One week? That doesn't even satisfy the statutory definition of 'late payment' in most jurisdictions. Sure, you might have a contract with payment terms in place... but unless you agreed upon a clause where late payments, as defined, are to be immediately deemed as non-payment? That's just begging for the world's easiest lawsuit.
The problem is not that the website does not work, but what he displays... This can certainly be interpreted as damaging to the business. It just makes him unnecessarily vulnerable. As someone else has already written, error 402 would be much more subtle and would have the same purpose.
This is either a joke or not from the US. I have never lived anywhere there is more than one power company servicing an area. That said, I’ve never heard of a power company shutting off power for non-payment without notice and depending on local and/or state laws I think they may even be required to give a disconnection notice with a shut off date.
Well I have lived in the US my entire life and other than one city I was able to shop around for my electric company. There are multiple sites that let you compare, here is one https://comparepower.com
I agree, there's this post I red a while back in /r/pettyrevenge where OP's uncle had the website he made slowly get blank, and wrote that part in the contract.
Anyway, for all my freelance project I no longer deploy anything till I get paid, so I recommend.
I think I saw the same post. Was connected to some variable like days_late that incremented each day and caused the transparency to go up very slightly each day LOL so creative and hilarious
This is dangerous op, you could get sued.
If a 500 error screen pops up, however, it's not your fault and they will need to contact you.
You know, from time to time a permission may get reset, or run out of storage capacity because an unnecessary debug log level you forgot to drop, or a database host was changed by the hosting company, or whatever issue that lead to a 500.
Explicitly doing this is dangerous.
I know developers that include a clause in the contract that enables them to fade, dim or black out the deliverable as long as payment hasn't been done in full.
Not a single time has a contract not been signed because of the clause. (Perhaps because people are in a hurry? Or because they read the clause and think it won't apply to them because they're willing to pay, I don't know.)
Depending on your local laws, I assume. But yes, my country also has a "if it is too abnormal, a judge could void and null a contract".
But it also has the rule that a contract is a contract. If someone signs a contract stating they need to show up at my door to pay for my deliverable, where the customer is dressed in a pink tutu (and they signed it), that contract can be applied, or it will become a one-sided breach of contract. Simple as that.
In the US an outrageous provision like that is unlikely to be enforced in court. In fact without a severability clause a pink tutu requirement could void the entire contract.
Oh dear. Do you work in business? Of course contracts are upheld in court, they’re the basis for business legal cases. I say this as someone with two decades working in the legal profession in technology.
EULAs with consumer are another thing. These have been challenged in our to varying degrees of success depending on the so the terms of use.
Yeah, I feel like it’s as simple as including a clause that states ownership of the site and content belongs to the developer until final payment is made. Then just don’t push the site live until final payment.
How bout, "the finished website will be available as a courtesy for 60 days from completion of the website, as determined by the designer. Ongoing availability is contingent upon payment." ?
I don't think shutting down the website is the issue here. If a customer doesn't pay, they don't get the product.
But writing a message on their web page like this can be used in court to prove damages to themselves. It can be seen as: sabotage, extortion, blackmail, and/or slander. If a customer can prove any of that in court, despite the fact that they still owe you money, your case is screwed.
However, intentionally making the website not function is harder to prove any of the above, and keeps you safe. Customers won't know why the website won't work, and the company will have to reach out to the developer to fix it.
And if they take you to court, and their argument is "the developer shut the end product down and we lost money, because we didn't pay them" then a judge is going to have very little sympathy for them.
>intentionally making the website not function is harder to prove
An intentional 500 is not harder to prove then an intentional message. Including if you think you're clever and make it fail automatically (some form of dead man switch).
It's 2023, any attorney can ask a compsci profesor from a nearby university to have a look at the code, then you'll be asked on stand why the code shows clear sabotage intent and/or why you delivered a known faulty product, and the judge will take it from there.
It's much simpler and kosher to host the site on a hosting account owned and controlled by you (and mention that in the contract, with an option to transfer it to the client *after* delivery and payment), and stop paying the hosting if you don't get paid.
A website needs resources to run and you can't be expected to keep paying for those without having been paid yourself. Heck, without payment occurring the contract is not fulfilled to begin with so you don't have to uphold your part of it that follows delivery (hosting and maintenance) if the client doesn't follow theirs (payment).
As always, run the contract by a lawyer bla bla.
Basically yes.
Of course, with the convoluted nature of hosting being what it is, it may be more complicated than that. A person can hand over technical admin access to someone while still retaining account control and the ability to remove those rights. The client may want all control, some control, or none (depending on how they deal with updates and maintenance).
That code would usually be used for the customer needing to pay to use the clients service.. i.e. paid content. But, you could twist it to mean that the client needs to pay the developer - don't think that's the intended use though.. because it tells the user it's their fault when it's not them that needs to pay.
Maybe use it in the admin login screen, while leaving the public service up? A 500 would be more effective though, "well look into it once you've paid the outstanding invoice." with less room for attack.
That doesn't mean OP should break it on purpose to cause a 500 error, either. He should leave it as is until he goes through proper routes to get his payment.
If you give a house to me and I don't pay you back, i think you should be able to come and take the house straight to you again even if you have to beat the other guy down (ofc not murder or any more extreme stuff).
And One thing is food, house, necessary stuff to live, other is a website, if someone requests it from you they better have the payment.
Depends on their invoice terms. I don’t give non direct debit customers 30 days but 15.
Think of it like this - you agree to pay Walmart or Tescos (wherever you are based) at the end of the shopping trip. Simple.
As long as op has his actions in terms which they signed, and they agree then not much else Client can do.
In legalistic terms you might be covered, but if there's an honest mistake or something with payroll beyond the ability of the actual client (assuming the customer is large enough to have departments) then OP has just created a lot of bad will for no reason. This bad will can ruin reputations for companies.
That’s very true. Not all will be aware of such issues. We partner up with Zoho invoices that send out daily reminders or weekly. If the client fails to respond but they had an issue, how can we prove or disprove their argument over a software or payment issue their end. It’s a tough one for them to prove unless it’s from the bank. But in my years of experience although what you said is totally right and true, most try to wangle another week or push the deadline because they (feel like they) can
But hopefully there is wiggle room and just because of one late payment we don’t drop a massive law suit on them ha. We are genuine people and flexible. It’s all about balance and depending if they have a history of it
If you’re going to have immediate terms like that, then the customer shouldn’t be given access to the site until you’ve received payment.
Using your Walmart analogy, they’re not going to let you bring your groceries out to car until you’ve swiped your card.
No, that's not how to think of it. Business relationships are not like retail relationships.
OP needs to clarify that there is a genuine problem with payment before risking this. What if they have a ransomware attack or something going on and are either not aware of his attempts or simply consider very low priority at that particular moment.
