I use to web design for cash money before I started being a publisher. I hated it! I don’t really like clients, the biggest reason is because they think they litteraly own you. I would get calls at 9am (early for me) from people who needed a word changed on there website. Such as changing “free blah blah” to “free blah blah*”. I hated it. But another thing I hated was getting ripped off. When I web designed, it seemed like my clients would always have me working on a website so they could put off paying me a little while longer. The more time spend on small tweaks on a website, the more time they didnt have to pay me.
Well I was looking through old sites that I have made in the past for clients, and I found a few that I made but never got paided for.
1st - http://www.developerhut.com/outfitters/ This website as for a local company. The owner kept on giving me very small tweaks so he could not have to pay me. The dude still owes me $300..
2nd - http://www.developerhut.com/awayfreak/ This site is old. I think its 2 plus years old. This dude owes me $40..
3rd. http://www.developerhut.com/bored/ This site is also 2 plus years old. Its a nice design. This dude still owes me $75..
I have a really good memory, I hardly ever forget anything, that is why I can remeber how much each person owes me, lol.
Its bound to happen plenty of times if you work with clients. You are bound to get ripped off. Shit happens, get over it and move on. I wont press charges on any of those people just because they owe me so little. If they owed me $500 plus I would most likely have a lawyer write them a letter. That usually scares people. But if you work with clients, its always bound to happens. Just gotta learn your lesson so you wont rewrite history..
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Reply to the title: Of course I have, you know me Jon
That sucks to get ripped off especially on that horse and saddle site
I don’t get ripped off when i take my 10% deposit first
Are you getting two homes built? Cause the houses in the pictures aren’t consistently the same ones…
I have actually had very good experiences freelancing. I was pretty naive at first in trusting people to pay me after I had finished a site but I always got paid in the end.
Now I would not take a job from a new client without getting a down payment (usually 10%) first. This has worked out well.
Don’t fix it any more if they don’t wana pay what they owe you!!
PS: I went ahead and forward them this url for them to see that their mad. no jk!
Darren - Haha, please tell me which picture dosent look like the others..
Everyone else - When I web designed, I took 50% upfront..
50% up front is too high, even 10% is too high for some jobs. I’ve dealt with sooooooooooo many bad programmers it’s not even funny. I’m talking about people who have had a month to do something, and start the project on the very last week, and then think they can drag the project on longer than the assigned due date. I’ve also had programmers who don’t test anything, and expect you to do all of that.
So my suggestion to everyone hiring others is to pay them in increments. i.e. set up a requirements doc and pay x amount of dollars once this portion is complete, that portion, etc.
Luckily I have trustworthy clients now, but back in the fun days of working for scratch, one dude took my work and didn’t pay the last 50% - $500, so I can definitely agree with you.
Those designs are butt ugly
But yea, I’ve been scammed a few times. $1000 once, $500 once, etc…
Matt: Note that he said they were 2+ years old, each. Do you understand how that works?
Well the first two show a foundation and then a frame built with a garage and a mirroring peak on the right hand side. The third image doesn’t have a garage nor the foundation for one, nor a peak on the right hand side. And the front window beside the front doorway has an angled window, the rest of the exterior shots don’t but a few of the interior shots do.
The 3rd shot is of the back of the house. The angled doorway is the back door. You can see the door from the inside of the house on the the pic down.
Oh right on. It makes sense now.
OMG $300. Thats still a lot of money. You should find someone to hack that site. Or do it the old fashion way and break their legs.
I feel you on that one… it blows… The worst i’ve got was this guy owed me $2500 for an all flash site (programming included) plus graphic design work… (i know real cheap) and kept putting off paying me 50% for the samples. Get contracts people… if they don’t like it tell them tough luck… Oh! this dude got screwed by another one of my “paying” clients. Hit up for $6500… DOESN’T PAY NOT TO PAY YOUR DESIGNER!!!
I’m still doing web design for cash money. (doing the publisher thing as well)
It’s all how you deal with the clients and the type you sell to. From the prices you’ve mentioned for the various jobs, it sounds like the clients you were working with are at the bottom of the barrel. We don’t touch anything under a grand usually.
You also have to have a strict contract and procedure. Take a deposit up front, and develop on your server. The client doesn’t get the final product until they pay you the remaining amount.
There are a lot of other things you can do to protect yourself, it does sound like you had a harsh run, but it is possible to run a web design business without that many headaches.
Few same kind of stuff happend to me in the past which made me hate what I do