For literally the entire day clients have been whining and crying that they have no money. Then they get mad at us that THEY cannot afford their pets needs. Like shit Im sorry YOU dont finacially plan ahead for owning at pet. Im sorry YOU decided to neglect your pet for months. Im sorry YOU decided to purchase a fucking puppy from the Dominican Republic and cannot pay for it hospitalization for having parvo. LIKE WTF.
Then they have the audasity to BASH our clinics name online branding it “money hungry” and “unethical”. Like am I fucking crazy here?
I might have bumped this woman's dog into the double doors when going into the back room. Now she swears I'm Satan incarnate and I can't touch her dog. Big loss.
There's a saying, fool me once shame on you... fool me a hundred times and well, tattoo "shamed" on my forehead.
When I first started my line of work, I was bright eyed and trusting and after getting burned a few times regarding payments, I re-wrote my SOPs and demanded 100% payments upfront in order to protect my hard work and help me sift out the good clients from the bad
But every now and then, for lack of better judgement - shit happens.
My process is pretty simple, since I work solo;
1. Hash out the project details
2. Negotiate a price, come to an agreement
3. Invoice the client for advance payment (100% in most cases)
4. Spend my days and nights trying to perfect the job
5. Deliver the final project upon approval/make changes etc.
Recently I got this website project, and my goal was to give it a makeover. The price was agreed upon, the extra design work was agreed upon and because she requested nicely, I accepted the 50% advance and 50% upon finalization payment process. I was totally into the project and made sure I gave it my 1000% efforts, even when the client wanted to be "hands on" and art direct the site, so I let the client do her thing, and of course added my own 2 bits to make it workable and un-ugly.
There are plenty of clients who interfere a lot, and think they know better, and you can either fight that battle or just give in and do the darn job. So I did.
After several do-overs the website went from fabulous to acceptable, I finally completed the website - and she sent over her final list of minor changes. So as per regulation, I asked her to clear the final payment and I'd complete the changes and launch! Fair enough right?
Wrong. or so she thought so
She decided to ask me for a "compensation discount" since she gave ideas for the custom graphics and captions and how I "didn't really have to do much"
I argued that regardless of her interference, I still put in the time and effort to give her a custom designed website! That hard work was done because of the initial amount agreed upon.
Sadly, when I said this to her - she changed the website admin password and stopped replying. Her being in the US made it virtually impossible for me to track her down or do anything about it, but I wasn't going to just give up.
I googled her, found her on Facebook and messaged her to "please respond, as I completed my end of the bargain"
She then e-mailed back and made a hue and cry about how I was "harassing" her and "terminated" the project and voila. Got the website half off.
it's sad to see such people in this world, and it only makes designers like myself become more stubborn about payments. Unfortunately a handful of con artists make life a little difficult for the good clients.
