[HN Gopher] What being ripped off taught me
___________________________________________________________________
What being ripped off taught me
Author : doctorhandshake
Score : 300 points
Date : 2026-04-06 12:53 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (belief.horse)
(TXT) w3m dump (belief.horse)
| for_i_in_range wrote:
| Who are they?
| dspillett wrote:
| Which they? The contractor, the project owners, etc?
|
| And is who they are relevant to the lesson (stealing
| time/effort is easy to get away with, you need to protect
| yourself from that)?
| firtoz wrote:
| Article contains this:
|
| > I'll happily tell you who they are - get in touch
| sva_ wrote:
| I don't want to name what my quick Google search revealed, but
| if you search for _augmented reality bus Beijing_ there aren 't
| many options and it fits the authors characterization of their
| fleet consisting of ~20 buses.
| BowBun wrote:
| All this for a $35K contract, that sucks.
| gnfargbl wrote:
| > A contract is toilet paper
|
| It isn't, but you can't get blood from a stone and squeezing
| costs money.
|
| It sounds like the entity that the contract is with has no real
| assets and/or is based in a jurisdiction which is hard to enforce
| judgements in. That's a case where you need to get paid up-front,
| which is the real lesson in this article.
| andix wrote:
| > That's a case where you need to get paid up-front
|
| Or at least in very small batches and with very short due
| dates.
| hyperhello wrote:
| > They were carpetbaggers and dilettantes convinced by their own
| inexperience and the advice of a onetime VJ that they could pull
| off something I'd twice helped quote to be brought home by a
| cadre of hardened killers with shitloads of math and know-how at
| eye-watering prices. They were way way way over their heads and
| were in no way interested in updating their priors in light of
| the shit they were swimming in.
|
| And yet, somehow, you gave them the most important time you had
| for their promises.
| buran77 wrote:
| > I missed the month of May with my 2-year-old kid. My wife
| cared for a 2-year-old alone.
|
| This wasn't because of the customer or not getting paid. This
| was the author's choice.
| dragonsenseiguy wrote:
| Who are they?
| condensedcrab wrote:
| Contract terms can vary greatly depending on the situation and
| the company you're working with.
|
| Early/frequent payment terms are always good to have but you may
| not always have the leverage for it depending on where you're at
| as a contractor.
|
| Takes getting ripped off a times before insisting on better terms
| I guess. It's like bombing your first job interview... you can
| prepare but it just needs to happen.
| fontain wrote:
| "A contract is toilet paper"
|
| A little hyperbolic, but more accurate than not when laypeople
| think about contracts.
|
| A contract isn't a magic spell, it is a declaration of shared
| understanding that can be used for clarity and in legal
| proceedings.
|
| If you think of a contract as a way to ensure you get what you
| agreed, yes, it is toilet paper, because a contract doesn't
| remove counterparty risk.
| blitzar wrote:
| In a fight between a piece of toilet paper backed by millions
| in legal spending vs a rock solid contract backed by nothing --
| the toilet paper (even if it is used toilet paper) will win
| every single time.
| hermannj314 wrote:
| A piece of contract toilet paper is still better than a bare
| hand shake agreement.
| wewewedxfgdf wrote:
| Be paid or don't work.
|
| I am so deadly serious - do not continue working if your invoices
| are late.
|
| You don't have to be a jerk about it, just explain to your
| primary contact that you need to be paid and you pick up tools
| again when the money has arrived.
|
| BUT it is on YOU to properly negotiate reasonable payment terms.
| And if you don;t know or don't trust the client then require
| payment in advance until a stronger commercial relationship can
| be settled in. Do not be a baby - go research business contracts
| and payment terms.
|
| Do not be afraid to lose business from companies that are
| squeamish about paying you - in fact actively avoid such
| companies.
| righthand wrote:
| 100% agree, and to add it can be tough sometimes to walk away
| from a cool project. I had worked on a project building
| scientific trial software, an app to review 3D lung scans, and
| an ML model to detect lesions in lung scans. It was really
| empowering, but after the first scientific trial the customer
| stopped paying their bills and ended up in back payment of $1M.
