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Ask HN: Freelancer's Dilemma – Client Won't Pay Despite Clear Agreement
94 points by alexliu518 4 months ago | hide | past | favorite | 142 comments
Hi HN,

I'm a freelancer working on various software development projects through different platforms. Recently, I completed a significant project for a client outside of these platforms, and they're now refusing to pay the final invoice. Despite having a clear written agreement and delivering everything as agreed, they're ignoring my emails and calls.

Has anyone here faced a similar situation? How did you handle it? Any advice on legal actions, or ways to secure payment upfront in future projects? Appreciate any tips or resources that could help!

Thanks in advance!




In addition to the advice that's given here, make sure you detach yourself from both the process and the outcome as soon as possible.

After you had your lawyer send them an angry letter (twice) and you haven't got your money after two months, you need to emotionally accept that the money is likely gone, and make sure that you are mentally capable of focusing on ensuring your financial stability.

Either set an automated mail to remind them what they owe if it's a small amount of money (i.e. less than 5k) and if it's more ask your lawyer if they or someone they know can handle the case on a fixed price basis.

And then move on. Non paying clients absolutely suck. I haven't had one that didn't pay at all (though some very late payers), but I've had friends tell stories and it can wreck your freelance experience. If you let them get to you then you'll lose the feeling of freedom and all advantages of freelancing. Accept that it's part of the game and account for it in your financial planning. If you don't the stress will eventually kill all enjoyment of being a freelancer.

(Btw, I don't mean give up. Just dissociate from the outcome. If the only fee your lawyer would take is 100%, still do it to f with the lousy client.)


I've recently dealt with this over a 8 month period, and it was mentally exhausting. I wish I would’ve just accepted the money to be lost, and let a lawyer deal with it, but instead spend 8 frustrating months trying to deal with it.

In the end I lost far more money than just what my client owed me. For months I couldn’t focus on work, and just wasn’t mentally able to find new clients.


I think, even if you pass it over to a small claims process, setting timelines helps here.

For example, send a demand letter with a response time. Typical is to give a couple of weeks or some such.

Then set an alarm in your phone's calendar and drop it from mind.

Treat it as any other deliverable. And if you can do small claims court, even better. Typically no lawyers allowed, amd again, you file and serve, then set a calendar.


“No lawyers allowed” isn’t likely to be the case if you sue a corporation or other business association, which by law in my state at least may not be represented by an individual unless that individual is an attorney.

That being said I have not sued a corporation in small claims court so I’m not really sure who would show up.


At least for me, the worrying would never stop. Even when I send letters with clear deliverables and timelines, I would just find myself worrying and getting angry over the whole situation.

The only time it stopped was after about 7 months, when we finally signed a settlement agreement. But then it all started again when no payment came in.

I’m not sure how the other party felt about all this, but to be on the receiving end of it all is horrible, and maybe just accepting the money is lost would’ve been better in the end.


In Russia, if it is a foreign client, the OP would have been fined by the government for the amount that the client owes him, now that the OP publicly admitted the non-payment. This is done because there was a tax evasion scheme based on allegedly-unpaid invoices from foreign "customers". So it is already 300% of losses (100% due to the unpaid debt plus 100% from the fine plus 100% from the lawyer).


> tax evasion scheme based on allegedly-unpaid invoices from foreign "customers".

Care to elaborate?


Maybe you can deduct unpaid invoices from your business income. Get enough of those and you don't owe any taxes. And if the government tries to figure out why your client isn't paying, they can't because they're foreign.


In Russia, they'd be using an offshore entity for billing anyway :)


[flagged]


They actually gas the hostages.


In the UK that would be very simple. Send statutory demand, let's say give 21 days to pay and tell the company if they don't you'll file a winding-up petition to the court (basically if company can't pay its debts it will be closed).

Usually then company pays straight away.


I've had this too.

Be pragmatic and move on (mentally), and don't make it personal nor seek revenge. I'm sure it would be tempting to make them suffer like you have, but if doing so will make you worse off then you already are (be it financially or emotionally), what's the point.

Accept the base line outcome is zero, don't make it less than that and anything extra is a bonus.


Persue it, dispassionately but persue it, not for revenge but for the good of everyone else including your own future self.

It is not long term thinking to to just absorb such things in my opinion. It must cost the perpetrator enough that the most selfish unprincipled business animal decides that even for purely selfish reasons, they gain the most by avoiding triggering such suits.

It's a duty.


>you need to emotionally accept that the money is likely gone, and make sure that you are mentally capable of focusing on ensuring your financial stability.

Good advice.

And also understand that it's possible they can't pay. That's not an excuse, and doesn't mean you shouldn't pursue restitution. But the reality is: shit happens.


Absolutely this.


Yes, I have handled a situation like that once, in which the client refused to pay and cut off all communication. It was a remote cross-border gig, and there was no way I could afford a lawyer in the client's country.

After struggling with the problem for a few weeks, I located a debt-collection company, and decided to offer the debt to them, and all related documentation, so they could collect it for themselves. I then informed the client of my intentions via email. I said: I'm never going to see this money, but neither are you.

They got back to me within a couple of hours, and paid before the end of the week.


Honestly, that's the way to do it. Let them know that you'll sell the debt to someone that is able to screw up their credit.


So annoying that it had to get to that. I hate people who do this, scum of the earth.

Glad you got your money back


Umm, which part of the world and are they legally grey or white?


As a palette cleanser and loin girder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U (You already guessed it was Mike Monteiro.)

For this project:

Did they refuse to pay actively ("We won't pay you."), or passively (No replies to emails.) The latter might be incompetence.

As others mentioned, specific legal advice depends on respective jurisdictions, but an offical lawyer's letter sometimes wakes up legal when accounting is drifting.

Did you deliver the final access to the code / server / credentials? If not, gently bring servers, DBs, platforms to a halt pending final payments.

Future projects:

Contract, always.

Up-front commencement payments, always.

Price yourself higher in the initial quote, and ask for staged payments, such that by the time your delivery schedule is 50-75% done you are 100% paid.

You control the source code accounts, you control the server credentials, you control the database access credentials, you hand over final access after the final check has cleared.


> Price yourself higher in the initial quote, and ask for staged payments, such that by the time your delivery schedule is 50-75% done you are 100% paid.

Related to this, another technique I've seen used:

* Figure out whatever price you want to quote

* Add 25% to that.

