Clients From HellIn Fact We Have Over Fifty Shades Of It!
A client affectionately referred to as Mr. Grey:
Client: “Let’s make it pop better – maybe “darker” white or “lighter” black, somewhere in-between the two. Do they have a name for that?”
A collection of client horror stories from designers and freelancers on CFH.
A Cinderella Story
Client: “I like your design, but can we put a Cinderella picture on our flyers?”
Me: “Sorry, but Cinderella is owned by Disney…”
Client: “So?”
Me: “So using Cinderella would be copyright infringement.”
Client: “So what’s the problem?”
This Domain Is Not In Your Dominion
(The company I work for is in the business of hosting websites. I receive a call from a customer who is having trouble logging into his control panel.)
Customer: “I can’t login to my website.”
Me: “What’s your domain name?”
Customer: “[username]@yahoo.com.”
Me: “That sounds like an email address to me, not a domain.”
Customer: “That’s my dominion.”
Me: “Your domain name should be something like www.[sitename].com.”
Customer: “Right, it’s [username]@yahoo.com.”
Me: “Sir, that’s not a domain name.”
Customer: “Yes, that’s my dominion!”
Costs To Put You In The Red
Me: “Hi, this is [company]. How may I help you?”
Caller: “I am trying to print out a report. I was wondering if you could stop emailing it in color. The color ink is very expensive!”
Copyright Meets Copywrong, Part 2
Clients From Hell, Criminal & Illegal, Office Supply Store, Photo Lab, Texas, USA |
Right
| April 6, 2010
(I am creating a business card for a customer. She hands me a picture to scan to use on the card.)
Me: “Ma’am, this photo is copyrighted by whoever took it.”
Customer: “Oh, that’s okay. You can still use it.”
Me: “I’m sorry, but I can’t use it without the permission of the photographer.”
Customer: “Oh. Well, you can just cross out the copyright on the back of the picture and then use it! It’ll be okay.”
Me: “Do you have another picture you would like to use?”
(She hands me the same picture but with a piece of paper taped over the copyright on the back.)
Customer: “Here. Now you can use it.”
Me: “Ma’am, just because the copyright is covered now doesn’t mean it’s not copyrighted anymore. We could be fined $50,000 if we used this. If you can get the permission of the person who took this or another picture we can do this for you.”
Customer: “What kind of business is this?”
This story is part of the Customers-Are-Bad-Photographers roundup!
Read the next Customers-Are-Bad-Photographers roundup story!
Read the Customers-Are-Bad-Photographers roundup!