| My boss closed the project which sucked but it ultimately cost
| the company and people's jobs. Just not worth interacting with
| bad people if they stop the agreement. There is most likely
| more money later but there is also money that is on time with
| other customers.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > Do not be afraid to lose business from companies that are
| squeamish about paying you - in fact actively avoid such
| companies.
|
| My boss said that the ones who have negotiated the best deals
| are the ones that are late paying, complain about just about
| every bill and will write angry letters when my boss index
| adjust pricing.
|
| He said it taught him to never offer a really good deal for a
| regular customer (ie where the upside isn't very obvious).
| stavros wrote:
| I'm not sure that's the best takeaway here, in that it gets
| the causation wrong. It's not the deal that made the customer
| bad, it's that the bad customer insisted on getting a deal,
| whereas a good customer usually knows what quality costs and
| is prepared to pay.
|
| The takeaway here is probably that the fix isn't just "never
| discount", but it's to screen for the kind of customer who
| treats a good deal as an invitation to strengthen the
| relationship.
| danesparza wrote:
| This. A bad customer made a desperate situation worse
| because of their inexperience, neglect, shady motives, or a
| combination of the three.
| magicalhippo wrote:
| > It's not the deal that made the customer bad, it's that
| the bad customer insisted on getting a deal
|
| That was indeed the point, guess I conveyed it in a poor
| way.
| stavros wrote:
| That's OK, it's clarified now.
| mikepurvis wrote:
| > strengthen the relationship
|
| This is really the key. The "deal" has to have something
| for both parties. The vendor gets some kind of lock-in,
| prepayment, guarantee of future business, whatever it is,
| and _in exchange_ the purchaser gets a discount.
|
| The discount doesn't just come out of nowhere.
| brabel wrote:
| Where I live the phone companies do this: you can get a
| discount every year by calling them and saying you will
| change companies unless they give you a better price. They
| always do and the only people paying normal prices are the
| ones who can't be bothered to call them every year to request
| the discount!
| ghaff wrote:
| And dealing with a lot of that crap is more trouble than
| many of us want to be filling our days with. Micro-
| optimizations I might have done as a student I mostly don't
| do today.
| fn-mote wrote:
| These companies are scum. I don't want to be part of this
| march to the bottom of caring for your customer. Big
| companies are also different because of the firmness with
| which they are locked in to the purchasing infrastructure
| (among other reasons).
| nradov wrote:
| Sure, all major US cellular carriers are scum and abuse
| customers in similar ways. So you'll be part of the march
| to the bottom whether you want it or not.
|
| It is possible to switch to a smaller VNO with better
| customer policies. But then your cellular data gets
| dropped during heavy network congestion, which is
| probably worse for most of us.
| busterarm wrote:
| In order to make out on this at my hourly rate, I would
| have to cap my phone time with the company to minutes.
| Single digit.
|
| It's literally just not worth it. Time is the most finite
| resource that we all have.
| the_snooze wrote:
| A professional knows what they're worth and what they need to
| deliver. On-time payment according on an agreed-upon schedule
| is table stakes. That's the most fundamental requirement.
| Nothing happens without that.
| DataDaoDe wrote:
| Sadly this is true and lesson anyone who has worked freelance
| has probably learned - either that or I'd wager they no longer
| do freelance.
|
| Its easy to say don't be afraid to lose business, but when
| you're starting out, the economy is rough or all you have are
| the one or two clients, that's a different matter entirely.
|
| One thing I've learned is that you always have to do the leg
| work, you can't assume someone will do the right thing or keep
| their word.
|
| Develop a system where even bad clients, can't do too much
| damage i.e. upfront deposits, milestone-based payments. You
| have to control cash flow risks, if you are gonna take risks
| know what risks you're taking and when to get out.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| > Sadly this is true and lesson anyone who has worked
| freelance has probably learned - either that or I'd wager
| they no longer do freelance.
