Hello all, first post here, though I have been lurking for a long time

I am a web designer and I have a client who hired me in January to develop a site in OSCommerce for him. He needed a custom application for it; he paid half the fee as a deposit and I got to work and did all the work... and then he disappeared for three weeks and stopped responding to email. I started thinking he was (yet another) disappearing act that wasn't going to pay.

Sometime in early-March he contacted me and said the custom application needed additional functionality and that he wasn't happy; nearly 6 weeks had passed, so i asked him for at least half the remaining balance, which he paid in late March, and I did the additional functionality - rather, I paid another extremely reliable programmer to do it, because it was outside my expertise. I paid him out of my own pocket, too. And i tought that was that.

Repeated attempts to contact, etc., to no avail. Weeks went by. Now, nearly 2 months later, he has resurfaced and is teaching his staff to use OSCommerce and, in the process, doing his own beta testing. He still owes me nearly $500, mind you.

He has apparently found a couple of "glitches" - he says he downloaded the site and edited it in Dreamweaver and God knows what he's done to the software in the meantime - and wants me to fix them all. Since I long ago gave up any hope of seeing the remaining balance, I referred him to the other programmer and told the client to keep the money he owes me and use it to pay this other programmer to "fix his glitches". He is insisting I "finish" the project and says (unironically) that i am "leaving him hanging" even though this is the first communication I've had from him in nearly 6 weeks - the last email being that he promised he would pay in 2 weeks (he didn't).

Thoughts? How would you handle this?

Not an easy client to deal with. I probably never would have given him his site in the first place till he'd paid in full, but that's obviously not something you can do now.

You can tell him that since he edited things in DreamWeaver he now has to pay to have those things fixed again. You already gave them to him correctly in the first place. You could also tell him that until he pays the $500 he still owes you won't be doing any more work on the site.

In the future when he contacts you about something reply that you can have something by the end of the day or the next day with how much the work will cost. The time has also passed where it's reasonable to ask for fixes on the initial work. Any request he has now is really a new project.

My guess is he's constantly coming back to you because he thinks he can get the work for free and if you bring up the money more he'll likely stop getting in touch.

For now let him know you'll be happy to work on the site once he's paid the outstanding bill. It sounds like you finished all the work you agreed to initially so until the bill is paid there's no reason to work any more.

I agree with Steve.

Get him to pay the outstanding balance then give him a quote for the requested work. Only now the deposit/initial payment is 75% (if not in full)

If he again does that and doesn't pay you, report to PayPal if you are using PayPal for transaction.

Good luck.

I think you should ask for the outstanding balance. Don't do anything for him unless he pays you. You have done your job and deserve to be paid. Do you have any kind of contract or e-mails for prove?

I agree about getting the outstanding balance, but I don't think you should do any more work for the client. You have as much of a right to choose your clients just as they do to choose you. This guy just isn't going to be worth working for when you factor in stress and everything else. Your time would be better spent getting good clients. If, however, even after all your experience with the client, you still want to work for him, I can't emphasize a contract enough.

Contracts contracts contracts.. Lack of a contract invites requirements creep.. And creep kills projects..

I had a project years ago when I was still coding for a living that just never seemed to end.. I finally took the client to lunch, handed him a CD with the source code (all except the keygen portion) and a bill for something like $500.00.. I never heard from him or saw the $500 again.. I ate a lot of hours but the peace of mind was worth it.. And like you, I learned that even if you trust someone you have got to have a contract with a specific requirements document and milestones for payment.. Without those things you may as well consider yourself working for charity in the hopes that you get paid..

Hi,

Agreed to Feydakin. Contract is key. No contract, no business.

IMO, just stay away from the customer. But if you insisted to work with him AGAIN, make him sign a contract.

In the first place, you should hold some access to the site, or incorporate a script that only you can activate it in order for the OSC to work.

It's like some sort of links encrypted on the footer of free templates - if the links are removed, the templates go blank.

Cheers!

Drop problem clients early.

Remember the 80/20 rule. If you don't know it look it up.

Raise your prices so you don't get as many problem clients in the future.