might lose money by going to court.

The company owner didn't dissolve it, the registrar did as a penalty for not filing accounts within about 4 months of the due date. The owner might not even know it's dissolved yet.

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#79
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no money, no stuff. No stuff is one thing. Different stuff deployed to client's url is quite another.

It's not the client's url if they didn't pay for it.

In the case of a URL it might be.

If the domain is registered with the client named as the formal owner, the client may well be the owner even if they haven't paid for it yet.

Re: A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

#80
post #35
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading.” — https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html Believe it or not, it’s prime daylight hours across most of the US sitting at their desks browsing HN.

I refuse to believe that people can do downvotes on a long-ish comment 4 seconds after something is posted . Not even read. Posted. That means they had to refresh exactly at that moment, within a second of it being posted, scroll down the page to that comment, read it, and downvote it, in 4 seconds! Come on

Corrective votes will follow, if warranted.
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