Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

reddit.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 175 posts

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#81

Post by tptacek »

sudonim wrote: post #55
tptacek wrote: post #37

I don't understand what happened here. The CEO told him to submit his invoice to legal@. Did he do that? What did their legal say? Did the company formally decline to pay the invoice? Or did he just assume he wasn't going to get paid and jump the gun? But anyways: LESSON LEARNED for startup CEOs. Here it is, it's very simple: If you want to question or slowroll an invoice, direct it to finance@, not legal@. You have…

Do most YC S12 companies have a legal department? Or a finance department for that matter? Im sure this particular situation is nuanced, and both parties seem to be unhappy. I haven't worked with many contractors yet, but my 2 rules of thumb are: Don't ask people to do work for you unless you plan to pay them for it. Pay promptly and in full. It's pretty simple. If the CEO was never planning to pay, the conversation…

Most companies don't have "legal departments"; they have outside counsel they retain for random stuff. Like this.

The onus was on the vendor to actually submit the invoice to the email address the CEO said to send it to. That's not a hardship. Try invoicing a Fortune 500 company for the first time. Goat sacrifice may be involved.

Note that I have no idea at all whether he actually did do that.

In the real world, it is actually allowed to question an invoice. You probably end up paying regardless, but you are in fact allowed to ask the questions.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#82

Post by Cushman »

jarrett wrote: post #75
Cushman wrote: post #35

How 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…

Here's one reason why putting it in writing is best, even if forgery is possible. People are way more likely to argue about what was agreed to, than about whether an agreement was made. With verbal agreements, most people won't lie and say that no conversation took place. (The "whether" part.) But many people will misremember or distort the exact words that were exchanged. (The "what" part.) And those exact words are…

I'm realizing now I misread the OP, and we are talking about a verbal contract-- for which I'll agree different rules apply. (Not legally, but practically.)

My question is more about whether there's any practical distinction between an informal email which contains a clear agreement to work and the "signed contract" spoken of in legend.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#83

Post by cluda01 »

zachwill wrote: post #18

Pay the guy his money, but man, that design is pretty bad.

Could you please elaborate as to why you think so? I'm not trying to be a contrarian here. I'm asking because I'm a backend engineer so my opinions on design admittedly isn't very sophisticated.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#84

Post by xrty3 »

guelo wrote: post #72

This is off-topic and I couldn't really figure out what it is that eligibleapp does, but why would they not come out with a web app first? Restricting whatever it is they're doing to the iPhone seems shortsighted.

It's mint.com for health insurance.

I'm trying to figure out what additional value Eligible's supposed to add that outweighs just logging into your insurance company's website. And how they're supposed to make a profit.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#85

Post by tptacek »

damoncali wrote: post #71
tptacek wrote: post #37

I don't understand what happened here. The CEO told him to submit his invoice to legal@. Did he do that? What did their legal say? Did the company formally decline to pay the invoice? Or did he just assume he wasn't going to get paid and jump the gun? But anyways: LESSON LEARNED for startup CEOs. Here it is, it's very simple: If you want to question or slowroll an invoice, direct it to finance@, not legal@. You have…

I think the legal@ was meant to be equivalent to fuckoff@. That was my reading, at least. Lesson: Get paid first when working with new clients. There just is no other way.

fuckoff@ is one interpretation.

how_serious_are_you@ is another one.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#86

Post by kika »

faramarz wrote: post #22

Not 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!

Free press not always a good thing. For example: free press on the website of the Superior Court of the State of California :-)

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#87

Post by [deleted] »

faramarz wrote: post #22

Not 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!

[deleted]

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#88

Post by bradleyland »

My advice? Get up, dust yourself off, and move on.

These scenarios might result in a deluge of support from others in your field, but for a lot of managers, this puts you on a special kind of blacklist. We can't know all the details of the circumstance, but we do know for sure that you were willing to "name & shame" the client here on HN. For some, that's enough.

Just to be clear, it definitely sounds like you got a raw deal here, but I've only heard your side of the story. Experience tells me that people who find themselves in this position are there because they cut corners (work order and statement of work), or trusted someone too early. Both of these are poor judgement calls. Take ownership of that, learn from it, and go find new clients. If you're not in a financial position to take it on the chin, file your small claims paperwork and have your day in court. I just doubt that the name & shame approach is the best thing for the future of your career as a freelancer.

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#89

Post by saurik »

tptacek wrote: post #37

I don't understand what happened here. The CEO told him to submit his invoice to legal@. Did he do that? What did their legal say? Did the company formally decline to pay the invoice? Or did he just assume he wasn't going to get paid and jump the gun? But anyways: LESSON LEARNED for startup CEOs. Here it is, it's very simple: If you want to question or slowroll an invoice, direct it to finance@, not legal@. You have…

I don't even think we have enough context to learn that lesson. I can easily see the email from the CEO having been an apology/prayer (with the understanding that it migh not have worked out), followed by not just a stern "no, seriously" but instead including a threat of legal action.

People throw these threats into all kinds I thins, whether it be something as simple as a request for a refund on a $1 purchase or a thousand dollar consulting bill. People even seem to believe that it helps: that it provides motivation to be heard.

On my end, however, the second there is a threat is the moment I cannot help you any more: I refer you to legal. If you threaten legal action, it is no longer a business decision, it is a legal one. Likewise, of I threaten legal action, it is because I've already given up on business and have already talked to a lawyer, and actually want to talk to yours.

Here, we just don't know. We have some sentences taken out of context that are designed to make this designer seem reasonable. ...but... that "I figured :)" from the CEO is, to me, really telling: it tells me that this person probably thought the designer was "over the top" in their reaction and of course would try to escalate with lynch mob...

So, in that possible context: does "talk to finance help"? If it does, I feel like it would send the wrong message: that you really are now in legal land, not in finance or business land. Again, though: just "possible context", as we don't have the entire email exchange (leading me to be stuck in "people who have reacted like this at me had these associated behaviors" world).

Re: YC S12 company refuses to pay for my design. "Send your claim to our legal team"

#90

Post by Silhouette »

smackfu wrote: post #65
consultutah wrote: post #15

The op has, hopefully, learned a valuable lesson: don't work without a signed contract. That said, the comp should have just paid or, at very least, tried to negotiate the amount thought I don't think that's worth the effort either. This is such a paltry amount as to not be worth the effort to fight.

The other lesson people may take away is don't do contract work for startups.

The thing is, this can (and sometimes does) happen with larger and better established businesses too.

A common rule of thumb in the design industry is that if the amount of fees in question isn't going to be worth going to court over, then a 50% deposit paid up-front is a reasonable request.

Post reply on HN