Pay Your Designers Or They Will Get Creative
A client approaches me to design an ad they want to put online for their business. They know absolutely nothing about technology, computers, and just enough about the internet to create a storefront. As a result, I go above and beyond to help explain things to them, taking a lot longer than I would with other clients, but I like to do good by them, so it wasn’t a problem.
We design the advertisement as requested, and I send it out on their social media networks and other avenues.
I send an invoice for my fee and I wait. And wait. And wait some more.
Me: *Contacting them.* “Hi, just a reminder that my invoice is a few weeks overdue. When can I expect payment?”
Client: “You’ll be paid when the ad performs well enough?”
Me: “What do you mean? I can see from my metrics that your ad-reach is quite high.”
Client: “But sales aren’t up enough!”
Me: “Be that as it may, you asked me to design an ad to your specifications, and I did. I need to be paid.”
Client: “So rude! You’ll be paid when you’ve earned it!”
The client then hung up, and didn’t answer my calls, or emails, and blocked me on social media connections.
The amount wasn’t enough to try the legal option, even a small-claims court, as the fees alone would be more than I was due.
However, later on I did realize I still had access to the ads I had designed, and it was a simple matter to make a few slight changes.
The next day I get a call from the client.
Client: “You f****** a**hole! You changed the ad!”
Me: “You don’t have an ad, since you didn’t pay for one. I’m just using the ad-space I already paid for for my own ads.”
Client: “Your ads are saying I don’t pay my employees and I am a fraud!”
Me: “Well… you didn’t pay me, so…”
Client: “Take it down!”
Me: “Pay me.”
Client: “Take it down and I will pay you!”
Me: “No. Payment first, then I’ll take it down.”
Client: “I can’t pay you right now!”
Me: “The ad stays up until I am paid.”
The client screams and hangs up. The next day:
Client: “Take it down! You changed the ad again! All my customers think everything is 50% off!”
Me: “Oh, is that what I put in the ad? I forget.”
Client: “This is defamation! I could sue you for lying about my business!”
Me: “Maybe, but I also have the matter of an unpaid bill from you, as written in our contract.”
Client: “Defamation has a larger fine than an unpaid bill!”
Me: “Yes, but you know what has the smallest bill of them all? My invoice.”
Client: “Take it down!”
Me: “Also, if you can’t scrounge together the money to pay my invoice (less than $100) then how can you pay for a lawyer?”
Client: “Take it down and I will pay you tomorrow!”
Me: “Tomorrow the ad might say something about how your company is out of business and to encourage all your customers to visit [competitor] instead.”
I was paid within the hour.
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Question of the Week
Have you ever served a bad customer who got what they deserved?