|
| Sadly, while this is true, there are plenty of folks still
| doing freelance who have not learned this, and there always
| will be. It's just one of those lessons that quite a lot of
| people have to learn from experience, even after reading
| posts like this. The exact same reason why companies will
| continue to get away with taking advantage of freelance work.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >>companies will continue to get away with taking advantage
| of freelance work.
|
| Think of _!all the exposure!_ doing this free labor for us
| will give you! /s
|
| or:
|
| I'll _cook you dinner_ if you do this _days of work_ for me
| /serious?!
| bluGill wrote:
| There are also bad suppliers who don't do their leg work.
| I've "fired" some companies who did great work for me because
| they couldn't be bothered to send a bill - I know I owe
| someone some money, but I don't know how much as despite
| begging they won't tell me how much or where to send it (I
| only have a phone number) - this bill could get larger, and
| they can come after me at any time for it...
|
| Please don't be them. If you do good work make sure that you
| get your bills sent on time.
| danesparza wrote:
| And for a rush job, don't be afraid to demand half the payment
| up front, or some other good-faith gesture on the client's
| part.
| moduspol wrote:
| And also: political organizations and churches always must pay
| up front.
| TravelTechGuy wrote:
| Agreed. Another important lesson I learned when delivering
| code to a non-profit org, and them asking me to convert my
| final invoices into "donations" to the org.
| awongh wrote:
| I feel like it's easy in hindsight to say some tough sounding
| advice in the form of "be a hard-ass", but idk, I feel like
| there are plenty of real life cases that contradict this
| advice- taking a chance on a referral to work on something you
| find interesting. Of course the big-money clients will be fine
| with a hard-line stance and they have money to pay at the end,
| but that work tends to be less interesting.
|
| OTOH, one other clear subtext of the story is the "savior"
| attitude of a lot of tech people, who think that, if they
| weren't using version control before, think, "oh, I'll just
| tell them about this great thing, and because it's much better
| they will definitely listen to me and implement it - it's only
| logical". But the harsh reality is that "better" things won't
| affect an org that went along that far and dug themselves that
| deep.
|
| Never underestimate an org's ability to shoot itself in the
| foot, even if you think you know better. That includes getting
| your money from them.
| ProllyInfamous wrote:
| >Be paid or don't work.
|
| As an electrician currently self-stopped (for both non-payment
| & absenteeism, two months _no contact_ , so far) I'm not
| budging. When you didn't show up for our last two on-site
| meetups (and still haven't contacted), I thought about filing a
| lien... but decided to just keep you from having tenants (by
| not finishing AC/water/electric). You'll get around to it..?
|
| When I told this LLC/owner "you obviously aren't in a rush
| because you obviously aren't visiting the jobsite/me" I sort of
| expected him to show within a few days. Then a few weeks. And
| now we're entering a few months.
|
| You have weeks of my punchlists (unresolved _to do_ ), I have
| weeks of questions (what do you _want_?) and you won 't even do
| simple things like turning on power/water.
|
| Fuck you, pay me.
|
| [*] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U>
| veunes wrote:
| This is all correct in principle, but in practice it's a lot
| messier
| notnaut wrote:
| I can imagine the type of work you do heavily influences the
| chance of begin paid during/before work finishes too...
| nradov wrote:
| It doesn't have to be messy. A lot of the messiness is self
| inflicted by contractors who are desperate for work and would
| be better of just getting a regular employee job instead.
| gcr wrote:
| What if you're a cofounder or founding engineer and the company
| hasn't raised yet?
| jt2190 wrote:
| Unlike in the article where a contractor was promised payment
| and no payment was made, the cofounder here knows already
| that the company can't pay until they raise funds, and has
| planned for this accordingly, by living off of personal
| savings or contract jobs. They also understand the risk
| they've taken on and are comfortable trading their time for
| possibly zero returns.
| brobdingnagians wrote:
| So true. And I'll add, no matter how trustworthy you believe
| the other party to be based on reptutation, relationships, or
| otherwise-- they should understand requiring assurances. The
| worst backstabs are from the people you know and who should
| know better. And a lot of people will justify it to themselves
| if they get in trouble. They will continue telling themselves
| that they are fundamentally good people and it just didn't work
| out as they rip you off for a lot of money. If they say the
| equivalent of "why don't you trust me?" that's a red flag.