* In the formal quote, show the 125% price and a 20% discount for timely payment of your invoices (however you define that in the contract, maybe 30 or 90 days).

* The final bottom line price is the original price from the first bullet point.

When the client "forgets" to pay, you draw their attention to the terms of the discount and that, without the discount, they will owe 25% more.


Absolutely.

FU Pay me.

A polite email to the Finance director, or CEO ought to do the trick, and wait a week or two, warning them about the consequences of non-payment and interest on the debt.

Then after the time limit has passed pop down to your local court house to file a small claim or a winding up order if your client is local. You could also sell the debt to a third party. Then it's their problem.


> warning them about the consequences of non-payment and interest on the debt.

You cannot simply add in these penalties though, not suggesting you are implying that.

However any such clauses / penalties need to be clearly laid out in the initial contract, and the contract also needs to be legally enforceable. Always check with the relevant jurisdiction what acceptable penalties are, and get a lawyer.


It depends where you are. In the UK you can add interest to outstanding debt.


> As a palette cleanser and loin girder: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U

An absolute classic. Well worth the hour or so to watch.


Every attorney adds the maximum-legally-accruable interest rate to every invoice they issue and retainer agreement they execute. You should too.


It's a good video, but I think some people may miss the point.

You SHOULD be working with a good lawyer ahead of time. You should NOT be regularly suing your clients. Actually suing is expensive, time-consuming, and painful.

You should have a solid, enforceable contract set up ahead of time that you require new clients to sign, and get your lawyer involved if they want to change anything. The contract should ensure that you are within your rights to stop work and take away things they want if they aren't paying on time. If you do it right, you have a smooth and easy escalation path for non-payment, they're the ones who find themselves in a bad situation and have the option of either trying to sue you or just pay you the originally-agreed-upon amount.

I'm not a lawyer or your lawyer and don't even know what jurisdiction anyone is in, so don't do anything without consulting one. But the idea is something like, you only transfer control of servers and services to the customer upon being paid in full, no exceptions, and if they are behind on payment by some particular time and amount, you are explicitly within your rights to shut down services or block their access until such time as their account is paid up.

It's interesting how a good contract is kind of like a good program. The happy case is only like 20% of the work, the other 80% of the code or contract is all about detailing every possible way the happy case could go wrong and exactly what happens when each particular way of going wrong happens.


Back in my freelance days I had a client who refused to pay. I took him to small claims court and won. Actually collected the money.

- small claims court is very easy and relatively quick. no need for a lawyer.

- there is a cap on the amount, so I won $10k, not the full amount owed. But close enough and much better than $0.

- make every reasonable attempt to resolve this prior to filing but, as stated throughout this thread, do not stress yourself out. This should be a fire-and-forget process. Consider the money lost, and if you win, it's just bonus.


> Consider the money lost, and if you win, it's just bonus.

I think this is the most important part of the advice. Treat it like a gambling budget that you can lose without feeling bad about it. I know that’s harder to do retroactively than setting aside $200 in chips to play cards, but start adjusting your finances now for that possibility.

I was in this position only once and the person who ripped me off got away with it because the amount of my time spent was small enough that it wasn’t worth pursuing, so I’m not a great example of success in this area. But I’m still mad about the fact that I was treated that way and switching to an “it’s gone” mindset helped me process my emotions about it. My anger is now principled rather than emotional.


If you can do small claims, you should. I have won and lost in small claims, but it's very simple. A matter of filling out some paperwork and an hour or two (unusual) in court.


Simply winning at Small Claims Court does not guarantee you win money. Often collecting the money is difficult, impossible, or too expensive.


It depends on the scenario. I had an issue with a notorious tow service in my city, won a few thousand dollars, and placed a lien on one of his trucks. After a diligent search, the only truck I could absolutely identity was a $150k recovery vehicle that printed money for him.

When we showed up with his competitor to tow his truck, he appeared with an envelope containing the full judgement in cash.

The guy was such an asshole, I would have gladly spent a few thousand dollars just to inflict pain and disruption upon him.


As a counter example, San Diego County Sheriff charges $2500 to levy a vehicle[1] - and I'm certain there's more fees involved since there will be a title involved somewhere, possibly a bank/lienholder, etc.

So if you were owed a couple thousand, this would not be worth paying to enforce. Unless you're made of money and highly principled (as a fellow pot-stirrer, my hat would be off to you).

[1] https://www.sdsheriff.gov/bureaus/court-services-bureau/civi...


Totally get it… ymmv! This was several years ago, but where I lived the cost was around $500, plus a 5% fee on the sale.

It cost me only the $500 because they had a change of heart when the hook arrived. I was really disappointed, selling the vehicle would’ve been very satisfying.


I assume in most jurisdictions reasonable enforcement costs would just be added on top of the debt, so that’s not really a problem.


You'd be wrong in small claims court. You'd have to go back and sue again for those damages once realized.


That's essentially what it costs to have the police do the work for you, not what it costs to have the work done in general.


Judgement or not, you will not be able to tow away someone else's vehicle without having the police involved.

This is the process. Small Claims, by nature, is for petty disputes between citizens.


Perhaps append "in California" or whatever jurisdiction you are in.

These are local and state matters: some states respect private property and contractual arrangements more diligently than others.


I don't know of any state or jurisdiction where you would be legally allowed to just show up and tow away someone's property without involving law enforcement in some capacity.


Ignoring a court order to pay is a little more serious than ignoring an invoice. The latter is a civil claim, I would guess the former might be criminal.


Enforcement of Small Claims decisions are very often left up to you... and by virtue of being Small Claims, often are not worth the cost to collect anyway.


Check your state laws. Here, there are a variety of liens available to enforce a small claims judgement. While foreclosing a real-estate lien requires an attorney, the process begins with a debtor's examination. Being called in to court to explain your finances convinces many people to pay up.


So what's the point of it then? If ignoring the order is not criminal, I'd think at least it opens you up to having a lien filed on your assets or something?


That's a really good question...

Say the landscaping contractor screws up your yard, and you want a refund of the $2500 you paid. They refuse so you take them to Small Claims.

Let's say you win... what happens next? Usually nothing. You have a judgement you can rightfully enforce, but every path of enforcement is going to cost you more time and more money (wage garnishment, etc).

For such a relatively small amount of money, it can quickly become not worth while to collect.