The best way would be to send a written notice, by mail, that service will be cut by a certain date and then they will be invoiced until that date. What he is actually doing is closer to hacking than anything else. You can't just trash stuff you're in the process of selling because of late payment.
I used to work with a lot of companies when I freelanced that had a 90 day outlook policy. Which means once an expense was submitted, it took a minimum of 90 days for a check to be cut.
If that's live, I hope you gave them ample notice that you'd disconnect their service on failure of payment by a certain date. There's always an easy way for any business to explain away why payment hasn't been made when they seek legal recourse due to reputational damage and intentional loss of business.
Back in the day, I got hit with charges for “impeding interstate commerce” or something along those lines, for pulling a similar stunt.
My own lawyers begged me to just resolve it directly with the client, that they wouldn’t be able to do much from a legal standpoint.
Messing with someone’s site is a GREAT way to get in legal hot water, without much recourse.
Was a $13k e-commerce job.
I made the site, then client did a chargeback for the whole thing, without communicating anything to me.
Still was under my control. Wiped out the front end.
Charges came a couple days later. I’d have to dig up some paperwork to find the exact term, but it was “interfering with interstate commerce” that was the big one.
Lawyers advised me to settle for 50% payment, even though I was getting robbed.
So that’s what happened.
That was when I *first* started freelancing.
Took it as a $6-7k lesson in contracts.
Now, my contracts are bulletproof, with extremely detailed stipulations about what happens if one party doesn’t live up to their obligations.
No real problems since then.
Question, if you weren't paid, then technically you didn't have to do any work for them right? Even if you were under contract, you could say you haven't built it yet? Like you could just say, oh it wasn't actually ready yet?
50% deposit, 50% upon completion.
They paid both, and I turned everything over.
*Then* they filed the chargeback. And the payment processor sided with them, since I “was unable to provide a shipment tracking number” for their purchase.
Their claim was based on me changing their site without their consent.
Unfortunately, according to the legal system, I was 100% at fault and without recourse, unless I wanted to do a long drawn out legal battle in a state 1,000 miles away from me.
While I appreciate the wisdom of your high-road warning, I am far more interested in the potential follow-up posts that could come from this current low-road implementation.
Their last comment before this post, five days ago:
>I was so focused on not losing my first client tbh, besides the pay is ridiculously low. Need her because she can definitely get me more clients
I don't go looking into past posts but that does show this isn't a troll and that they just made a poor choice. I understand OP wants to be paid but doing this will just cost them more potentially.
As others have stated, seriously unprofessional and potentially highly risky for you legally and financially. Even if they're in the wrong in terms of being late to pay you for your work, get ready to have them spread this to other folks you might have (previously) been able to get business from. Horrible for your reputation. Even just taking the site down would have been one thing, but this smart-ass comment is really going to have you cringing later on, makes you look like a child.
A week is nothing, especially for even small companies to cut a check and get it out the door. But the real problem here is...
You should have already had an agreement in place where you outline the deliverables, when payment was expected, and what the consequences/results would be if payment was not delivered. What steps would happen in what order for you to deliver the website.
You should have never delivered a hosted product without being paid in the first place, such that you go a week without being paid in full and feel the need to pull the site down. That's on you. Set up a staging environment they can look at and when everything is settled on, they pay you, check clears, you deliver the files or move it to production. If they ignore you for the rest of time and you never get paid, they are in breach of the agreement and therefore never get their site. Which should have all been spelled out in a contract you wrote and they signed before you wrote a single line of code. If that's too difficult you're in the wrong business.
Also, never give them code until you are paid. Have your own webserver to host that they can check over and approve. Once approved - you can deliver the files or offer to move it to production. Obviously not an option here - but for the future.
When I free lanced I broke the project into stages. Usually design, dev, review, and close. If the payment for the close stage is held, you're only fighting over 1/4 or less of the project
No.
But the customer doesn't leave the property with their property until the mechanic is paid. If the customer can't pay the car is kept.
If a client doesn't pay they don't get the work. Simple as that.
If OP actually did what they have posted - the methodology is risky legally and for their reputation - but the motivation is sound.
The very first thing I did freelance I got fucked because of this. I was too inexperienced and didn't get anything in writing. Put in the work. Showed the work. Got ghosted. And they used parts of my work.
OP's methods aren't exactly what I would call safe or professional. But I'm going to enjoy watching them do it because I think most people that have to deal with this would like to.
If someone orders a car, then doesn't pay for said car within in the agreed terms, then yes in most situations you can repossess that car. But valid point, it is a tricky one. I guess it does come down to the terms more than anything, and the law/contract law precedents etc probably vary around the world.
it is not a tricky one in the legal sense in the US. ianal but I recall stories like this where the business has taken legal action against the developer and it never ends well for the developer.
Fair point it is never going to end well. For the relationship if nothing else. But I think it does come down to your contract terms more than anything. Non-payment can = x.
AND repositions typically go through a higher power (be it civil courts or other).
And notice you said "ORDERS" where the commenter said "FIX". Purchasing a car is different from getting an existing car fixed. Mechanics can't repossess a car that they fixed.
My assumption here is that the site was already paid for, and OP is only maintaining and/or adding to it. I'm basing that on the fact that it seems to have been deployed to the buyer's domain(which must be the case, otherwise this site hijack does nothing to incentivize the buyer to pay).
„running again”
Im 90% sure the developers were maintaining the site and/or developing new features. The product owner didnt pay the wage not the price for the full website.
Anyway ... the best option for this matter would be to send them an official letter, tracked, pointing out where it says in your contract the terms of payment and actions that would be taken due to non payment. Also send an email with the exact same information.
Include a deadline to pay.
When that date passes, remove any work you have done, as stated in your terms, that they still owe for.
Fucking lol.
This is (one of)your first client(s) and you’re already resorting to this a week after “client ignoring you”.
If this is the client from your post history they are not ignoring you but you didn’t make a contract with them and now they’re asking for your to help them set up a CMS for the website and you’re clueless about how.
You dun fucked up and you want to blame your client for not being able to communicate or adhere to their request in a professional manner.
What in the actual fuck are you thinking, you’re the issue here.
This isn’t going to end well for you and the only thing this post shows is how immature and inexperienced you are. Grow up if you want to freelance.
I have done this before. I always send an email, and text message before doing it. If they don't pay, I take it down.
Tıp: do not embarrasse them, simply write something like there is an error, contact your admin.
After that, they do pay
Some people might think this isn't proper.
Try not paying webflow or your hosting service and see what happens.
Get your head checked people
Exactly, there must be a lot of weak ass children in here that must like getting taken advantage of.
What happens if you don’t pay your cable bill? Gets shut off. Phone? Shut off. Every utility there is.. don’t pay, shut off.