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I guarantee you that if OP said, sorry, do this or I am going
| home, they would have done what needed to be done. Both in
| terms of payment, and in terms of getting their software and
| hardware houses in order.
|
| It might have involved OP getting a taxi to the airport and
| being chased down at the gate, but it would have worked.
|
| And even if it didn't, they would have saved themselves
| enormous time, money, and stress by following through on their
| threats if it didn't work out.
| 01284a7e wrote:
| Your business is getting the money. Your business is not to fly
| around the world trying to engineer-mog the client. The OP has
| a bad ego.
|
| "They don't even use version control..." Yeah? Get the money.
| The client are "carpetbaggers", yeah okay... get the money.
|
| It's implied that they hired you because they need the help.
| But they also may have hired you because they need the help
| _and_ you seem like a sucker they can stiff.
| rwmj wrote:
| What's an "AR bus"? How can augmented reality windows work on a
| bus unless you are (a) tracking the passenger's head and (b)
| there's only one passenger?
| post-it wrote:
| Screens outside the windows (not on the windows) can provide
| parallax, no need to track heads. However, in this case:
|
| > They were attempting to pull off AR effects on the
| transparent OLED windows of the bus without accounting for lens
| distortion, field of view, parallax, occlusion, etc., and were
| frustrated and mystified when things didn't appear to line up.
| They were completely naive to what depth and scale cues are and
| how to deploy them.
| sambaumann wrote:
| So is it an actual moving bus or just a simulation of one? I
| have not heard of the concept before
| FabHK wrote:
| Can you elaborate? It seems to me that unless the screens are
| that far outside that they are where the target object is,
| two people that are offset laterally wrt the target object
| would have to be displayed something that's offset on the
| screen.
| aziaziazi wrote:
| Imagine two passengers seating in rows r10 and r11, looking
| at the target T
|
| A. You need to know where a passager's eyes are to display
| the POI in the right place. Even if each rows gets their own
| and only screen you'll need to account for their head
| vertical position (different people are different height) and
| movement, hence the eye tracking.
|
| B. If you share a window between multiple people you end us
| with a POI mess with informations displayed multiplied by as
| much passengers in the bus. |- r9 -|w9
| | |w9 |- r10 -|w10 T | |w10
| |- r11 -|w11 | |w11 |- r12 -|w12
|
| IMHO the only practical way is with personal headsets like
| [0] but then you don't need a bus: just use your foot or any
| transportation: it's AR and not VR.
|
| 0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpoLdQpPcAc
| rglover wrote:
| Never do anything on faith or as a handshake deal. Always ensure
| you get paid (hint: escrow is kryptonite for weasels). Trust
| everyone, just not the devil inside them.
|
| Also, mandatory: https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro
| --2/1
| chrisweekly wrote:
| > _"Starting work without a contract is like putting on a
| condom after taking a home pregnancy test "_
|
| Choice quote from the linked talk (aptly titled "F*ck you, pay
| me").
| leviathant wrote:
| Yes! I regularly share a link to Mike's talk - I was about to
| post it myself before scanning the comments.
| DamnInteresting wrote:
| Back in my freelancer days, I learned this lesson the hard way,
| and I became strict about payments (half in advance, the other
| half required to turn over the final work). But when someone
| I'd known for years had an emergency, and needed their software
| patched over a weekend, I made an exception and delivered the
| work in good faith. And then they tried to get out of paying
| for it. I had to harangue them for months to get the check.
|
| The lesson I learned is that it doesn't matter how long they've
| been your friend, when it comes time to pay, they may still try
| to stiff you. The value of your service diminishes infinitely
| after it has been performed.