For your county, you can look up what your local Sheriff Office charges to provide these services. Fees vary by location. Fees tend to stack as you have to file paperwork with multiple entities, etc. This all takes a lot of time as well, and you are not going to recover any of the enforcement expenses either.

The math is different in each situation - but you can see where it can often become not worth enforcement.


Collection costs would be added to what the person owes, I would think. In the OP's case at least, I'd ask the judge to include that in the judgement, given that the customer has already demonstrated a reluctance to pay.


You would have to sue again, in small claims court, for recovery of the fees.

The court will not preemptively award estimated collection fees since you have not yet been burdened by them and they are unknown. It's not like a regular civil case where attorney's fees are known by time you are receiving judgement.


It's an open and shut case to get a judgement in your favor on recovery of the fees. Just anticipate two small claims court appearances (or maybe recursive appearances if they don't pay the recovery fees) and it will be fine. Eventually they will just pay.


You're still missing the part where you win the judgement but now need to spend more money and time to attempt to collect. It's circular...


Are you close to them? I hired someone (a friend) to go to their office and present the invoice in person. They told him that the finance guy was out, so he said, “I’ll wait” and he made himself comfortable in a chair. They paid him the full amount around 10 minutes later.

YMMV!

You could probably turn it over to a professional collection company as well.


This can be a shockingly effective tactic. Some years back a small business failed to pay me my final check after letting me go. After a few weeks of calls that were not returned, I just went to their office and said I wasn't leaving til I talked to someone with authority to resolve the situation.

15 minutes later one of the co-owners wrote me a personal check for what I was owed. It's far easier to ignore a voicemail than a person standing in front of you.


It's also really easy to ask someone to leave your office. Just because you're owed money doesn't mean you can trespass.


They can ask me to leave, and I can say I'm not leaving til I'm paid. At that point they have a choice. They can call the police and have me trespassed, or they can deal with the problem and be done with it.

They likely would be successful in having me removed from the property at that time. And they would have given me some very good ammo to use in the resulting legal action, as at that point they would have made it clear that they are not willing to resolve the situation without being forced to by someone outside themselves. I certainly didn't want to deal with suing them and they certainly didn't want to deal with being sued...the business had a lot of other problems at the time.

Turning it from email/message/phone contact to in-person is an escalation. The other party can choose to reply with further escalation, or they can recognize doing so may result in further escalation. The other party has to decide if further escalation is worth it, and their ability to eventually fully "win" is part of that.

In my example, they were clearly in the wrong and they knew it. Escalating was not worth it because I could respond with further escalation that they would not likely win.


Depends how much money. Trespassing you off the property and making you have to go through all of the effort and expenses to win a judgment, only to be unable to collect without more effort and fees, is very unlikely to come out in your favor majority of the time.


It's unlikely to come out in the business' favor either. Turning the conflict into a lawsuit will increase costs for both sides, and may significantly eclipse the amount in dispute.

For a large corporation with a substantial legal team, that might make sense for many situations...they've already paid a baseline cost for the capability of near-continuous engagement with litigation of some kind. For many small/medium businesses, it can be a large additional cost. Then it becomes a question of "am I so willing to screw this person I owe money to, that I am willing to screw myself in the process?"

Showing up in person is a way of indicating you're willing to make it complicated and/or expensive to make you go away.


I still don't think people are appreciating the issue.

Let's say the business trespasses you. Now that's on your record. You take them to small claims court and win - but now need to spend more money and more time to collect any money from this business.

Let's say you finally collect, but incurred additional costs and lost much time during that process. How do you recoup those costs? Back to small claims court... it's circular, and the business can just drag their feet along the way.


You're ignoring the increasing costs the business will also incur by continuing to refuse to pay. Again, for large businesses, it may be possible for them to absorb this additional load with no issue. For quite a few small and medium businesses, this extra load can't be easily absorbed.

Keep in mind you don't have to actually have any intent of suing them when you show up. You can treat it like a poker bluff. It creates the impression you might go all the way, and that's often enough to change the business' perception of the costs and risks.


Very direct and efficient processing method


First, check into who owns the code. With most Work for Hire agreements in the US, the client owns the code.. it may be squishy/unclear on when that ownership occurs. When I still consulted regularly, I had a lawyer note that ownership is not transferred until all invoices are cleared. It was never challenged in court but gave me some leverage.

Second, understand where the code/system currently is. If it's on your server (defined as a server you own or rent), you have different options than if it's on their server.

If it's your server - unless you have a commitment to continue providing the service - you may be able to shut it off immediately.

If they have granted you access to their server for the "duration of the project", you may be able to make the argument that the project isn't over yet and do things.. but speak to an attorney.

Either way, if this is a mission critical app for them, disrupting their business can cause other difficulties for you that you don't want.

Collect the information you have - agreements, records of payments, commitments (written are best, verbal are usually worthless), and ownership - and speak to an attorney. In the US, many lawyers will speak with you for 30 minutes for free as they evaluate your case and lay out options.


> With most Work for Hire agreements in the US, the client owns the code..

I think you have this backwards. By default the creator owns the code. (unless you agree in writing otherwise) Some exceptions I am aware of (IANAL) is if you are an employee, then the employer owns the code by default.

Under the "work for hire" clause, I think (?) that if you are commissioned for the work as an individual, you should have the copyright by default but may not have the copyright based on agreements made. But if you are commissioned as a business entity, your business entity would own the copyright. (again, unless explicitly agreed otherwise)

If someone else can chime here, as I may be wrong on this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Work_for_hire


That's true of code developed in the absence of a working agreement. What GP meant, I assume, was that in _most_ cases, when you freelance or contract with a business with a MSA or other contract, that contract is going to specify that the work performed is WFH. Default ownership of copyright and code doesn't apply in this case.

But, if for some reason the agreement didn't specifically note the work performed as WFH then yes, the developer still owns the copyright to code they worked on. Where it gets muddy as hell is when you work with a team, some of whom may be other contractors and some of whom may be employees of the client.


I have signed a number of work agreements when being hired by a number of US companies.

They all clearly state that I transfer all rights, including the copyright, to the company. But it only applies to the code I write using company's technical means, or otherwise as a part of doing my job.

(Hence I keep any private stuff on my own laptop, never on company's.)


What country/state are you from, what country state is your client from and how much money are we talking about? In the US there is a fairly straightforward process to sue someone in small claims court without a lawyer and with fairly small fees. But small claims courts are limited to small awards.

