Difficult Client
One of my clients has become difficult.
He has now received work from me (and stated initially that he was pleased) and then after silence for a couple of weeks, refused to allow for any amendments and requested a refund.
PPH refused this refund due to Ts + Cs and client has now used my work to complete to project. I believe (given this is his first job on PPH) that he plans to get the majority of work done using PPH and will then request a refund each time.
I'm at a loss of what to do now.
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Official comment
Many thanks for your message.
I have opened up a ticket for you with our customer support team and someone will email you soon.
Please let me know if I can help you with anything else.Comment actions -
When a client uses work that youve done but he hasnt paid for it, he (or she) is committing copyright infringement. Send the client a message and tell them that you hold copyright on all work until it is paid for in full. Using your work that they havent paid for is theft.
If your work is visible on their website, then after sending a cease and desist letter, write to their web host stating that they are using stolen intellectual property on their site that is being hosted on their servers.
You can find their webhost by doing a simple Whois search.
There are several cease and desist example letters out there. Theyll either pay up or remove the work, but youll have the satisfaction of knowing their thievery didnt work. I have done this successfully before when a clients web host suspended their hosting until the (stolen) content was removed. Another ex client stole substantial amounts of material without paying and when I sent screenshots of our interation to their web host their account was terminated permanently.
So if you have genuinely been ripped off. There are still things that you can do about it, when PPH dont have the power to.
Also you can report digital rights infringment to Google and suddenly their site is completely deindexed! I did that a few years back. Apparently the client had a reputation in the industry and after iI did that to them, The story goes they never stole intellectual work again.
And if the client starts getting difficult and you see signs of a problem brewing early, cut your losses. There are plenty of really good clients out there. for every 100 great clients I get, there is maybe one dishonest one.
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Hello Les, thank you for the reply. The situation is thus, he's had the work, and there is a payment in Escrow. He sent an email saying he thought the work was 'a good piece of fiction yet didn't like it at all'. This is not a problem, I'd be happy to rewrite and or change whatever the client wanted. I sent him over two other pieces of work, to see if the style of those pieces would be preferable. He came back to me with a break down of why my work is awful :) happily those pieces have already been rated 5 by the clients they were done for. I knew before this chap even bought my Hourlie that he was going to be a tricky customer, you get a feeling don't you. He then changed the parameters of the Hourlie from blogs to posts and snippets, and was also kind enough to send me a link on how to write catchy and viral titles, he's thoughtful that way. So, now he's had the work, and the payment is in Escrow, what are my options? I am actually quite happy to refund him and be done, not that he has asked for a refund, it's me that wishes to refund so I can get shot of him.
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