Clients that don't pay...

[Thomas C. Gass]

Dear colleagues,

How do you deal with clients that don't pay their bills? As you might know, I'm not living in the U.S. but in Europe, and I never had any issues with non-paying-clients so far (...and I'm in the business for more that 25 years...knock on wood...), but right now I do have 2 U.S. clients that seem to play a game with me: endless e-mails going back and forth but no money so far. In Europe, where I am a member of the German, Austrian and Swiss association of VO pros we have websites, where we publish the names of such clients to prevent other VOs to get trapped too - does that exist in the U.S. as well? Should we think about opening a section on this behalf at this forum?

I wonder what my legal possibilities are (as a "foreign alien") to get hold of my money. How do you deal with such cases?

Thomas

[Kenneth_Bruce]

Sue them.

[Jacoby]

So sorry to hear this, my friend. I have a problem with a Danish/Swedish company I did a national TV-commercial for back in March, who still havent paid me, keep dodging my calls and don't answer my e-mails. Saddest part is, I got this gig from a dear fellow VO-friend of mine, who feel kinda responsible even though I've told him he certainly is not.

I understand your frustration and hope it works out. If not.... I for one would certainly like to learn about them.

[Thomas C. Gass]

How? I'm not living in the U.S. and I don't want to pay 2000$ for a lawyer to get hold of my 500$...

Here, you can fill out on-line legal "sueing" papers (sorry, I don't know the correct legal term in English...), make a PDF out of it, send it along and tell your client, that you will push the "submit" button if the money doesn't arrive within 48 hours...

Does something similar exist in the US - accessible even for "aliens"?

Thomas

[chucktaylor]

Tell them they have 2 options, 1) they can pay them what they owe you or 2) you can report them to the credit bureau and continue to report them for every 30 days that they don't pay until you are forced to take legal action. The choice is theirs...Choice 1) would make you happy and keep them with a good credit rating, choice 2 will hurt their credit score and in the case of non payment lead to legal action. Then ask them "Is it really worth hurting your business's credit rating not to pay me?" Then follow through! Smart business people will realize that you mean business and pay up.

Chuck

[Thomas C. Gass]

@Jacob: Hi my friend, long time no read! I hope you're fine and would love to hear more about what's going on in Denmark ;-)

@Chuck: You know, in the last 25 years, I never ever didn't get paid: Whenever I had a "non-paying"-client living within "reach" of my car, I visited him, telling him that I won't leave without my money (sometimes even offering bartering like "oh, nice pre-amp, I take it with me and we're settled ;-) and it always worked out. Although in the last 10 years when I worked massively for foreign customers via ISDN and FTP, I never had any problems with settling their accounts. So I would really like to know: Where is this "the credit bureau" (I suppose it's an US state's office), can I find it on the internet (i.e. for the state of Florida and Texas), do they accept complaints by "aliens" or am I simply lost with my loss... :-)

I also use to tell my client that without a legal payment, the rights for my recording still belong to me and that he is illegally "lending" it to his client. In case he still resists paying me, I will contact *his* client to explain the illegal situation of using my voice in their production... In these cases - no effect....

Thomas

[Lee Gordon]

I have a client -- a major insurance company -- that still owes me for a couple of projects. I had not been very aggressive about collecting the money but was about to e-mail my contact within the company to see if he could chase down my payments when he called me to have me do another job. Before we got into the nuts and bolts of his latest job I mentioned that I still had not been paid for the last two. He seemed genuinely horrified and promised to rattle the appropriate chains. So now they owe me for three jobs. (To be fair, I just did job #3 yesterday and haven't invoiced them yet, so I really can't count that one as delinquent).

On the othr hand, I have a client in Germany who paid me 50% up front for the first job I did for him, although I did not request payment in advance. And when I did e-mail the invoice to him, the money was in my PayPal account within the hour. Same for the next job. I e-mailed the invoice in the middle of the night on a weekend and my payment arrived in about 15 minutes.

I guess you sometimes have to take the bad with the good. I had another client who owed me a small amount of money and they usually paid in between 30-60 days. An envelope arrived in the mail within that time frame and I opened it expecting to find my check. Instead, there was a notice that after 23 years they were going out of business, the bank had taken possession of their equipment and receivables, and they were going to do everything in their power to see that their vendors were paid what was owed us. I'm not holding my breath.

[PierceVoice]

My experience is that if they're not going to pay, they just aren't... and there's really not much you can do about it (especially from another country).

What you CAN do moving forward is to inform clients of your policy to collect payment before you render services-- and practice this most definitely when dealing with smaller clients. It could be 50%, 10%, or the whole thang, but get your $$ first for your protection. I've yet to hear an objection from anyone worth working with.
One other suggestion I've heard is to make sure they (bad client) know you're well-connected to an international industry community that would be nonesohappy to read about this, and that this person's/company's name will be made synonymous with unprofessional nonpayment in your LARGE network of connections. I'm told that could work.

**Also: Weigh your time against your worth. If it's a small fee, cut your losses and take the education-- you've got REAL clients to get to. It should go without saying that you should no longer provide services to anyone delinquent.

[Thomas C. Gass]

Originally Posted by Lee Gordon

I guess you sometimes have to take the bad with the good.

Lee, I appreciate your kind attitude on this issue - on the other hand: if I go to the bakery, I can't leave with the good (bread) without paying the bad (money) ;-) I have done a lot of jobs free of charge for upcoming companies or for companies in difficult financial situations, but I simply hate spending hours with sending e-mails back and forth just to receive more lies on why they didn't succeed in transferring the money. That's why I think it would be worth setting up a "blackboard" with names - perhaps here or on another forum like this.

Thomas

[John Bigl]

LETS GO BEAT EM UP !!!!

"an injury to one is an injury to all"

.....

sure hope it works out for you, Thomas...

having a website where stiffed talents can post the names and contact info of their non-paying (thieves) clients is a great idea.. imo, it could serve as a warning to those not operating honestly that they stand a good chance of being put on display in the town square's virtual stocks... this kind of embarrassment and humiliation can cut deep....