non-paying clients

[lawrie]

i've been self-employed for about five years and i've always had a fairly good nose for potential clients who are absolutely full of it and never intend to pay. i've still had a few scrapes, but i've always managed to get there in the end and thankfully a lot of my clients are government or government-affiliated, so there's no problems with their cheques bouncing :rolleyes:

recently, however, i've run into problems with a long-term client. they were one of my first clients when i started out, they've always been happy with my work, and they always paid my invoices there and then.

the trouble appears to have started since they got a new secretary; quite aside from the fact that she apparently has the iq of a breadstick (she ranted at me for 15 minutes saying the website wasn't working - what she meant was, ' i can't get onto the internet'), she's horrendously obtuse and says i'm 'not on the list' of cheques to be paid out. i know for a fact that their business isn't flailing, and that 20% of one of their smallest jobs would pay for the work i've done, but their invoice is almost three months old. i've sent two reminders and still had nothing back. i know this is the perfect time to chide me about contracts, but i never thought i'd have to write a contract for a regular client who always paid on time.

i do have complete control of their domain name and their hosting, and a couple of people have suggested either taking it all offline or putting up an 'account suspended for non-payment' page. i do think that both suggestions seem fairly harsh, and may prompt them to not pay at all, ever.

does anybody have any suggestions? i'd be most grateful.

lawrie

[fvillena]

I would avoid removing the site or placing an account suspended style sign on their website as this would definitely be a last response and could sour future relations.

It looks like you may need to bypass the secretary in order to seek payment and you could also advise them that payment will need to be received before any new work can commence if they look for changes in the interim.

[lawrie]

that was exactly my thinking regarding the account suspension. the only problem is that they almost never have updates; the rebilling is just annually for the domain and hosting.

as it happens, their invoice did include the previous year's domain registration and hosting, plus an extra charge for setting up their email service. this is all done from another hosting company and i'm being charged; i simply pass on the charge plus administration. so they're not just late on paying for the redesign, they're not actually paying for the hosting that has effectively comer out of my pocket :mad:

[fvillena]

Unless you don't want the client to know you use a third party hosting company you could advise them that the situation is that you pay for their hosting to the third party company as and when you receive their cheque and as they haven't paid for the previous year the third party is threatening to suspend their email service.

From my own experience no matter what happens about a website people are very touchy about email.

Sorry not really offering any great insight here, hope it works out for you

[lawrie]

you know, that's actually a very very good idea.

thank you!