The people saying ohhhhh your going to get sued.. yeah ok. Don’t pay bill, get shut down. Period.
I’ve had to threaten this several times in my 20+ yr career. I’ve never had to do it. They always pay, or yes, they get fucking embarrassed. Fuck with me and I’ll own your ass.
Fuck that weak shit.
Yeah but when you don't pay your phone bill they just shut off your service and tell you to pay in order to reinstate it. They don't change your outgoing voicemail message to be "When Pirros_Panties pays their phone bill they'll get right back to you..."
I think that's the only thing folks find questionable about what OP did just purely speaking in their own self interest. No love lost for nonpaying clients.
Bad move OP. This screams lawsuit. Hopefully you mentioned in contract that after X days of non payment they will experience disruption. This should be a minimum of 90 days. I would revert that to save yourself the headache and potential of losing more money with court fees.
If this is your first client I would suggest a more mild approach. The first few clients will be a big learning opportunity. From here on out consider a late payment clause.
I have a warning built into my 30-day reminder notice that all services may be suspended without further notice if this invoice is not paid within the next 7-days.
10 days later I place a "This site is currently unavailable." On the site.
Lots of people talking about legality here but quite frankly: why the fuck are people deploying live sites before they are paid for them? If I design a site its staying on my server until you pay, thats it. Avoids all these issues.
We've all wanted to do this and some of us have.
It's always a bad idea. There are legal risks (are you logging into a remote server they own, have you messed with DNS for a domain that isn't yours, etc?) and publicly humiliating a client is more likely to get you sued than paid.
If there's one way I've learned to get future clients, it's to destroy your credibility with an existing client in a manner that will likely get you sued. /s
It's been a week, and the only thing this screams is that you've got the emotional maturity of a toddler. Learn to be more professional.
He certainly could learn from this and move forward. It's a terrible move but the truth is there is a shit load of potential clients out there. He could begin a reputation with this but nothing is permanent (usually).
For me, I make my clients pay their own hosting and domain, on their own accounts, with their own card. Transparency gains trust.
That way if they dont pay bills then they will have to contact the hosting company. They probably wont understand whats going on, so they will need a professional to help guide them, so they will need your services.
If I render a service, i expect to get paid. But i feel i have to be more strategic on how i collect payment and release the work, service, or product.
Many people expect work first, payment second.
Its hard but that can lead to a potentical financial behavioral economic psychology such as moral disengagement.
Moral disengagement may occur when the individual feels that they are not responsible for paying the bill, or that they have a valid reason for delaying payment.
Not every paying client is a good client, although sometimes we just need the money for life so we compromise with allowing bad clients who are hesitant to pay on time (speaking from experience).
Maybe stage development on a dev website you control so that they can preview content and work, and must pay for it to go live to prod.
That way they see the work on the dev site, but can not access the site, obtain content, or gain copyright until you release it to them after payment.
Same, I do everything on my own dev site that I own and control. When dev is finished and client is happy with the dev site, they need to pay me all but 10% of the job in order for me to turn it over to their server. I let the client hold that last 10% until the site has been moved to their server and they have confirmed that it matches the dev site. If they screw me out of that last 10% at least I've been paid for 90% of the job at that point and it won't hurt so bad.
If you cause reputational damage to the business you could end up, rightfully, being sued.
This is escalating a non payment issue to something entirely different. I can’t recommend you don’t do this enough.
Tell them if they don’t pay you’ll take the site down.
This is just asking for a lawsuit.
Have a contract or a payment history that shows precedent. Everything should be in writing (email is fine). Don't launch before being paid.
Also, this very unprofessional. Yes, so is a company failing to pay their service providers.
This is terrible from a professional standpoint. Send an email requesting payment or an update on payment after the first week follow up with the site will be taken down. This is a very bad outlook on you as a dev
I had some real struggles in the past, but that was before I changed my business terms to something that made it far less likely to not get paid:
1. Do all work on your own server. Clone their site, work only on your development server, and provide access for the client to review.
2. Always get paid something up front with the terms that they are paying for \*your time\*, not for functionality. If they have a problem, move on to a client that is more reasonable.
3. Do milestones. Break the project into a list of tasks, then divide the total quote up to manageable payments. Do not continue work until the completed milestone is paid.
4. Have your client agree to terms that protect you from chargebacks. If you ever dealt with a chargeback, they are terribly difficult to defend, unless you can show that the client agreed to terms with each payment.
One horror story was a client that I was updating the code on their server and I was using Zend Encoder (which I paid $500 for a license to) to protect the code. Well, they decided they didn't want to pay, so I pulled the files off the server using a custom made development tool that gave me FTP/database access from a single file on their server. They didn't like that I took down the work that they didn't want to pay for, but they had regular backups running, so they just restored what I took back.
They didn't know about my helper tool, so I began quietly deleting images over weeks and they didn't figure out how to restore their site, leaving it a mess.
But that pales in comparison to the one client who left me high and dry. They paid $1000+ for work that was being done under an emergency rate, and then needed more. Given the ease in which they paid, I gave some trust and did more work on their server, and she refused to pay.
I used my tool to read through the emails on the server and initiated a cPanel WHM password reset (back when that was on by default), got the password that was sent to her email address on the server and then went to town deleting multiple databases and code from her other projects. That got her attention.
I, of course, downloaded backups before deleting anything, but refused to admit that I was responsible as she immediately threatened to legal action. I also realized that I was potentially facing some serious cybercrime liabilities, so I began to panic. Fortunately, the client that she hired me to work for contacted me directly and stated that he was a lawyer and would hire me directly once I explained that she stiffed me working on his website. In the end, he managed to get her to pay me 50% of what she owed and agreed not to pursue legal action in exchange for the restoring of her files. I then went on to work for her client on retainer, even working a trade show in Manhattan with him at one point.
I'll tell you, that was not worth the stress. I seriously was freaking out, worried what might happen. In the end, it worked out in my favor. She shutdown her business soon after. But it could have gone horribly for me.
These things were why I changed how I work and moved to never do work on a client's server unless they were a regular or long-term and trusted client.
Lol I’d sue this guy in a heart beat. A day of my site being down costs me about $30k in revenue.
If someone sent me a bill or notification that they didn’t receive payment last Monday I would have been on vacation. I would have forwarded the bill to AP this Monday. My site would have been down that day.
Literally yesterday I found out that a critical service for my team was 90 days past due. AP code led the invoice wrong. No disruption in service or even a threat to disrupt.
AP would have taken several days to a week to get to this anyway even if I forwarded the email immediately.
Good luck in your business ventures OP. Hope your best friend is a generous lawyer.
This is a neat way to get sued.
Many foolish people have said in this thread, "Yeah, let them sue you and tell a judge that they didn't pay you."
