No More Excuses - Just Pay Me!

Rant coming.  I do freelance work.  In addition to scaring up stuff for myself, I have an agency that represents me, and they get me work.  A little over a year ago, they got me a client who they said was a nice guy, and "He's a bit of a slow payer, but if he likes you it'll be steady work." 

It turned out both things were true.  It's regular work, and they take an average of about 5 weeks to pay.  For the sake of comparison, I have a few other regular clients, and they pay me whenever their next pay cycle is after the job is completed, and that's usually within 2 weeks, never more than a month.

Anyway, with the slow guy, I wait 30 days and then I send the office manager an email and politely ask for my money.  Usually she sends it out within a day or two.  Recently, though, they've been stalling, and I'm about fed up with it.  I sent the office manager an email a week ago looking for payment, here's the list of excuses I've gotten back:

"We haven't been paid by the overall client yet, but when we do, you'll get your money."

That's not how it works.  I have an agreement with you, not your overall client.  Pay me.

"You seem unhappy.  Should we keep our working relationship going?  If not, we'll pay you everything we owe you and we can part ways."

I'm only unhappy because you're not paying me on time.  I'm happy to keep the working relationship going.  If you're ready to pay me off to make me go away, why don't you just pay me?

"We put a check in the mail last Thursday.  Have you not received it?"

No, I have not.  Seeing as I only live about 20 miles from you, and it's been 4 days, I think the check may be "lost".

"Oh, well, let's give it one more day and if it's not with you by tomorrow, we'll send another one."

Yes, by all means, let's wait a bit.  If nothing else it'll give you time to think of more excuses.  Post date the check, maybe?  Put different amounts in the number part and the written part?  Forget to sign it?  If you did all three and spaced them out we could keep doing this for another month.  You might wind up in the Deadbeat Hall of Fame.

I took a business skills class on Friday, where I learned I'm allowed by law to charge them £40 plus 8% interest per day for every day over 30 that the invoice is not paid.  I know if I do this, it'll be the end of the working relationship, but I really want to, if only to make them mad.

Thanks for listening.  Rant over.

Stand by. A lot of small businesses are having grievous cashflow problems at the moment. DF is freelance and quite a few of his old familiar clients are extra slow to pay lately.

We sometimes forget to pay suppliers, but then they call and chase, we apologise and send the cheque.  Equally, sometimes people don't pay us on time, but usually we get told "things are a bit tight at the moment, I'm sorry, we'll pay as soon as we can" we is, to an extent, fine, as long as we get a rough idea of when this will be.

But when we start getting the excuses, that is when I get angry.

It is all well and good to say that they are a small business and that things are hard, but why don't they just say that?  Don't they realise that camoscato is as well?

It sounds as though you are better off without them.  If it has now been six weeks I would think about a letter before action.


Vicky

Yeah as vicky said, get your exchanges in writing, or record the call and inform them at the beginning that you are, indeed , recording.

Stand by. A lot of small businesses are having grievous cashflow problems at the moment. DF is freelance and quite a few of his old familiar clients are extra slow to pay lately.

Yeah, I know the economy is going in the toilet, but a) I looked through my records and noticed they paid me slower during this same period of time last year, b) people have been talking about the tanking economy for a while now, so they've had lots of time to prepare for difficulties, but instead c) in July the company director purchased an Audi R8, which has a retail price of £76,000, so my sympathy with the company's financial trouble is less than overwhelming. 

We sometimes forget to pay suppliers, but then they call and chase, we apologise and send the cheque.  Equally, sometimes people don't pay us on time, but usually we get told "things are a bit tight at the moment, I'm sorry, we'll pay as soon as we can" we is, to an extent, fine, as long as we get a rough idea of when this will be.

But when we start getting the excuses, that is when I get angry.

Me, too. 

It sounds as though you are better off without them.  If it has now been six weeks I would think about a letter before action.

Yeah as vicky said, get your exchanges in writing, or record the call and inform them at the beginning that you are, indeed , recording.

Yeah, I'm trying to decide how much bu11shit I'm willing to put up with, and to be honest, I'm on the fence about it.  Thanks for the advice Vicky & Navie.  We got similar advice from the business skills class I took recently, so I'll be able to cover all my bases before I have to release the hounds. 

 I can completely sympathize. My mom, sister and I all work as nannies.

The lady my mom works for is a relator and things have not been going good lately. She had someone pay her three weeks late, and as a result was not able to pay my mom for three weeks. She's horrible about managing her books and finances anyway. (my mother and I have both had checks bounce from her in the past) My mom finally had to go to her and ask for part of what was owed as she needed to pay for my sister's music lessons.