| InMice wrote:
| > I missed the month of May with my 2-year-old kid. My wife cared
| for a 2-year-old alone.
|
| The weirdest part to me, receive a call and just get up and go?
| Priorities? Did you write this blog post from the doghouse?
| close04 wrote:
| Reads to me like the author is trying to elicit some empathy.
| It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for a
| job. Not getting paid couldn't have factored into that
| decision.
| 0x3f wrote:
| > It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for
| a job.
|
| Or... maybe he needs income to exist.
| InMice wrote:
| He doesnt provide any context for that if so and if you
| look around the site, doesn't seem like the case at all.
| More like he just decided on the phone something interested
| him enough to bounce indefinitely.
| Imustaskforhelp wrote:
| They work within a niche space, as others have said, they
| follow where the work is, So they are able to charge more
| which I hope is able for them to survive in modern economy
| and be able to give more time to their family.
|
| atleast that's my interpretation of it of how logic might
| follow if they are working in niche space, many people seem
| to be applying the logic onto themselves into completely
| standard situation, but I don't suppose that is the case
| here.
|
| Hope this helps in genuinely understanding their situation,
| from my reading/thinking about it.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| Well and tactfully said, thank you.
|
| Didn't realize it needed saying but I left the child and
| did the work in exchange for money I needed (still need) to
| feed the child.
|
| Many people do this every day. I do it when it makes sense
| or the conditions require, which is to say I am a WFH
| contractor who sometimes works on site occasionally.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The assumption with taking a contract is it's better than
| what your other options will be to get the same total
| income/time worked. Especially for specialized work like
| this, taking the contract means you can get multiples of the
| time back in the following months. When you don't get paid
| you end up without that time back the income was supposed to
| provide (and you're in 1 months less of savings to boot).
| charles_f wrote:
| You need a job to sustain a family. From the post it seems like
| author accepted the sacrifice for the amount he was supposed to
| be paid.
| Aurornis wrote:
| > The weirdest part to me, receive a call and just get up and
| go? Priorities?
|
| The author does contracting in niche topics. When your
| contracting domain is uncommon you have to go where the work
| is.
|
| You can charge higher prices for niche work and therefore
| tolerate more time in between contracts. This person may be
| spending more time not working and with his family than the
| typical FTE in this arrangement, even if the jobs occasionally
| require them to fly somewhere for a month.
| cortesoft wrote:
| It sounds like he has a lot of general skills, too. I guess
| we all have different priorities, but I would work whatever
| job to not have to leave my kid for that long.
| michaelt wrote:
| I used to have an uncle who did emergency oil well repair. He'd
| get a call from his boss, then he'd be on the next flight to
| whatever remote offshore drilling platform or exotic
| dictatorship had need of his services.
|
| Apparently doing emergency repair work can be _extremely_ well
| paid.
|
| (His wife was fine with it, but when there's great
| inconvenience for the family balanced by great pay for the
| family, you've _got to get paid_ )
| fred_is_fred wrote:
| He says "trust your gut" about 12 times, but the whole lead up
| has 0 mention that he was worried he would not get paid. His only
| gut feelings seemed to be around tech issues.
| billnad wrote:
| Yes, I guess also trust the situation when it looks completely
| wrong. your gut is not lying when it sees that as well
| balbladsaf1231 wrote:
| > A contract is toilet paper
|
| no it isn't. why you did not sue them? success rate of
| international arbitrage (New York Convention) proces into China
| is 90% success rate. USA/EU companies who sue Chineses companies
| in China for breach of contract seem to be winning rates.
| Enforcement of USA curt orders do not need to go thorugh Chinese
| courts again, and are enforced by local authorities (local
| sharks) with success rate of 80% for foreign firms suing chinese
| firms. fees are also fairly low. case is straightfoward.
|
| if author went and sue, likely he would get his money back.
| LoganDark wrote:
| > why you did not sue them?