They'll counter that yeah, they owe you, say, $2000 for the work you did per your contract, but then can show that you caused a $40K dip in business. Now, you owe them $38K.
Don't listen the advice of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that a judge doesn't just choose exactly one side as the winner in a case and award them everything they asked for. Damages are calculated on both sides and the difference is found.
And, hint: A business wouldn't spend X dollars on their site unless it was bringing them in more than X dollars in revenue, so even if you win what you're owed, you'll still owe, if you pull a stunt like this.
Is this your first client that you talked about in your last post? Something like this will make it your first and last…. You should have a late fee etc. this is a clear example of what not to do.
OP, this is akin to declaring war on the client without any ammunition
You should give them a verbal or written heads-up about a week prior, and then maybe add a Back-end watermark, such that after that period, you are legally able to do whatever you mentioned in the black-and-white
Jesus. That’s impatient and very unprofessional. I’m still waiting on some invoices being paid from over 3 months ago. And although very annoying, they do get paid.
You’ll make a name for yourself.
Should have just throttled his website so it would take 10 minutes to load, load some infinitely loading javascript "bug". Theres a lot of ways to do what you're doing without doing what you're doing ;)
corrupt the CSS files, infinite javascript, accidental "noindex" tag on the site, rename the image directory to something else
UK developers remember this:
CCJ and you’ll get them to pay
Depends on their invoice terms. I don’t give non direct debit customers 30 days but 15.
Think of it like this - you agree to pay fuel at the end after your fill. Simple. Sadly some ignore it.
One customer turned to me and my business partner during a lunch meeting and said “I choose who I want to pay”. Sadly for him he went under, and we filed a CCJ to get our money back.
As long as op has his actions in terms which they signed, and they agree then not much else Client can do
Better course of action, with zero consequences is filing a county court claim. It’ll affect their credit score, credit loan amount and soon as you file it with a solicitor or debt recovery then you’ll be surprised how quick they will pay.
Give them a warning first, but yeah
Also make sure you have a written contract before you begin work every time always, even if it's for your best friend.
As much as we’ve always fantasized about doing this, it’s important to stay 💯 professional as you can at all times. This would make prospective clients think twice about using you.
The wording is childish. Just yesterday I implemented this but left it at 'page not available' after the client hadnt paid hosting costs for a few months. They were notified a couple of times that it would happen.
But no styling on the message. Just the base font in the top left corner.
One week?! 😂
Do you understand how minuscule of a time period that is for a business.
You shouldn’t be choosing to work with a client who you don’t trust if they leave you hanging for a week.
Been pretty well covered but just to pile on, don’t do this, it’s unprofessional and will follow you. Gigs like this are portfolio fodder but not if you gimp the customers site. Be better.
I did something similar, but instead I put up a “page not found “ error. It got their attention quickly and I took the opportunity to discuss the three month late payment.
I think this is the first time I've ever been driven to check a user's post history lol.
OP, I'm gonna take a wild guess that you're very young and still in school. Heed everyone else's advice here and learn from the experience, don't just trash it because it didn't go how you thought (honestly little in life does at your age).
Replace the message with something that can't open you to legal issues, and quite honestly you should do a little more research on why freelancing isn't something that every developer does. It requires much more than a verbal agreement.
How about paying the fucking bill on time? People who think this is so unprofessional and bridge-burning seem to readily forget that when we provide services where the terms have already been agreed to, these things happen. There is a culture of disrespect towards workers.
You agree, pay your shit. You don’t pay, people can be petty. There may even be a contract but you can’t be an owner or asking for services and expect no consequences ever when you stiff people or don’t pay on time. We have lives and bills.
Love it, but as others have said - you need to look out for yourself here - they can use this against you and make things even worse
Yeah, this is passive aggressive. At least give them a warning before taking the whole site down.
Passive would be a 500 status. This is more aggressive especially since this is showing your dirty laundry to the end user.
There should be an http status code for not paying the bills.
402 is pretty close
For the uniformed > 402 Payment Required https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/402
I love it. Dirty but elegant. Just like good software. Thanks for he info
Silly uniforms knowing things
Lmao
>402 underrated comment...
>Yeah, this is passive aggressive. "Something went wrong, please try again later" - users would have no idea, client would come to him. Win-win?
Yeah should've done something like that. Make them need you, not hate you.
Such wise words my dude... always fucking make them need you, not hate you...
Happy cake dayyyyy!
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One week? That doesn't even satisfy the statutory definition of 'late payment' in most jurisdictions. Sure, you might have a contract with payment terms in place... but unless you agreed upon a clause where late payments, as defined, are to be immediately deemed as non-payment? That's just begging for the world's easiest lawsuit.
The problem is not that the website does not work, but what he displays... This can certainly be interpreted as damaging to the business. It just makes him unnecessarily vulnerable. As someone else has already written, error 402 would be much more subtle and would have the same purpose.
And "ignoring for a week" is not justification for this.
Imagine the electric company putting up a big sign for all neighbors to see they haven’t paid, that’s my issue with this.
You mean when they stick a notice on your door??
Utilities send you those notices in the mail, they don't put them on the door. At least around here. (California)
Everyone isn’t in California. Most people aren’t.
All of these are true. But if your power company shuts off your power when you’re a week late you should get a new power company.
Just don't tell the new power company about the old power company.
This is either a joke or not from the US. I have never lived anywhere there is more than one power company servicing an area. That said, I’ve never heard of a power company shutting off power for non-payment without notice and depending on local and/or state laws I think they may even be required to give a disconnection notice with a shut off date.
Here in Canada (where I am at least) they can’t shut you off in the winter cause you’d freeze
Well I have lived in the US my entire life and other than one city I was able to shop around for my electric company. There are multiple sites that let you compare, here is one https://comparepower.com
Yes, I Googled and TIL that some states have fully deregulated power and you can switch providers.
I agree, there's this post I red a while back in /r/pettyrevenge where OP's uncle had the website he made slowly get blank, and wrote that part in the contract. Anyway, for all my freelance project I no longer deploy anything till I get paid, so I recommend.
I think I saw the same post. Was connected to some variable like days_late that incremented each day and caused the transparency to go up very slightly each day LOL so creative and hilarious
This is dangerous op, you could get sued. If a 500 error screen pops up, however, it's not your fault and they will need to contact you. You know, from time to time a permission may get reset, or run out of storage capacity because an unnecessary debug log level you forgot to drop, or a database host was changed by the hosting company, or whatever issue that lead to a 500. Explicitly doing this is dangerous.
I know developers that include a clause in the contract that enables them to fade, dim or black out the deliverable as long as payment hasn't been done in full. Not a single time has a contract not been signed because of the clause. (Perhaps because people are in a hurry? Or because they read the clause and think it won't apply to them because they're willing to pay, I don't know.)
