My name is Joel Mottinger, and I own a web design firm call Creative Mouse. Having been in business for over 7 years I have had my share of bad clients, slow paying clients, non paying clients.
I am calling on all web developers to be aware with regards to this matter. If you have ever been in a situation where a client does not want to pay, read on.
Apologies in advance for the lengthy post?
Creative Mouse recently built a 240 page front end for a client and a custom backend tool for him to serve files to his clients based on login information he could specify for each.
Creative Mouse originally had intended to host it on his internal Windows box after he assured us he had a static IP. When we went to the office, it turns out he did not have a static IP, so it turned out to be a bit of a waste of our time. He then proceeded to get a static IP from his ISP but seems they could not get it right, because the IP did in fact change on occasion. Eventually we gave up and recommended he get some hosting elsewhere.
There were some teething issues originally which caught us off guard, like the host had? Imposed a max file size upload limit'. Turns out the client wants to upload files 80mb and higher through http? But don't get me started on that. He originally said the files would be a lot smaller.
Now the client is saying that he is unhappy with the look of his site, saying it is average compared to our other sites, yet at the beginning he stated he only wanted a basic site with the intention of designing something more professional later.
I told him I realize the site does not look as? Fancy' as some of our others but that is because that was his requirement. Something basic now, something better later. Even so, the site we made is a lot higher standard than what you would consider? Basic'. It's even all CSS and it validates. It is by no means a shoddy product.
He also went on to blame us when his web site stopped working. Yet he openly admitted that he had called the host to get the domain name servers changed back to what they originally were. He had done this because when he got the Jumba hosting account (they took control of his domain as well), email stopped working. He had obviously failed to change his email clients account settings. One phone call to Jumba support would have fixed everything.
On top of all this, he seems to think we are somehow his technical proxy for when there is an email issue or internet issue; even though I have explained we are their web site developers, not their ISP. He has admitted on occasion he is technically challenged when it comes to this sort of thing
So now we are left with a situation we have never faced. He is refusing to pay the invoice, despite our show of good faith with the massive price reduction. There is evidence that he had been using the backend as well because he had uploaded files for his clients to access. Although he is unlikely to be using it now as the domain name does not resolve to where it should be because he had it re-delegated.
We have technically dropped him as a client and will not do any work for him again. He was pissed when I told him he needs to find a new developer for any future work he wants done on his site. Yet this was actually his suggestion originally? I just took him up on it as I believe it was the best thing for everyone involved.
I am tempted to just take all the files down from his server and write off this project completely. Ultimately we have delivered a working product.
As a small web dev business we don't have time for clients like this. I have been in this business for about 7 years and we have had the rare occasional difficult client but this is the first to refuse to pay an invoice.
Joel Mottinger
Creative Mouse
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