|
| Because they could just dissolve the entity and get away with
| it. Did you even read the rest of the article?
| direwolf20 wrote:
| You can't do that and if you do do that it's an imprisonable
| felony. You have to pay all debts before dissolving a
| corporation. If you can't pay them you have to go through the
| bankruptcy process.
| eckesicle wrote:
| We've also learned this lesson the hard way. These are now the
| clauses we require in every project we do:
|
| - Payment is due X days after receipt of invoice, or immediately
| after the consultant has addressed any quality issues, whichever
| is sooner
|
| - Late payment shall incur interest at 8% above the BoE base rate
| and a late fee of 100 GBP as per the UK Late Payment Legislation.
| Partial payments on invoices shall apply to late fees, interest,
| and then principal, in that order.
|
| - In the event of a late payment the invoice for the next
| deliverable shall immediately fall due.
|
| - The consultant shall be entitled to shift deadlines on
| deliverables in the event of a late payment as a result of any
| work disruption, without incurring any liability.
|
| - Payment shall be made in X currency, or an exchange rate at X
| date on Oanda.com shall apply.
|
| - The client is responsible for any bank fees incurred by their,
| or any intermediary bank. In the event of a SWIFT transaction it
| shall be made with the OUR payment code.
|
| - The jurisdiction in the event of a conflict shall be England
| and Wales. Neither party shall be bound by arbitration.
|
| - The client and consultant shall both indemnify the other up to
| the total value of the contract and shall not under any
| circumstance be liable beyond X GBP.
|
| We also no longer share downloadable links of our deliverables
| until they are paid up. They get a view/comment only link for
| reports/data etc.
|
| We've found that clients that aren't willing to accept these
| terms won't pay you either way.
|
| We determine the net days on the invoice based on the credit
| rating of the client. Ironically, the good clients pay within 2-3
| days normally, and the difficult ones are very "long tail". About
| 1% of contracts tend to fully or partially default on their
| payments.
|
| We're in a particularly credit poor industry but our average
| delay due to late payment is 23 days. Those clients where we stop
| delivery pay on average 11 days sooner than those contracts where
| we don't stop delivery.
|
| This is based on around 2,000 invoices sent over the last 5
| years.
| eckesicle wrote:
| Oh and another lesson! Ensuring that each deliverable invoice
| is small enough that it falls under the simplified claims
| procedure (in the UK it's 10,000 pounds) greatly simplifies
| collection.
|
| It costs something like 80 quid to file for recovery in court
| and in our experience invoices are immediately paid up when a
| "Letter before action" is sent.
|
| You burn the relationship, but arguably you probably don't want
| it anyway.
| ilamont wrote:
| > simplified claims procedure
|
| I believe this is what we call small claims court in the
| United States. The threshold varies by state, but it is a
| very effective way to deal with recalcitrant companies both
| large and small.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| It seems like none of these terms would have saved OP though
| QuarterReptile wrote:
| I think OP needed "emergency service is cash up front".
|
| In a different domain, this is the painful lesson of almost
| anyone who tries to help people in a bind -- you can try to
| help, but yours is unlikely to be the advice that sets them
| straight, so you shouldn't get too invested with unproven or,
| especially, proven unreliable actors.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| >> "emergency service is cash up front"
|
| Neatly distilled I believe you are correct
| ufmace wrote:
| It's worth keeping in mind that the only practical "saving"
| for the OP will result in not doing the job at all, since
| this client most likely doesn't actually have the money and
| never will.
|
| It should be, oh, short-term rush job in a foreign country
| for a sketchy client? That is most definitely cash up front
| time. Oh, you can't afford that? Sucks to be you, not going
| to do it.
| fmx wrote:
| > Ironically, the good clients pay within 2-3 days normally,
| and the difficult ones are very "long tail".
|
| Why ironically? Isn't that exactly what you'd expect?