I have not worked as a freelance programmer nor hired any, but a friend really likes to hire freelancers for various projects and often asks me for advice and tells me about his travails. I think practically speaking, it is not that hard for a freelancer to get paid because software always needs upkeep for bugfixes or updates to work with other software or to add new features. And it is far far far more expensive to have a second freelancer look at the first freelancers code and do the updates.

Some people say it takes more time to read code than to write it. I am not sure if that is true but very often if you ask a second freelancer to do minor updates on another freelancers code, the second guy will just say that the code is so awful the whole thing has to be rewritten from scratch. So you have a big advantage just by having written the stuff and having the code in your head and written in your style. You are the best man to fix it and update it by far.

My friend always pays his bills but he is a very tough negotiator, and often gets comparatively good bargains for freelance work. However, all the benefits of his bargains disappear when he needs the software to be changed a bit in six months or so. Then the freelancer is in the drivers seat and my friend completely drops his tough negotiator stance and becomes super nice and friendly towards the freelancer.

So if you do not want to pay for lawyers and small claims court is not suitable for some reason, you may just send a demand letter saying that you are charging a 20% penalty for non-payment and interest will accrue in the future, and just wait for your client to need some update and then you demand that all previous invoices be satisfied before discussion for new work even begins.

IANAL, this is not legal advice. If the sum is a large amount, it would probably be best to consult a lawyer.


Some good advice in here but one note of caution: you mention that you work through different platforms, and that you completed this project "outside of these platforms". It is fairly common for these platforms to require you to agree to terms that prohibit you from working directly with clients that you initially connected with on the platform. If you met this client on a platform like that and then violated your agreement with the platform, then you may have some legal exposure there, possibly including exposure that your client could leverage in a negotiation or legal proceeding.

More generally, this kind of situation demonstrates that these platforms do in fact provide value to the parties involved. So if you're a freelancer and you're considering working directly with clients, be aware of the risk of non-payment.


A real world court would not give a damn about that, because it doesn't have any relevance to the case at all. At worst, OP and his debtors could be kicked from that platform.


From what I've heard, most of those sites side automatically with the customer giving you rights similar to a merchant in a credit card transaction, or really a bit less since that might be all the leverage they actually have and they don't really want to spend their income trying to arbitrate and lose customers who may pay next time.


Look into invoice factoring services. You sell your invoices to them and get paid upfront. They get a % of your invoice and/or a small processing fee.

Ideally you want a non-recourse factoring agreement (the one where the factoring company takes most of the risk of non-payment), but it might be difficult to get. It helps if you can show that your previous clients paid on time. But then again the freelancing platforms handled that for you.

In any case, it's worth asking around. Have your lawyer review the factoring terms before you agree to anything.


Amen!

Fortunately I only had this problem once, and for me, the way to resolve it was first, with the client. Nagging, explaining to them that if they do not pay, I will sell their invoice to a invoice collection agency, that, if they choose not to pay will affect their credit rating and reputation blah, blah.

The trick is to do this in a serious way, but not overly confrontational and to be clear that all it takes for them is to pay the invoice.

After 6 months of this dance, I said, enough is enough, and initiated the procedure of finding an agency, and then, lo and behold, they paid.

In retrospect I should not have waited 6 months, but your learn with experience. =)


I'm 100% freelance -- my engagements tend to be monthly retainer or monthly invoices, and whenever possible I try to avoid contracts because there's simply no way on Earth an unpaid invoice for max 30 days of work would exceed the costs of taking somebody to court (and actually collecting the money) if they don't pay. Not to mention that somebody who refuses to pay for a month isn't going to willingly pay out the remainder of a broken contract.

My clientele is found mostly word of mouth, people I actually know (or have worked with in the past in a W2/corporate environment). I find the most success working with digital agencies and small businesses because they both have strong incentives to pay well (and pay on time).

I treat the work I do as service, rather than something more impersonal (strict deliverables, generic staff augmentation, etc) -- at the end of the day, my role is to help them solve real, immediate problems for their business by being patient, present, cheerful and competent help.

In the unlikely event of a client relationship souring, I just let it go. Chalk it up to the game, use it as fuel for bigger and better things, whatever. I guess I can only do that because I keep everything piecemeal, bite-sized, running in tandem to each other, and have many pans in the fire at any given time.

Anyways, apologies for the tangential rant -- other commenters have offered very effective and actionable advice for your particular situation. I figured I'd just chime in on how I've managed to avoid the situation most of the time.


Would love it if you can share rates & how much time you spend on billable hours vs how much time you spend managing your practice & hustling. Also, if you're specialized in any niche areas?

I'm in early stages of exploring a similar thing. I'm willing to take a pay-cut for increased flexibility and time off. I've got a stupid-high big-tech comp package at this point, so I'm expecting pay cut to be significant. I'm just not sure how significant. I'm also unclear on how specialized/niche I would need to be, or if there's a market for "highly experienced generalists".


Ha, so I need to say up front that YMMV, and I'm probably not the model you'd end up settling on if you're a sane person.. but I'll give you a solid overview of my deal.

I typically charge $100-$150 an hour, as well as fixed fee when appropriate -- depends on the scope of project, how many (repeating) hours they're willing to toss me, etc. I'll accept lower rates for more hours / longer projects. I'll charge higher rates for emergencies and really off the wall stuff.

My skillset is highly-experienced generalist (25+ years professional experience) in a wide variety of areas, to the extent that I break the ice with "I do computer" if anybody asks (to make them laugh and also get a feel for what they want to know / what areas I should talk about). Most clients are looking for incredibly specific things, so they're not shopping for a generalist, just somebody who can accomplish their (usually very) particular task. That gets your foot in the door, and they'll often just keep bringing you more things to do for them since the pipeline is so short.

My actual, tangible experience ranges from front end and back end development (in many languages / stacks / platforms), native mobile development (Swift / Kotlin / React Native), API development, dev ops, database architecture and administration, UX/UI, e-commerce, graphic design (identity / branding, web/digital, print, apparel, packaging), 3D / CAD modeling, sound and audio design, etc.

I can conceive, design, implement, launch and administer an entire concept from end to end (although, one-man bands are rarely the right solution, very little of significance in this world actually gets done by a single person in a vacuum)

Currently, my clients range from:

- agency work (staff-aug front end development on specific websites for their clients)

- graphic design (digital assets + apparel + miscellaneous for record labels)

- building and/or managing websites for small businesses + music industry (Squarespace + Shopify + Wordpress, including custom admin panels, tools, and integrations into their day to day business + 3rd party SaaS tools)

- built, maintaining and extending a couple of large, custom websites in the university and auto industry spaces (ex. one is a platform that external vendors use to enter and move purchase orders around, that kind of thing)

I can usually slot into most anything and produce quickly, just because I've ended up working on something similar in the past.