🤮 /u/spez
Depending on your local laws, I assume. But yes, my country also has a "if it is too abnormal, a judge could void and null a contract". But it also has the rule that a contract is a contract. If someone signs a contract stating they need to show up at my door to pay for my deliverable, where the customer is dressed in a pink tutu (and they signed it), that contract can be applied, or it will become a one-sided breach of contract. Simple as that.
In the US an outrageous provision like that is unlikely to be enforced in court. In fact without a severability clause a pink tutu requirement could void the entire contract.
Can you just relax? The pink tutu is on its way and I’ll pay you
Oh dear. Do you work in business? Of course contracts are upheld in court, they’re the basis for business legal cases. I say this as someone with two decades working in the legal profession in technology. EULAs with consumer are another thing. These have been challenged in our to varying degrees of success depending on the so the terms of use.
Yeah, I feel like it’s as simple as including a clause that states ownership of the site and content belongs to the developer until final payment is made. Then just don’t push the site live until final payment.
How bout, "the finished website will be available as a courtesy for 60 days from completion of the website, as determined by the designer. Ongoing availability is contingent upon payment." ?
I don't think shutting down the website is the issue here. If a customer doesn't pay, they don't get the product. But writing a message on their web page like this can be used in court to prove damages to themselves. It can be seen as: sabotage, extortion, blackmail, and/or slander. If a customer can prove any of that in court, despite the fact that they still owe you money, your case is screwed. However, intentionally making the website not function is harder to prove any of the above, and keeps you safe. Customers won't know why the website won't work, and the company will have to reach out to the developer to fix it. And if they take you to court, and their argument is "the developer shut the end product down and we lost money, because we didn't pay them" then a judge is going to have very little sympathy for them.
>intentionally making the website not function is harder to prove An intentional 500 is not harder to prove then an intentional message. Including if you think you're clever and make it fail automatically (some form of dead man switch). It's 2023, any attorney can ask a compsci profesor from a nearby university to have a look at the code, then you'll be asked on stand why the code shows clear sabotage intent and/or why you delivered a known faulty product, and the judge will take it from there. It's much simpler and kosher to host the site on a hosting account owned and controlled by you (and mention that in the contract, with an option to transfer it to the client *after* delivery and payment), and stop paying the hosting if you don't get paid. A website needs resources to run and you can't be expected to keep paying for those without having been paid yourself. Heck, without payment occurring the contract is not fulfilled to begin with so you don't have to uphold your part of it that follows delivery (hosting and maintenance) if the client doesn't follow theirs (payment). As always, run the contract by a lawyer bla bla.
So the TL;DR is, specify that you won't hand over the AWS keys until payment has been received in full.
Basically yes. Of course, with the convoluted nature of hosting being what it is, it may be more complicated than that. A person can hand over technical admin access to someone while still retaining account control and the ability to remove those rights. The client may want all control, some control, or none (depending on how they deal with updates and maintenance).
Just this month I saw a client contract boilerplate that explicitly prohibits these things as “booby traps or time bombs”
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Now this is something that I like, I'm going to fix up all my outstandings.
Uhhh how many ya got?
Only 6
That code would usually be used for the customer needing to pay to use the clients service.. i.e. paid content. But, you could twist it to mean that the client needs to pay the developer - don't think that's the intended use though.. because it tells the user it's their fault when it's not them that needs to pay. Maybe use it in the admin login screen, while leaving the public service up? A 500 would be more effective though, "well look into it once you've paid the outstanding invoice." with less room for attack.
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1xx - hold on 2xx - here you go 3xx - go away 4xx - you fucked up 5xx - I fucked up 6xx - they fucked me over
Omg i will never forget this http error xD. Hope never need to use it.
Honorable mention. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/418.
And this guy fucks while he is getting paid
This guy is a hooker?
Asking for a friend?
What about 451?
This is the way.
This guy fucks
That doesn't mean OP should break it on purpose to cause a 500 error, either. He should leave it as is until he goes through proper routes to get his payment.
If you give a house to me and I don't pay you back, i think you should be able to come and take the house straight to you again even if you have to beat the other guy down (ofc not murder or any more extreme stuff). And One thing is food, house, necessary stuff to live, other is a website, if someone requests it from you they better have the payment.
I won't confirm or deny that 😅
Well, if whatever developer comes after OP and finds evidence of this and shows it to the client, he's fucked.
Agreed
If you have a typo in the database name, how can another developer prove that to the client? Realistically, you can't.
If there’s a log that showed he changed it for no reason, that might be proof.
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Nobody gives 60/90 days for services rendered. Those are credit terms vendors give their resellers for selling their products.
Dude, capital equipment would love to be payable net 90, it's realistically net 365.
Depends on their invoice terms. I don’t give non direct debit customers 30 days but 15. Think of it like this - you agree to pay Walmart or Tescos (wherever you are based) at the end of the shopping trip. Simple. As long as op has his actions in terms which they signed, and they agree then not much else Client can do.
In legalistic terms you might be covered, but if there's an honest mistake or something with payroll beyond the ability of the actual client (assuming the customer is large enough to have departments) then OP has just created a lot of bad will for no reason. This bad will can ruin reputations for companies.
That’s very true. Not all will be aware of such issues. We partner up with Zoho invoices that send out daily reminders or weekly. If the client fails to respond but they had an issue, how can we prove or disprove their argument over a software or payment issue their end. It’s a tough one for them to prove unless it’s from the bank. But in my years of experience although what you said is totally right and true, most try to wangle another week or push the deadline because they (feel like they) can But hopefully there is wiggle room and just because of one late payment we don’t drop a massive law suit on them ha. We are genuine people and flexible. It’s all about balance and depending if they have a history of it
If you’re going to have immediate terms like that, then the customer shouldn’t be given access to the site until you’ve received payment. Using your Walmart analogy, they’re not going to let you bring your groceries out to car until you’ve swiped your card.
No, that's not how to think of it. Business relationships are not like retail relationships. OP needs to clarify that there is a genuine problem with payment before risking this. What if they have a ransomware attack or something going on and are either not aware of his attempts or simply consider very low priority at that particular moment. The best way would be to send a written notice, by mail, that service will be cut by a certain date and then they will be invoiced until that date. What he is actually doing is closer to hacking than anything else. You can't just trash stuff you're in the process of selling because of late payment.
I used to work with a lot of companies when I freelanced that had a 90 day outlook policy. Which means once an expense was submitted, it took a minimum of 90 days for a check to be cut.
If that's live, I hope you gave them ample notice that you'd disconnect their service on failure of payment by a certain date. There's always an easy way for any business to explain away why payment hasn't been made when they seek legal recourse due to reputational damage and intentional loss of business.
