I do photography on the side as something to keep me busy when I feel like it and do software development as my daily job. I get messaged on my personal Facebook account a week and a half before their wedding on the 4th of July weekend.

Client: “Hi! I’m getting married on July 3rd and my photographer just dropped out. I only need 2-2.5 hours from around 10 or 10:15 to 12:15 or 12:30?”

Me: “Sorry to hear that happened. I can definitely do that! I would bill just for three hours at $100, just for some leeway for shots after the wedding with family and friends. Let me know what you think.”

In my experience as I’ve done a few weddings, a little extra time never hurts.

Client: “Thank you! I will probably take it! I will let you know. Do you have some pics of your work?”

Me: “Sounds good! You are always welcome! I do! Here’s some of what I’ve done in the past year.”

I insert my (watermarked) portfolio.

Client: “Thank you! So would we do more of a 10-1 thing?”

Me: “You are welcome! Yep! That would give me enough time to get any shots you want outside of the wedding.”

No response after that. The next day:

Me: “I was just checking in to see if you are still interested in me being your wedding photographer. I wanted to scout the location of your wedding this weekend to see what I would need to bring. I also want to get in touch with the venue operators and see if there are any regulations regarding photography at their place of business. Please let me know by tomorrow, or I will assume that you have chosen someone else to do photography for your wedding. Thank you!”

Client: “Hello! I should know within the next couple of hours if we will be receiving pictures for a gift or not! I will let you know ASAP! Also, the wedding is actually at my parent’s house.”

The evening of July 2nd involved a Coors Light or two. July 3rd involved me sleeping in and enjoying my long weekend.

Client: “We’re worried that someone will steal our logo from their website. We need us to protect the logo and we’re willing to pay to have the right mouse button disabled.”

I’m a freelancer doing a website for this couple. I did the wife’s website first three years ago when she asked me to help her because her website was down, the thing is she just forgot to pay her server, charged her really low because we’re good friends. Everything was good, I gave her all her log-in details, told her to change her password, etc.

Two years ago the husband asked me to do three websites for him. The husband choose a host server that I had never heard of before, and he did it without consulting or asking advice. It was a confusing server to work with and required a lot of customization to get what he wanted. I managed to finish the websites. I remind him if there are changes required to the website then let me know first. All is good, and I am paid. Again, I charge less because we’re good friends.

For the third website, he asks me to make an “NGO” website. I make a demo on my own server to show him if he likes it. He doesn’t make any payment and I don’t hear from him for a couple of months. All of a sudden he emails me to meet because he moved his domain to another server that I never heard off, again without notifying me, so I didn’t have time to make an updated backup. There’s an error on the first website and I can’t work with the confusing host server so I tell him to find somebody else, and I will give him all the content and the old backup that I have.

He agrees and emails me to send the backup to the new web developer, which I do. He emails again asking for the demo website. I politely tell him that I did the demo and it’s there’s very little left to do, so if he wants it he has to pay: half of the full price, because who would just give something they did for countless hours for free so their new web developer can just upload it to their server and get paid?

He finds my rate too high apparently, so he starts asking “didn’t I get paid already per hour?”. Just to be clear, the first two websites were paid for the whole website. I politely tell him that he was not paying me for the hour but he’s insisting on how much should I charge per hour. I again reply that I don’t charge per hour but charge for the whole website.

Then, he asks me if I’m paying taxes. I don’t reply because I have no obligation to tell people – even clients – regarding my personal finances, etc. He emails me again insisting to answer him so can I come up with what he considers a “lump sum” of money but only if he knows who is paying taxes. I still do not reply.

Then here comes the threat: If I don’t want to answer him, I will answer one way or another because he will report me for tax fraud; seems like extortion to get my demo for free. I block him and his wife on social media, and all of a sudden the wife’s website is down. Instead of emailing me her issue, she goes on Facebook and accuses me and my boyfriend of blocking her website. Like I’m really gonna waste my time anymore on their websites?

And BTW, if your website is down why don’t you contact your host provider first, maybe you forgot to pay again…

Client: “I would like if you could scan about 400 old 35mm films with pictures from my vacations back in the ’80s, and put them on an external SSD.”

Me: “Sure, that can be done.”

Client: “Great. Could you also write the dates and locations on each photo? Like it is on my iPhone?”

Me: “Yeah… about that…”

I did not build this client’s website. They were transferred to me for ongoing maintenance. 

Client: “Can you fix the spacing issues on the homepage?”

Me: “Sure, no problem.”

I fixed the issues and sent an invoice for thirty minutes of work plus WordPress plugin updates. 

Client: “Were those spacing issues always there from launch? If so, why should we have to pay to fix them?”

Me: “I assume they have always been there. I don’t know why they weren’t fixed before. I did not build the website.”

Client: “I don’t think we should have to pay for that, so can you remove it from the invoice?”

Me: “Sure.” *Thinking.* “…if you get off the f****** phone with me and stop wasting my time, I’ll credit you the f******* $$!”

I essentially just paid a client to leave me alone.