I'm based in the Midwest (USA) and am a solo practitioner -- and, FWIW, in my early 40's with a wife and kid; important to note, since it's easy to dismiss all of this as youthful foolishness -- I don't operate like some contractors do, who win the work and manage projects while farming out to 1099 contractors to actually do the work. As I mentioned in my original post, I like the small business / service model, ideally working with clients to whom I'm already a known quantity (from previous gigs, word of mouth, or working together in the same organization in the past) because it lends itself well to the "small retainer" concept -- these types of businesses typically just need prompt, competent help when fires flare up. Some weeks, months even, you never hear from them, so if you can have a bunch of small retainers (whatever, 4h or 8h a month) running side by side, and you're always around to help them out (you're "their guy"), it's a drop in the bucket for them to pay that out over the course of a year rather than have an emergency and spend 10x in time and money attempting to find and engage with somebody who is willing to help them when they need it (or god forbid a small agency, with a 2-month client onboarding, 12-month-minimum retainer, 6-person team to manage your requests)

Get enough of that lined up and it creates a predictable "base" income stream, and then if you can find a series of more transient clients that come and go (3 months at 30 hours a week before they disappear for a while, then you can give a different one 20-30 hours a week until that craps out, etc) that's more of the variable income that layers on top.

Note that I don't charge beyond the small retainer unless they're bringing me enough requests consistently to warrant it -- as in, if 3 months go by and it's been just little ones-and-twos updates, when big shit hits the fan I just take care of the problem regardless of how long it takes, and life goes on. For the strict hours-based clients, I charge whatever they're asking me to do. More work? More hours. For fixed fee, I feel like that's pretty much my fault if it spirals out of control, and I just suck it up and eat the loss, especially if there's no likely probability of getting them to agree to increase the fixed fee.

All of this means that, of course, some weeks are insane, while others are dead. I don't actually do very much weekend work, but I'm always available to communicate with (and willing to jump in) when it's warranted. Some industries like music/entertainment are 24/7, so tour websites, digital assets, campaigns surrounding releases, sometimes that stuff needs immediate attention, and I work with people and teams in timezones ranging from LA to London (and in-between). I've even got a client based both in Germany and Kenya as well, so you can imagine the asynchronous, out-of-time communication that sometimes goes on.

To fully answer your question about time management, now that I've got a solid workload set up, 99% of my time is billable hours. I have to hustle (biz dev) if/when the work starts to dissipate, I have some weekly and monthly obligations for time reporting and invoicing, but generally it's just solving problems and building things most days of most weeks of the year (this is by design). But again, I'm just one dude, doing this by myself -- if I was subcontracting, hunting for (and responding to) RFPs, doing cold client outreach, that would really eat into my availability and reduce profitability. I also occasionally get brought something that requires a POV / MVP / formal pitch, and those can waste quite a bit of time if I end up not getting the project. That's just how it goes sometimes.

It's also important to point out that my actual scenario is impossible to reproduce -- you only know who you know, I tend to trade off of my personality and charisma, I really love what I do, I have a very high tolerance for risk, I'm self-motivated and disgustingly optimistic (read: completely delusional), and ultimately I'm just out here trying to make cool shit with cool people, help people navigate the minefield of modern technology, and most importantly, have a lot of fun doing it.

I also am friends with people who approach this whole thing from the complete opposite direction -- where I'm flying by the seat of my pants and just stoked to have opportunities to get in there and get my hands dirty, they're far more analytical about it as a real business, with boundaries, rather than purely as an undeniable passion and vocation.

Anyways, good luck on your journey if you decide to take the leap!


> have many pans in the fire at any given time

Yeah, this is key. The emotional equivalent of fuck-you money.


Can you put a licence fee checker into the code?

I’ve quietly released license enforcement into a client’s system before. They paid up very quickly.

“Your licence has expired. Please contact xxxx for a new license”


This should be higher. The default shouldn't be a system that works perfectly indefinitely.


just let it go and move on... don't let the negative energy eat you up, it's just not worth it.

i was screwed out of over 6 months of pay north of $50k. i wasn't keep tabs on the payments and i wasn't keeping detailed records of my work. both things i no longer let slide in any way. i spoke to many people and lawyers, but decided to move on and let it go.

in the end how much money and time and energy do you want to spend on another lousy human being or entity? it only hurts you emotionally and takes up valuable time to focus on more productive things. ten years later it's a blip in my life that forced me to learn and be better about picking clients and billing, etc. don't let the 10% ruin your work with the other 90%.


I'm sorry you lost your money but that's really bad advice. The proper solution was given below: send a letter (real, snailmail) demanding payment within 14 days or the debt will be passed to a debt collection agency.

If there's no response just do that. If you have a good paper trail you can get half your money from them and then forget about it. Plus you have the happy knowledge that the collection agency don't take no for an answer and will literally turn up at their office with a warrant and start taking equipment out to cover the debt.

Edit: I just noticed you said you didn't have a good paper trail. Well, an expensive lesson but I'm sure it's one well learned! :)


The best advice in this common mal practice is setting as base law court your jurisdiction; the farer the better.

For instance, I am in Spain and I always signed contracts based in California, etc. Badly done! Next time I will set Madrid, Spain courts as ruling law.

This way you can sue the ass off them and make them pay the money in debt and even some more to the courts.

edit: typo


Unfortunately that will probably not do you much good. If the company is based outside of Spain all the Spanish courts can do is take their assets located in Spain which is probably nothing.


Spain is a bad example, but lots of countries have bilateral legal arrangements for this sort of thing.


As Spain is part of the EU, it should at least be good for the EU.


All assets in the EU now and for the next 1000 years.


That's an interesting statutes of limitations. 1000 years. That will outlast all governments in Europe if the past is any indicator.


It's just convenient to measure things in Reichs...

(I need a less controversial sense of humour. I should run it through chatgpt first.)

Edit: ran it through Google Gemini. Wow, I suck!

"The response "It's just convenient to measure things in Reichs.." is highly inappropriate and offensive."

Sorry my AI friends!