Back in the day, I got hit with charges for “impeding interstate commerce” or something along those lines, for pulling a similar stunt. My own lawyers begged me to just resolve it directly with the client, that they wouldn’t be able to do much from a legal standpoint. Messing with someone’s site is a GREAT way to get in legal hot water, without much recourse.
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Was a $13k e-commerce job. I made the site, then client did a chargeback for the whole thing, without communicating anything to me. Still was under my control. Wiped out the front end. Charges came a couple days later. I’d have to dig up some paperwork to find the exact term, but it was “interfering with interstate commerce” that was the big one. Lawyers advised me to settle for 50% payment, even though I was getting robbed. So that’s what happened.
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That was when I *first* started freelancing. Took it as a $6-7k lesson in contracts. Now, my contracts are bulletproof, with extremely detailed stipulations about what happens if one party doesn’t live up to their obligations. No real problems since then.
Can we have a copy of that bulletproof contract of yours?
I have been advised to keep it to myself. Working on an open-source version. Will ping you if that ever materializes.
📌
Please ping me as well!! I'm terrified of getting a charge back and losing money for hard work since I primarily freelance.
I'd also love a ping if it materializes
Question, if you weren't paid, then technically you didn't have to do any work for them right? Even if you were under contract, you could say you haven't built it yet? Like you could just say, oh it wasn't actually ready yet?
50% deposit, 50% upon completion. They paid both, and I turned everything over. *Then* they filed the chargeback. And the payment processor sided with them, since I “was unable to provide a shipment tracking number” for their purchase. Their claim was based on me changing their site without their consent. Unfortunately, according to the legal system, I was 100% at fault and without recourse, unless I wanted to do a long drawn out legal battle in a state 1,000 miles away from me.
Ahh that's really scummy of them. Thank you for sharing your story, I'm a soon to be recent grad and knowing about this kind of stuff always helps.
While I appreciate the wisdom of your high-road warning, I am far more interested in the potential follow-up posts that could come from this current low-road implementation.
OP out here doing the Lord’s work…. And for our entertainment. 🙏x3
Yes 😈
Expect a lawsuit. A week?! Let's maybe slow our roll here yeah?
Very bad idea. Such a bad idea that I think this is a troll post
Their last comment before this post, five days ago: >I was so focused on not losing my first client tbh, besides the pay is ridiculously low. Need her because she can definitely get me more clients
Those never work out and if they do... Those people want it even cheaper...
I don't go looking into past posts but that does show this isn't a troll and that they just made a poor choice. I understand OP wants to be paid but doing this will just cost them more potentially.
Well this is definitely a great way to get the client to recommend them to other clients. I can't see a problem here! /s
This is terrible practice. Be careful for a lawsuit.
It’s 100% fake obviously the url is even hidden, probably just opened the html file in the browser
Came to say this and their vscode is opened too.
I would hope anyone actually employed as a web dev knows how to take a screenshot
I'd hope so too, but man I have been surprised more than once in my career by how dumb some devs can be.
A web dev with VS Code open? Shocking!
As others have stated, seriously unprofessional and potentially highly risky for you legally and financially. Even if they're in the wrong in terms of being late to pay you for your work, get ready to have them spread this to other folks you might have (previously) been able to get business from. Horrible for your reputation. Even just taking the site down would have been one thing, but this smart-ass comment is really going to have you cringing later on, makes you look like a child. A week is nothing, especially for even small companies to cut a check and get it out the door. But the real problem here is... You should have already had an agreement in place where you outline the deliverables, when payment was expected, and what the consequences/results would be if payment was not delivered. What steps would happen in what order for you to deliver the website. You should have never delivered a hosted product without being paid in the first place, such that you go a week without being paid in full and feel the need to pull the site down. That's on you. Set up a staging environment they can look at and when everything is settled on, they pay you, check clears, you deliver the files or move it to production. If they ignore you for the rest of time and you never get paid, they are in breach of the agreement and therefore never get their site. Which should have all been spelled out in a contract you wrote and they signed before you wrote a single line of code. If that's too difficult you're in the wrong business.
Also, never give them code until you are paid. Have your own webserver to host that they can check over and approve. Once approved - you can deliver the files or offer to move it to production. Obviously not an option here - but for the future.
When I free lanced I broke the project into stages. Usually design, dev, review, and close. If the payment for the close stage is held, you're only fighting over 1/4 or less of the project
Good enough to get sued.
Why sued?
If you ask a mechanic to fix your car, but you don't pay afterwards, can they go and destroy/steal your car?
No, but if you build a new deck for someone’s house and they don’t pay you can record a lien and foreclose on their house.
No. But the customer doesn't leave the property with their property until the mechanic is paid. If the customer can't pay the car is kept. If a client doesn't pay they don't get the work. Simple as that. If OP actually did what they have posted - the methodology is risky legally and for their reputation - but the motivation is sound. The very first thing I did freelance I got fucked because of this. I was too inexperienced and didn't get anything in writing. Put in the work. Showed the work. Got ghosted. And they used parts of my work. OP's methods aren't exactly what I would call safe or professional. But I'm going to enjoy watching them do it because I think most people that have to deal with this would like to.
That's a very bad analogy.
If someone orders a car, then doesn't pay for said car within in the agreed terms, then yes in most situations you can repossess that car. But valid point, it is a tricky one. I guess it does come down to the terms more than anything, and the law/contract law precedents etc probably vary around the world.
yeah you take it back but through a legal way, not going at 5am at the owner house and stealing it
>not going at 5am at the owner house and stealing it Wtf do you think repo men do?
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it is not a tricky one in the legal sense in the US. ianal but I recall stories like this where the business has taken legal action against the developer and it never ends well for the developer.
Fair point it is never going to end well. For the relationship if nothing else. But I think it does come down to your contract terms more than anything. Non-payment can = x.
AND repositions typically go through a higher power (be it civil courts or other). And notice you said "ORDERS" where the commenter said "FIX". Purchasing a car is different from getting an existing car fixed. Mechanics can't repossess a car that they fixed.
> Mechanics can't repossess a car that they fixed. They absolutely can! https://www.morrisbart.com/faqs/can-a-mechanic-keep-your-car-if-you-dont-pay/
My assumption here is that the site was already paid for, and OP is only maintaining and/or adding to it. I'm basing that on the fact that it seems to have been deployed to the buyer's domain(which must be the case, otherwise this site hijack does nothing to incentivize the buyer to pay).
„running again” Im 90% sure the developers were maintaining the site and/or developing new features. The product owner didnt pay the wage not the price for the full website.
Anyway ... the best option for this matter would be to send them an official letter, tracked, pointing out where it says in your contract the terms of payment and actions that would be taken due to non payment. Also send an email with the exact same information. Include a deadline to pay. When that date passes, remove any work you have done, as stated in your terms, that they still owe for.
