I contracted with an overseas company and was paid for most of my work there. Unfortunately, the company hasn't paid my team for the last few months of our work. We're now coming around on 9 months since the due date.
The manager still promises payment but always has new excuses. The company has not gone under and actually has even hired new contractors, albeit in different divisions.
Due to the fact that this company is on the other side of the globe, a lawsuit is impractical.
Are there any other tactics we might employ, such as public shaming blogs, glassdoor reviews, etc?
edit: thanks for all the helpful feedback. Some more details: we have not worked for quite some time (basically after it was clear that something was wrong with payments). I've escalated this to the CEO, he/she has ignored our contacts. This company is in Australia and I am in the US.
America even has a law giving that notion teeth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SPEECH_Act
> The Securing the Protection of our Enduring and Established Constitutional Heritage (SPEECH) Act is a federal statutory law in the United States that makes foreign libel judgments unenforceable in U.S. courts, unless either the legislation applied offers at least as much protection as the U.S. First Amendment (concerning free speech), or the defendant would have been found liable even if the case had been heard under U.S. law.
They play hardball, you play hardball. That's life.
But then again, I'm an A-hole.
I used this once after a problem with freelancer.com. They paid up within hours after filing.
https://www.accc.gov.au/contact-us/other-helpful-agencies/st...
I guess you could call it a threat of 'focused shaming'.
The amount due was a relatively small amount. A collection agency might work better for larger amounts.
Emails don't work well in these situations. Send a letter, ring the CEO ... and STOP doing any more work.
The last email got me the full $4k invoice paid in full in one week after weeks of delay.
In the future, setup project in milestone phases, next phases won't start until payment received. AND written in the statement of Works/Contract that you will only provide the source code and / or assign the copyright over until the payment is received in FULL.
I wrote a very angry email saying I intended to sell the debt to a collection agency, to ensure they paid in full, even if I never saw any of the money myself. They replied on the very same day, we negotiated, and I recovered about half the money I was owed by the end of the week.
On the other hand, forget shaming them publicly - you open yourself up to accusations of libel - or empty threats of legal action - you simply don't have the resources. The same goes for sabotaging or erasing your code. But debt collection is a very real option.
Really, the single most important lesson when doing work for any company.
It's easier if the foreign country has an embassy in your country.
This doesn't help you now, but next time get a deposit of two-months estimated work up front. If they don't want to pay the deposit, don't work with them. Now, if you do two months of work and they happen to not pay you, you stop all work, take the deposit, and you lost nothing. If they want to start work again, charge another 2 month deposit up front and scold them for wasting your time.
Time to scold you (sorry)...why the hell did you do 9 months of work without getting paid? What are you thinking?! You have inadvertently taught this company to never pay you, ever. You are now (and most likely always will be) the guys they get free work from.
You might have to cut your losses and move on.
The truth of the matter is that loosing a grand and a half to learn the F U pay me principle is probably pretty cheap. What hurts more is the time I lost (6 weeks to the first client, maybe 2 weeks to the second). I was inexperienced and "just wanted to do a good job" and assumed that my contribution had little value and that the clients knew best.
Software development is not a handyman service. Clients can’t just drop someone else into a project and expect it to ever be finished. So a contractor that can actually deliver is rare and his or her skills are in such demand that clients really don’t have the leverage they think they have. I think the myth of the ninja programmer stems from this. An overachieving freelancer that doesn’t charge enough is the holy grail.
So in the end, I think the single biggest problem in contracting today is an information deficit on the part of developers. We forget just how much education we’ve acquired, how few of us are being considered for a contract, how much regular employees are getting paid for similar work, etc. Even now I am almost pathologically incapable of setting my rates correctly and charging the appropriate amount for the hours I’ve worked.
I’ve been thinking lately that we need a set of guidelines that all developers follow, for the good of the whole. Things like charging half up front, refusing to work for free beyond the hours agreed upon and charging say 75-150% of the going rate for the type of work performed. Freelancing sites like eLance and oDesk should track these at least as much as, say, how often a developer responds to job invites. As it stands, I think we are in a race to the bottom and losing our influence day by day until this mobile bubble implodes by decade’s end.
In other words, this nonpayment problem shouldn’t have happened in the first place, because our industry has serious issues that older professions have done a better job of addressing.
How much is the amount we are talking about here? I have seen some people in similar situations and things never ended well. Some invested five-figure $$$ in lawyers and legal fees and never got a penny back.
1. Get the CEO on phone. This worked for me TWICE. If you face the person face to face and tell him that you need the money to operate, odds are he is going to pay.
2. How much can you sabotage him? Can you get/have access to his site/business. Don't tell him that you are going to shutdown the site if he doesn't pay BUT "in case of non-payment, the site might go under-maintenance because of lack of blablabla"
3. See if you can reach some of his friends/clients and if one of them will pressure him to do it. This is very effective if 2 and 1 doesn't work.
4. DMCA notice. If you don't have access to his login/servers, you might want to shutdown the site or a part of it.
Email me if you need help with a cold call.
A few of the things you'll learn the hard way;
- Ask for an upfront payment before work starts (40%). - Subsequent payments (over the initial 40℅) are tied up to deliverables (usually a few weeks sprint). - Code is never handed over before final payment. - Ignore promises of future payments or recommendations: if you're not being paid, you do not work. - Learn to say no: not just no to additional features, but also no to certain projects.
There's also likely to be an Australian debt collection agency willing to buy their debt at a substantial discount (again assuming a paper trail) if you've reached a situation where you just want some money for the work done now.
while i don't think you should work with struggling companies and you definitely shouldn't work if there is a high likelihood of not getting paid..
but if you want to get paid...the best thing you can do is show how it's in their best interest to prioritize paying you over other outstanding invoices...
I frequently make a facebook connection with clients. As a last resort I will post a subtle comment to there facebook page.
Works everytime, and it doesn't cost anything.
I should add that I don't use facebook for anything important myself.
Escalate the dialog with a superior. Go to the CEO/CFO/COO. Call one day, then e-mail the next. Old school overnight letters get attention. Stay on them daily for a month.