Doesn't that make it easier for a California company to just ignore you?


No it just means that they need to appear in your courts via a local law firm if they want to contest.

This is good advice.


Or they can just totally ignore the lawsuit with absolutely no repercussions.


An example from my experience.

Due to one of these civil law agreements.

We attained an enforceable undertaking based on the contract here.

Then we began proceedings to convert that to whatever the same thing was over there.

Which is when the other parties legal representation decided that it was a real threat and they settled.


How will the Spanish court enforce their decision abroad? I know there are agreements between te countries, but what happens practically after a decision? Who gets activated in the US to enforce the decision?


Most courts will see a contract from anywhere and enforce it (Super Generally)

Most courts will see a contract + an enforceable undertaking from the country whose laws it was signed under and see that as roughly enforceable.

Doesnt mean always.


You can take the judgement to a US court and it will be a simplied process. As long as it is a "normal" country like spain it shouldnt be a problem (if the court was say an Iranian court it might be more difficult).


Might be a pain. If they have any EU presence, it'd be easier.


Good answer and better question: Do civil law can enforce itself without bilateral agreements initiaing a claim to a foreign court? I don't think so. Even criminal couts can't without agreement.


Without agreements you go ahead and win your local case and then hope that the contract is enforceable in their country.

Thing is torts are very similar all over the place. Like if you are a former british colony your laws are usually roughly compatible. Most countries dont have a "contract was signed overseas fuckem" law. But some do.


Everyone is talking about the legal approaches, or fine print of contracts, and so on.

But if you want the real answer, like what actually works, then try to shame them in public or to people they care about.

Like if the CEO posts on LinkedIn, post underneath saying "How do you reconcile this with not paying your freelancers?"

Send an email with every single person at the company you have an email address for, ideally including the top people, copied, and ask them the same question, while asking if this is a common problem at the company, like are you guys all getting your paychecks on time, or is this just something you do with freelancers.

If your client has case studies or a list of their client's logos on their website take a guess at who their contact would be at that client and reach out to them via email, copying your contact at the offending company as well, asking them if they've had any issues with financial misconduct at the offending company during their engagement with them, because you have.

Clearly there are pros and cons to this approach, and your own reputation to think about, as well as fully burning the relationship and so on.

But assuming you're OK with all that, this tactic, unlike the others suggested, is completely free and exremely fucking effective.


I spent 13 years as a freelance consultant at my own company, or at small consultancies I worked for. This happened to me a few times.

First off, if possible, you want to stage your contract with multiple deliverable milestones, each associated with them giving you money. When they pay you, you move on to the next stage. It's more upfront work, and more oversight, and just generally more complicated than "I work for a couple of months and then throw the whole thing over the fence, and you throw me a bag of money from the other side". But, the upside for you is less risk and a steadier source of income.

For the client, it builds in more opportunities for feedback, including the opportunity to say "I don't want to work with this guy anymore," or "actually, I'm running out of money and I want to pump the breaks", so it reduces their risk as well.

I never took anyone to court; I guess I got lucky.

I recognize none of this has answered your question. The only real advice I have is that there's got to be a reason they are refusing to pay. If they don't have the money, unfortunately you are probably never going to get paid, even if you take them to court. If they do have money, and are just unsatisfied about something (not necessarily your fault, it's often just a misunderstanding) then I would do everything in my power to figure out what is wrong and fix it. Word-of-mouth referrals are so important to contracting, and often just being really high-touch and communicative with the client—and yeah, occasionally giving them a few hours of free work to indulge their petty whims—can turn an angry client into a happy, paying customer.


Have they given any reason for not paying or disputed the invoice in any way? Which jurisdiction applies to the agreement? Many jurisdictions have fastlane procedures for collecting on undisputed claims that you might be able to use.


Slightly tongue in cheek, do you still have access to the code and deployment? https://github.com/kleampa/not-paid


No delivery of code until paid in full. Demo on servers you control.


Always have a contract, even for smaller bits of work. That’s the foundation of a good business relationship.

If they have the money to pay, but are ignoring you then escalate from your contact at the company to someone higher in the chain. If that doesn’t work and it’s a relatively small amount of money then you can try to enforce the contact.

I’m in the UK and there’s a small claims court for specifically this. I’ve not gone through it myself but from those that have it’s simple enough to do yourself without paying a lawyer, but it’s time consuming. Im not sure where you are but look into if there’s in in your jurisdiction.

If the client likely doesn’t have the money to pay, then it’s likely a waste of time to pursue it. I had this happen recently when a client went under and ended up just writing it off as a loss. Luckily it was only my time that was wasted so not the end of the world.


My dad did a house renovation job for a lawyer once. It was a ship of Theseus deal where it was really an entirely new house but for local rules they had to do it as a renovation. Anyways, at the end the lawyer delayed payments on several invoices and then on the last one made it close that he had no intention of paying. He welcomed my dad to sue him but let him know that he would make sure the lawsuits lasted many years.

One good rule is to never work for lawyers. Another is to stop work at the first sign of a delay in payment. Lastly, at the very least leave something critical unfinished until paid everything back due.


IANAL but I would have a lawyer send a letter to their CEO.


Lawyers are generally worth their rate just for access to their letterhead.


I faced this once in 25 years. I sued, won, and then the company declared bankruptcy.

I guess it depends on how big the client is— bigger clients are easier to pin down… and it also depends on how much they owe you (in my case, it was $25,000)… but my general suggestion is: walk away. Warn your community not to work with them. Be smarter next time.

Smarter how? Well, you could have withheld the final product until you got paid. This is really the only leverage an independent has.


> Warn your community not to work with them

Awful advice. If you walk away with no legal evidence about their wrongdoing and bad mouth them you might get (legitimately!) sued for defamation.


[flagged]


You underestimate arrogant cheap CEOs.

If there’s somebody who doesn’t know what they’re talking about that’s most likely you.


Really? How old are you, then? How long have you run your own business? This year is my 41st as a professional in this field, and my 25th running my own business. I've written two books.

I'm not a lawyer, but I have been involved in 10 court cases as an expert witness, so I am aware of what it means to launch and win a lawsuit.

How many times have you been sued for defamation? Are you speaking from experience?