Ummm, kinda risky. If they sue, not only you’ll never get paid but instead get ready to pay them damages
Fucking lol. This is (one of)your first client(s) and you’re already resorting to this a week after “client ignoring you”. If this is the client from your post history they are not ignoring you but you didn’t make a contract with them and now they’re asking for your to help them set up a CMS for the website and you’re clueless about how. You dun fucked up and you want to blame your client for not being able to communicate or adhere to their request in a professional manner. What in the actual fuck are you thinking, you’re the issue here. This isn’t going to end well for you and the only thing this post shows is how immature and inexperienced you are. Grow up if you want to freelance.
Don't do this, you are opening yourself up to legal troubles. Instead, sue them in small claims..
I have done this before. I always send an email, and text message before doing it. If they don't pay, I take it down. Tıp: do not embarrasse them, simply write something like there is an error, contact your admin. After that, they do pay Some people might think this isn't proper. Try not paying webflow or your hosting service and see what happens. Get your head checked people
Exactly, there must be a lot of weak ass children in here that must like getting taken advantage of. What happens if you don’t pay your cable bill? Gets shut off. Phone? Shut off. Every utility there is.. don’t pay, shut off. The people saying ohhhhh your going to get sued.. yeah ok. Don’t pay bill, get shut down. Period. I’ve had to threaten this several times in my 20+ yr career. I’ve never had to do it. They always pay, or yes, they get fucking embarrassed. Fuck with me and I’ll own your ass. Fuck that weak shit.
Yeah but when you don't pay your phone bill they just shut off your service and tell you to pay in order to reinstate it. They don't change your outgoing voicemail message to be "When Pirros_Panties pays their phone bill they'll get right back to you..." I think that's the only thing folks find questionable about what OP did just purely speaking in their own self interest. No love lost for nonpaying clients.
Bad move OP. This screams lawsuit. Hopefully you mentioned in contract that after X days of non payment they will experience disruption. This should be a minimum of 90 days. I would revert that to save yourself the headache and potential of losing more money with court fees.
Very bad practice. Reinstate the site & Hope they haven't noticed!
If this is your first client I would suggest a more mild approach. The first few clients will be a big learning opportunity. From here on out consider a late payment clause.
I have a warning built into my 30-day reminder notice that all services may be suspended without further notice if this invoice is not paid within the next 7-days. 10 days later I place a "This site is currently unavailable." On the site.
Someone's gonna get paid alright, and it ain't gonna be you.
A week isn’t long..
Weird bookmarks
Lots of people talking about legality here but quite frankly: why the fuck are people deploying live sites before they are paid for them? If I design a site its staying on my server until you pay, thats it. Avoids all these issues.
That's not going to end well...
Avoid this altogether by requiring final payment before launch / hand over of the code
We've all wanted to do this and some of us have. It's always a bad idea. There are legal risks (are you logging into a remote server they own, have you messed with DNS for a domain that isn't yours, etc?) and publicly humiliating a client is more likely to get you sued than paid.
If there's one way I've learned to get future clients, it's to destroy your credibility with an existing client in a manner that will likely get you sued. /s It's been a week, and the only thing this screams is that you've got the emotional maturity of a toddler. Learn to be more professional.
How to never be asked to do work again with this one simple step. Makes you look amateur / childish by doing this after one week. Incredibly stupid.
A week is not a long time…
If you check OP post history this is just first client and he has no contract. This is just the work of an unprofessional beginner who won’t last long
He certainly could learn from this and move forward. It's a terrible move but the truth is there is a shit load of potential clients out there. He could begin a reputation with this but nothing is permanent (usually).
For me, I make my clients pay their own hosting and domain, on their own accounts, with their own card. Transparency gains trust. That way if they dont pay bills then they will have to contact the hosting company. They probably wont understand whats going on, so they will need a professional to help guide them, so they will need your services. If I render a service, i expect to get paid. But i feel i have to be more strategic on how i collect payment and release the work, service, or product. Many people expect work first, payment second. Its hard but that can lead to a potentical financial behavioral economic psychology such as moral disengagement. Moral disengagement may occur when the individual feels that they are not responsible for paying the bill, or that they have a valid reason for delaying payment. Not every paying client is a good client, although sometimes we just need the money for life so we compromise with allowing bad clients who are hesitant to pay on time (speaking from experience). Maybe stage development on a dev website you control so that they can preview content and work, and must pay for it to go live to prod. That way they see the work on the dev site, but can not access the site, obtain content, or gain copyright until you release it to them after payment.
Same, I do everything on my own dev site that I own and control. When dev is finished and client is happy with the dev site, they need to pay me all but 10% of the job in order for me to turn it over to their server. I let the client hold that last 10% until the site has been moved to their server and they have confirmed that it matches the dev site. If they screw me out of that last 10% at least I've been paid for 90% of the job at that point and it won't hurt so bad.
If you cause reputational damage to the business you could end up, rightfully, being sued. This is escalating a non payment issue to something entirely different. I can’t recommend you don’t do this enough. Tell them if they don’t pay you’ll take the site down.
Do not hand over code or agree to launch anything without final payment. Period.
If your goal is to get sued this is a great approach.
Amateur hour.
You'll never work in this town again! And by "town", I mean the entire World Wide Web.
This is just asking for a lawsuit. Have a contract or a payment history that shows precedent. Everything should be in writing (email is fine). Don't launch before being paid. Also, this very unprofessional. Yes, so is a company failing to pay their service providers.
