When a Client is not paying?

[Dajo]

Hi Everyone!
Ok heres my dilemma, I have a client I spent the last month working on a project for her. It took this long mainly because she is the kind of person who only checked her email every 2 weeks or so, and she is about 7 hours away from me and everything has been done online. After many revisions we came to an agreement on the project and was finished. I have been invoicing her through paypal and have sent 7 reminders! and I have not heard anything from her. As of now I am asking for 50% up front for my services I guess. I would like to know if anyone else has had to deal with this kind of situation and what they did about it. any suggestions and/or help would be greatly appreciated. I need this money, my finances are lowering quickly. Thank you!

[Toon]

I never release files until I'm paid

[Dajo]

true dat, I have only sent a low res watermarked Jpeg of the file. so I guess Im really just in waiting.

[deviouslydigital]

toons right, never send withuot being paid!

[PR Design]

Contract. Always a winner. And make sure there is a clause about invoice payment and credit terms in there.

[Cwilk]

I just went through this very thing. If you have to, threaten with small claims. And don't back down. If you bug the client enough like I did you may just get paid. Also, make sure you have paperwork/contracts and everything you need for backup. Another recommendation is to call an attorney and pay the small fee for typing a letter to that client. It's sure to scare them enough into paying you. And it doesn't matter if they didn't get the final files yet. You still did the work.

Hope that helps.

[deviouslydigital]

thats a good idea, but why would you need a letter to be sent to them, surely just threatining to would be enough?

[brokendalek]

Originally Posted by deviouslydigital

thats a good idea, but why would you need a letter to be sent to them, surely just threatining to would be enough?

Some people need a little more firm nudge in the right direction

[Toon]

send in the boys

I had something similar happen to me recently, where I created some website graphics and then got asked to email them on to a developer (this was a mistake, as I should have asked of the money first). I handed the invoice in to a receptionist personally and then never heard anything.

It took about 2.5 months to get the client to pay and it ended up where I was ringing him every other day. I found with this client the constant hounding of him eventually broke him down and I got paid. I think speaking to someone on the phone has more of an impact than an email.

A good line to use is, "I can be round in 30 minutes to pick the cheque up if you like"
I suppose if it's done over a long distance you can't always use this line, but it's a good way of putting them on the spot.

Don't forget you've done the work, that money is rightfully yours !