> This year is my 41st as a professional in this field, and my 25th running my own business. I've written two books.

you sound like an arrogant ceo


Technically, I am a CEO, yes. I accept that I do sound arrogant to you, since ANYONE sounds arrogant if he is confident in his hard-earned knowledge of how to run a business and is being heard by... who? some random kid on the internet who lacks the self-awareness to realize that he arrogantly and ignorantly dismissed someone else's experience without having any particular relevant experience of his own.


One of my very first freelance projects something like this happened to me. They were fishy from the beginning - it was a pretty simple project, gluing together some CRM stuff with some other system via API calls + Python. I scoped it out, gave them an estimate they agreed to, but they decided they first wanted to see a "POC" (which is now a red flag for me, in this case I did notice that, and made sure it was a very rough copy).

I used an API key that was scoped to precisely me and my personal email account. They liked my POC, but kept getting sketchy on negotiation/payment, so I quit the project.

Several months later I was getting usage alerts from my API token sent to my personal email. Turned out they were using what I had written (wasn't surprised). I simply disabled the key, and the way it was set up I very much doubt they were able to fix it on their own.

The lesson I learned is to never trust a client and that lesson has served me well since. If there is any amount of money you are uncomfortable lighting on fire if still unpaid, insist on being paid up front.


Best defense is to not be there.

With new clients, they pay half up front or we don't start. I've refunded part of this amount a handful of times if some part of the process doesn't work out for whatever reason, so I don't spend or invest the money until the project is done.

It's not just that you're losing less money if the client decides not to pay. It's also that your clients are more likely to pay: a client who is willing to pay up front isn't stingy with money. These clients are better in a lot of other ways, too.

I think in 5 years of doing this, I've been turned down by 2 clients because of this. I freelanced a year before I started having this policy, I was turned down by 1 client after giving an estimate.

Repeat clients, I don't make them pay up front. I might reconsider that if a client was significantly late on a payment, but so far that hasn't been a problem, possibly because the up-front pay half filters out clients likely to pay significantly late. I say "significantly" because I've on occasion waited as much as 2 weeks for payments, but in those cases I believe it was due to disorganization rather than any malicious intent.

EDIT: One thing that I think makes clients willing to pay half up front is that typically I try to break the project into as small of chunks as possible, with a truly minimal viable product being released up front. The first contract is for the first chunk, and the half up front is for that chunk. This results in a smaller initial payment, as a lot of my initial contracts are in the range of $4000-$8000.

This also incentivizes them to agree to breaking up projects--some clients want to sign one big contract for a $250k two year project, but balk at paying half of that up front--and when the project finishes faster and for far less than they initially wanted to sign for, I gently remind them how much money I saved them.

Additionally, a lot of the value I bring to the table is this sort of process improvement. I've been in contact with a few clients a few years after we worked together, and found out that they were still doing the small-releases process I brought in. I'm not going to call it agile because a lot of these companies were doing "Agile" before--that word basically doesn't mean anything any more, unless you're really clear about defining it as defined by the Agile Manifesto.


You say “final invoice”. So I’m guessing you were paid something. You might have gotten paid all you’re going to get.

Let me explain. I don’t know much experience you have with how your customers valuing your work product. Under some circumstances you may have maxed out the value of your work. If you want to keep working with them, or within the community that you share with them, again, you may want to let it go. There’s a lot of moralistic reasons why you may have reached some kind of limit. And from personal experience I know it’s next to impossible to appreciate them at this moment.

But if they were impossible, and you overdelivered, solved the problem with grace and generosity—and still believe you are owed your final invoice…nothing short of legal intervention will jump start a non-paying client.

That said, I saw this little nothing viddy on instagram. It’s a funny FU

https://www.instagram.com/reel/C8meIe6OQpr/


Platforms charge a fee, but in the end, this may be the one thing they do well in most cases. Protect payments.

In the future for domestic transactions, just add a little clause like "If valid payment is not made by due date, provider can send client a 3 day notice to cure. if the balance is not paid, Client stipulates to default judgement for the purpose of collections."

Now I'm sure that is not legally phrased correctly, but someone could make it a better. Idea is, Client, if they have not disputed invoice and not paid, admit to a default and you are immediately off to a judgement and collection.

Screening clients is tough. And sooner or later, this happens.

Oh, one guy I know always inserted code in his work so that he could turn his code off is someone did not pay. And then showed a screen with a payment message. Nice.


I offer a 15-20% discount for payment upfront. I basically view it as insurance against late/never payments.


Good advice here.

2 months ago I faced an almost same issue. Best is to forget it.

Build your positioning such that you command higher prices, better clients & take 50% deposit minimum before starting the work.

Look into Jonathan Stark.

Another thing is to name & shame them. Just state the facts on social media.

Maintain a blacklist of clients & share them woth your fellow freelancers.

I'm into marketing & maintain such a list. About 7-8 people/agencies in there. Not everyone in there didn't pay. Someone was a micro-manager, someone was scope creep, someone demanded unnecessary things during interview process, wasted a lot of my time etc.


Don’t push code to customers until the invoice is paid. They are not clients; “client” implies a fiduciary relationship. We are not lawyers. We are builders. Get into the blue-collar mindset, and shit like this stops happening.


It all depends on the country you live in and if you have a legal contract. In UK for example you can use a debt collection agency. Those guys will probably give you 50% of the amount and then it's their problem.


I always point people who are thinking of doing freelancing at this classic video from Mike Monteiro:

Fuck you, pay me (2012).

https://youtu.be/jVkLVRt6c1U?si=a6qzrzrLOjv8T-LK


Man that sucks. My advice is, do everything in your hand from a legal perspective - consult a lawyer, it should be free - show them you're serious about your work.

If you still have no answer, expose them! Write a blog or an article about their malpractice. Publish the code you wrote for them if you can. Perhaps, that will draw their attention.

Put an equal amount of effort in proportion to the amount of money you're owned. If your effort becomes too great, drop it and spend your time elsewhere.


If you're working on an hourly basis, you can ask the client to sign a retainer agreement and have them make an up front payment into an escrow account that you draw from as you complete work hours. It's less complicated to implement than it sounds. When the account gets low, warn the client and ask them to make another retainer payment, and if the account gets to zero, cease working on the project until the retainer account is topped up again.


Can your client actually pay? If not pursuing legal actions will just be a waste of money.

In general breakdown payment for larger projects into smaller installments / subprojects.


Use it as a learning experience and move on. I use only hourly billing, that way I get paid and customer sees continuous progress.