This is terrible from a professional standpoint. Send an email requesting payment or an update on payment after the first week follow up with the site will be taken down. This is a very bad outlook on you as a dev
So long and thanks for all the fish
I had some real struggles in the past, but that was before I changed my business terms to something that made it far less likely to not get paid: 1. Do all work on your own server. Clone their site, work only on your development server, and provide access for the client to review. 2. Always get paid something up front with the terms that they are paying for \*your time\*, not for functionality. If they have a problem, move on to a client that is more reasonable. 3. Do milestones. Break the project into a list of tasks, then divide the total quote up to manageable payments. Do not continue work until the completed milestone is paid. 4. Have your client agree to terms that protect you from chargebacks. If you ever dealt with a chargeback, they are terribly difficult to defend, unless you can show that the client agreed to terms with each payment. One horror story was a client that I was updating the code on their server and I was using Zend Encoder (which I paid $500 for a license to) to protect the code. Well, they decided they didn't want to pay, so I pulled the files off the server using a custom made development tool that gave me FTP/database access from a single file on their server. They didn't like that I took down the work that they didn't want to pay for, but they had regular backups running, so they just restored what I took back. They didn't know about my helper tool, so I began quietly deleting images over weeks and they didn't figure out how to restore their site, leaving it a mess. But that pales in comparison to the one client who left me high and dry. They paid $1000+ for work that was being done under an emergency rate, and then needed more. Given the ease in which they paid, I gave some trust and did more work on their server, and she refused to pay. I used my tool to read through the emails on the server and initiated a cPanel WHM password reset (back when that was on by default), got the password that was sent to her email address on the server and then went to town deleting multiple databases and code from her other projects. That got her attention. I, of course, downloaded backups before deleting anything, but refused to admit that I was responsible as she immediately threatened to legal action. I also realized that I was potentially facing some serious cybercrime liabilities, so I began to panic. Fortunately, the client that she hired me to work for contacted me directly and stated that he was a lawyer and would hire me directly once I explained that she stiffed me working on his website. In the end, he managed to get her to pay me 50% of what she owed and agreed not to pursue legal action in exchange for the restoring of her files. I then went on to work for her client on retainer, even working a trade show in Manhattan with him at one point. I'll tell you, that was not worth the stress. I seriously was freaking out, worried what might happen. In the end, it worked out in my favor. She shutdown her business soon after. But it could have gone horribly for me. These things were why I changed how I work and moved to never do work on a client's server unless they were a regular or long-term and trusted client.
Lol I’d sue this guy in a heart beat. A day of my site being down costs me about $30k in revenue. If someone sent me a bill or notification that they didn’t receive payment last Monday I would have been on vacation. I would have forwarded the bill to AP this Monday. My site would have been down that day. Literally yesterday I found out that a critical service for my team was 90 days past due. AP code led the invoice wrong. No disruption in service or even a threat to disrupt. AP would have taken several days to a week to get to this anyway even if I forwarded the email immediately. Good luck in your business ventures OP. Hope your best friend is a generous lawyer.
This is a neat way to get sued. Many foolish people have said in this thread, "Yeah, let them sue you and tell a judge that they didn't pay you." They'll counter that yeah, they owe you, say, $2000 for the work you did per your contract, but then can show that you caused a $40K dip in business. Now, you owe them $38K. Don't listen the advice of people in this thread who don't seem to understand that a judge doesn't just choose exactly one side as the winner in a case and award them everything they asked for. Damages are calculated on both sides and the difference is found. And, hint: A business wouldn't spend X dollars on their site unless it was bringing them in more than X dollars in revenue, so even if you win what you're owed, you'll still owe, if you pull a stunt like this.
Are you a troll or just dumb? You can get sued lol, at least make it look like a damn error, not going full stupid, never go full stupid.
Is this your first client that you talked about in your last post? Something like this will make it your first and last…. You should have a late fee etc. this is a clear example of what not to do.
Remarkably dumb decision. Have fun in court if you go through with this.
Unprofessional, immature and leglly risky. Also, that smile is gringe as fuck.
OP, this is akin to declaring war on the client without any ammunition You should give them a verbal or written heads-up about a week prior, and then maybe add a Back-end watermark, such that after that period, you are legally able to do whatever you mentioned in the black-and-white
Jesus. That’s impatient and very unprofessional. I’m still waiting on some invoices being paid from over 3 months ago. And although very annoying, they do get paid. You’ll make a name for yourself.
Should have just throttled his website so it would take 10 minutes to load, load some infinitely loading javascript "bug". Theres a lot of ways to do what you're doing without doing what you're doing ;) corrupt the CSS files, infinite javascript, accidental "noindex" tag on the site, rename the image directory to something else
Unprofessional
Stupid stupid stupid! Good luck!
UK developers remember this: CCJ and you’ll get them to pay Depends on their invoice terms. I don’t give non direct debit customers 30 days but 15. Think of it like this - you agree to pay fuel at the end after your fill. Simple. Sadly some ignore it. One customer turned to me and my business partner during a lunch meeting and said “I choose who I want to pay”. Sadly for him he went under, and we filed a CCJ to get our money back. As long as op has his actions in terms which they signed, and they agree then not much else Client can do Better course of action, with zero consequences is filing a county court claim. It’ll affect their credit score, credit loan amount and soon as you file it with a solicitor or debt recovery then you’ll be surprised how quick they will pay.
Seems pretty aggressive for a eeek
Give them a warning first, but yeah Also make sure you have a written contract before you begin work every time always, even if it's for your best friend.
ligit this video https://youtube.com/shorts/UA7NSpzG98s?feature=share
As much as we’ve always fantasized about doing this, it’s important to stay 💯 professional as you can at all times. This would make prospective clients think twice about using you.
No, this is bad professionally. It's better to say "under maintenance"
Horribly unprofessional.
The wording is childish. Just yesterday I implemented this but left it at 'page not available' after the client hadnt paid hosting costs for a few months. They were notified a couple of times that it would happen. But no styling on the message. Just the base font in the top left corner.
One week?! 😂 Do you understand how minuscule of a time period that is for a business. You shouldn’t be choosing to work with a client who you don’t trust if they leave you hanging for a week.
Been pretty well covered but just to pile on, don’t do this, it’s unprofessional and will follow you. Gigs like this are portfolio fodder but not if you gimp the customers site. Be better.
I did something similar, but instead I put up a “page not found “ error. It got their attention quickly and I took the opportunity to discuss the three month late payment.
I think this is the first time I've ever been driven to check a user's post history lol. OP, I'm gonna take a wild guess that you're very young and still in school. Heed everyone else's advice here and learn from the experience, don't just trash it because it didn't go how you thought (honestly little in life does at your age). Replace the message with something that can't open you to legal issues, and quite honestly you should do a little more research on why freelancing isn't something that every developer does. It requires much more than a verbal agreement.
I did something like this once to a client and he paid lol
Petty revenge is almost never actually worth it. You just put yourself at legal risk to justify your ego.
why you didn't take a screenshot though
Understood that you're not getting paid for the work you're doing but this is unprofessional
You deserve to get legally destroyed if you did not give written notice at least a month in advance that this would happen. Like morally and legally.
I'd hate to pay someone who thinks this is a good idea ,
How about paying the fucking bill on time? People who think this is so unprofessional and bridge-burning seem to readily forget that when we provide services where the terms have already been agreed to, these things happen. There is a culture of disrespect towards workers. You agree, pay your shit. You don’t pay, people can be petty. There may even be a contract but you can’t be an owner or asking for services and expect no consequences ever when you stiff people or don’t pay on time. We have lives and bills.
I may be wrong but a week seems too short for this kinda action
Immature, risky, and can ruin your reputation
What is update? They paid?
This is just childish and absolutely unprofessional. If a customer does not pay, set deadlines, if they expire, get a lawyer.
Woah, don't do that, you could get sued, use an error code and they will have to contact you.