The people I work for have been paying me on time - but post dating the check for a few days after the day they are suppose to pay me. I understand, but it's still really frustrating.

camoscato, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. My knee-jerk reaction is that, for all intents and purposes, this business relationship is already shot. It sounds like their smarmy threat to dump you is a ploy (perhaps to string you along by intimidation, thus making you hesitate from taking action while they prepare to go into receivership).

I'm loathe to encourage you to bite the hand that (partially) feeds you, but, as others have wisely noted here, you're a small business, too and are entitled to be renumerated promptly for your services.

Perhaps it's time to call their bluff and say, "I'm sorry you feel my inability to survive without payment for services rendered is cause to terminate our business relationship, so I'll have all my money now, please. I shall call round tomorrow to pick up the check for payment in full."

ImissEngland, US Realtors are paid at the closing table for sales transactions. If the sale closed, she got paid; there is no such thing as "three weeks late". I say that as a licenced Realtor. Keep that in mind for your own protection. 

camoscato, I'm so sorry this is happening to you. My knee-jerk reaction is that, for all intents and purposes, this business relationship is already shot. It sounds like their smarmy threat to dump you is a ploy (perhaps to string you along by intimidation, thus making you hesitate from taking action while they prepare to go into receivership).

I'm loathe to encourage you to bite the hand that (partially) feeds you, but, as others have wisely noted here, you're a small business, too and are entitled to be renumerated promptly for your services.

Perhaps it's time to call their bluff and say, "I'm sorry you feel my inability to survive without payment for services rendered is cause to terminate our business relationship, so I'll have all my money now, please. I shall call round tomorrow to pick up the check for payment in full."

Thanks for the advice.  I haven't fully decided what I'm going to do at this point.  I think I'm going to wait and see what happens this week, and if they keep screwing around and making excuses I'll terminate the relationship.

I can sympathize.  As a photo assistant, I would sometimes have to wait 6 weeks to get paid, and they always chalked it up to waiting for the client to pay them.  Agreeing with you that THEY should pay you, not their client!!!   

It's hard to make a living that way.  I hated the unreliability of payments, etc., when I was freelance (couldn't get the ball rolling, either) which is why I ended up just letting it go.  It was hard once I had a full-time job going and would get calls for big jobs now and then that I had to turn down (where I would be making more money than I would have at the full-time job) but I had to remind myself I might not see that money for weeks on end!

Not saying you should let your career go, however!!   

It all depends on how much money you regularly get from them, whether or not it is worth it to "stick it to the man." It would teach them a lesson if you put on the extra charges and showed them it is unacceptable to string you along, but who would they tell about it?  Would it hurt your overall financial situation and/or reputation to snub them?  If not, then go for it....
If it would, then obviously you should be careful in how you proceed with this.  Good luck, I hope you get your money soon!

It all depends on how much money you regularly get from them, whether or not it is worth it to "stick it to the man." It would teach them a lesson if you put on the extra charges and showed them it is unacceptable to string you along, but who would they tell about it?  Would it hurt your overall financial situation and/or reputation to snub them?  If not, then go for it....
If it would, then obviously you should be careful in how you proceed with this.  Good luck, I hope you get your money soon!

Thanks for the good wishes and the advice!  Financially it would be a pretty big chunk, but I'm pretty confident I could make that up by getting some new clients.  Reputation-wise, the more I look into this company, the more horror stories I hear from people that have worked for them and been screwed around, so no worries on that front.   

I haven't fully decided what I'm going to do at this point.  I think I'm going to wait and see what happens this week, and if they keep screwing around and making excuses I'll terminate the relationship.

Suggest you write to them .... Recorded Delivery .... giving them say 14 days to pay, after which you will issue proceedings in the Small Claims Court, without further notice.

Sounds to me that the relationship has already ended! Would you trust them again? Why would you choose to do work for them again, given this current difficulty?

Suggest you write to them .... Recorded Delivery .... giving them say 14 days to pay, after which you will issue proceedings in the Small Claims Court, without further notice.

Which is exactly what a 'letter before action' is!!!

Vicky

ImissEngland, US Realtors are paid at the closing table for sales transactions. If the sale closed, she got paid; there is no such thing as "three weeks late". I say that as a licenced Realtor. Keep that in mind for your own protection. 

She is a contractor too and I think this payment had to do with something she had built for someone.

She is a contractor too and I think this payment had to do with something she had built for someone.

So it's her construction work that was 3 weeks late being paid; nothing to do with being a Realtor. Understood.