Yep. I was a freelance technical consultant for 10 years. Stanford University School of Medicine wouldn't pay my invoices. All you can do is keep asking politely for weeks or months. If they don't, then you might name and shame because there might not be anything else you can do except sue.


As an aside, I am curious about something. I've recently been working with a contractor and I've had to make payments at various stages along the way (10% up front, 20% after framing, 20% after drywall, etc...). Do software freelancers do the same? That way, if nothing else you get _some_ money?


Although it doesn't help with your current problem: for future projects, consider demanding payment in installments, linked to project milestones. When the final invoice is small, the motivation for unscrupulous clients to stiff you becomes less, and if they do, the downside for you is also less.


You either need to get better in selecting clients with money or in proving your value in the relationship so that client wants to keep using you and not burn bridges.

Back to your money: You likely lost it. If they have assets you can threaten them with legal means but I'm experience it never worked.

Going to the legal system without a lawyer just made me waste 500£ and I didn't recoup anything. It would have been money better spent if I paid a hacker to steal his crypto

I had some kind of opposite situation once, a client decided to implement a non scalable shortcut instead of solving the issue in the proper way - then called me after 2 years asking me to fix it or to pay him back his money (something like 2k£). He threatened legal action, I knew the court case would cost him more than that and I just explained the unfairness of the situation and then ignored him.


Does having a "Wall of Shame" make sense? Basically put details on a shared google sheet with names, details etc., so that: a. Other freelancers can avoid them. b. They know about it...

Would that work?


"Wall Of Shame" solutions (i.e. reputation databases) mostly fail because they're easily subverted via poisoning/enshittification, unless they're curated, in which case the curator(s) may be subject to various forms of abuse.


Court would be your next move, unfortunately. Small claims?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U


Was there a contract?


Oh you just revived sweet memories of my times as a freelancer.

As a freelancer, it's sometimes hard to get around the simple idea that you are your own company and that you must act like one: protect and defend your work at all cost. It took me months of time wasted, and thousands of dollars of work stolen to accept the fact I need to change my behaviour, as a freelancer you have roughly two approaches:

- set boundaries early on, don't start any work with a predefined and agreed upon down payment, if the work is more than a few days long: set milestones as need be with payments required.

- lawyer up, be flexible with clients (delays in payments are a common occurrence with any company) but don't be afraid to go after dishonest clients, if you can't afford it or don't feel like going this path then you need to set up as many contingencies as possible upfront (see previous point).

A classic video that might help you get in the right mindset: https://youtu.be/jVkLVRt6c1U


Others have addressed the process to get paid (legal, factoring, collections etc). And tinco's comment (currently top) on disengaging emotionally is essential reading. I thought it might be useful to describe what some classes of non or late payer look like from the inside:

1) We're solvent, and promised you two week terms - but our accounting dept doesn't work like that.

In this case, whoever signed the contract should have flagged that they can't execute two-week terms. But sometimes their eyes have glazed over before they get to that bit of the contract - or they don't know how their accounting dept works (often with a monthly payment run). In this case, the contractor is likely to eventually be paid. But getting paid on the actual terms would only happen if you have enough leverage to get an executive to force the accounting dept to make an exception, and do it every single time.

2) We're solvent but have a cash flow problem.

Here, a company will push back payments until its cash flow problem is resolved. But that could be months, or even longer. They will make the most critical payments each months - for things that they rely on going forward, like their cloud provider, DNS etc. At this point the engineering team will learn (if they didn't already) to make sure they get notifications of non-payment for critical services, rather than relying on accounting to be able to triage them. Your payment depends on having some kind of leverage - providing a critical service is best, but being the squeaky wheel can also work, as there may be some cash left after the critical ones. Being paid consistently, but always late, is another sign - this means the accounting dept has a hole, but it's of fixed size and they've 'solved' it by taking a float from all their creditors. In this case, you are likely to be paid - eventually.

3) We are about to go bust. This looks rather like 2, except that you won't get consistently paid even late, and their other contractors are also likely to not be being paid. If the company is gambling for resurrection, they may even be more engaging on the actual work side, if they think your work is part of what will save their bacon. Legally, incurring debts if you know that you're insolvent is fraud (at least in the UK). But, that hard to prove and only applies if there isn't some chance of not going bust. I suspect that if there's a big chance of going bust, there's actually a propensity to spend more on contractors - since the chances are that they won't need to pay. Sometimes a company structures itself so that it can make a subsidiary insolvent but keep going. This might be identifiable from filings, but I'm not an accountant so I can't advise how. Although, I'm not going to work again for a company where the CEO has made himself a creditor secured against the company IP....

Others that I don't have any insight into, perhaps others can comment:

4) We are a big company and can get away with X month terms regardless of the contract

5) Shenanigans are our way of doing business. We think of it as "playing hardball".


In my case, I always work with 100% payment upfront, eliminates the problem completely.


Thank you for your advice and guidance. I have learned a lot.


Contracts themselves don't force people to pay, courts do.


What country are you in? What country is your client in?


Yeah. The downside of working with people is that many people are truly horrible. It sounds like your client is simply stealing from you, probably with some half-assed argument that is pure bullshit but designed to go in circles and make you crazy.

Going forward, remember to structure your work so that you minimize your exposure to this risk: get paid upfront, don't let the unpaid balance get too large, etc.

And try not to let it get under your skin. It's not you - it's them. And they are horrible.


if you're in the same geo - small claims court.

otherwise, consider it lost + name and shame


turn off the servers until they pay


[flagged]


Having done freelance work with customers in different countries (US mostly but France, Japan, China and UK). Americans are not more likely to screw you over than companies in other countries.

But yes, the rest of advice is good. Also when it comes to contract, do be careful about IP rights (more for the customer than the freelance). I've seen some customers get screwed by not clearly stating that the freelance employee transfers their IP right.


The “Americans suck” line undermines the credibility of everything else you said. Why bother to give sober-sounding advice if you are going to puke all over your own words at the very end? It’s just childish.


I am an American. I have worked with other Americans and with clients in 25 other countries. I have been in business for 25 years.

There is no evidence, from my experience, to support the contention that ANY country "sucks" to work with. Some countries are annoying about taxes, but that's not a cultural issue.

The United Arab Emirates can be tricky to get into. Don't break the law while you are there. But they are used to skilled foreign workers, and treat them well.

I no longer go to China. The Internet situation (and political situation) is not good, there. Also, their English is not good enough, for my needs. But I still wouldn't say they "suck" to deal with.




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