| anonymars wrote:
| The ironic part is that the clients that don't need the
| looser payment terms (more time to pay the invoice) are the
| ones that get them
|
| Kind of mirrors "it's expensive to be poor"
| moron4hire wrote:
| I took "good client" to mean, "is easy to work
| with/communicates well/knows what they want", not just "pays
| on time". The inverse being, the ones who don't pay on time
| were already a pain in the ass to work with.
| veunes wrote:
| I think the hidden advantage here isn't even enforcement, it's
| filtering
| k2enemy wrote:
| > - Late payment shall incur interest at 8% above the BoE base
| rate and a late fee of 100 GBP as per the UK Late Payment
| Legislation. Partial payments on invoices shall apply to late
| fees, interest, and then principal, in that order.
|
| Do you mean 8 percent, or 8 percentage points?
| eckesicle wrote:
| The exact wording in our contracts and the government
| guidance is "8% plus the Bank of England base rate".
|
| They mean "percentage points".
|
| https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-
| re...
|
| As I understand it, from our lawyer, is that this exact
| wording is automatically enforceable in UK courts and easiest
| in the event of a dispute. It's also generally
| internationally accepted.
| neonstatic wrote:
| > - Payment shall be made in X currency, or an exchange rate at
| X date on Oanda.com shall apply.
|
| Typically you would reference average exchange rate published
| by the central bank
| bob1029 wrote:
| I've started operating in really granular units of work. Like
| less than $1000 per. Cash on delivery. This won't work with all
| clients and all jobs, but there are places where it does work
| very well. Advantages include being able to avoid paper contracts
| altogether. Verbal agreements and a 4 column xlsx that is
| reviewed monthly are all that seem to be required with some of my
| clients.
|
| If I don't get paid for one day of work, I will probably get over
| it in a few hours. If I don't get paid for six months of work, we
| will have a serious problem. The tighter and more incremental we
| can make the delivery process, the less likely anyone gets
| screwed.
|
| If a party is pushing hard for long-term contracts or large up-
| front sums of payment, I would walk away from that transaction
| unless there was a literal golden goose sitting in their lap.
| lnsru wrote:
| I am also trying to set granular milestones and get paid every
| 1000EUR. Not provide 20000EUR work and then start looking for
| my money. I can live with a loss of 1000EUR, but missing
| 20000EUR will impact negatively my mortgage and investment
| plan.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| There's no such thing as a company temporarily being in dire
| straits. These kind of companies are always in dire straits and
| crisis - it's a business tactic to not deliver and not pay. Just
| stay away, whether you're a customer, a contractor, an employee
| or if they want to be your customer.
| xyzelement wrote:
| The fact that this is so many words makes me worry the author
| underappreciated the main lesson: risk exposure.
|
| When you go out of pocket - you are out of pocket and the risk is
| all yours. If that one thing was different then all the remaining
| risk is on the client - they don't want to do version contr - ok
| cool you still get paid.
|
| Usually when you have to pay in to get paid out (outside of a
| direct investment scenario) it's a scam. The people who fall for
| the Nigeria Prince thing are operating the same way.
| jfrbfbreudh wrote:
| No longer a contractor but I used to offer a 10-15% discount for
| paying upfront. Almost every client took this deal. Earned a
| little less but never lost sleep over payments.
| bena wrote:
| Why not make your rate 15% higher than your desired rate?
|
| That way your "discounted" rate is the rate they should have
| paid and they feel like they got a deal.
| throwaway98797 wrote:
| > End clients can't tell the difference between these bozos and
| me. I don't know what to do with that information but it feels
| bad.
|
| this is only getting worse with ai.
|
| all the artifacts of good work are there but none of the depth.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| That doesn't really sound like "being ripped off," as opposed to
| "betting on a lame horse."
|
| The people behind this were irresponsible, childish, and
| exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They weren't really
| hardline crooks. Crooks are probably a lot more organized.
|
| I have gotten myself invested with similar crowds. There's
| usually a charismatic spokesperson, leading the chaos.
|
| They likely didn't _plan_ to rip him off, but paying him wasn't
| really something they thought about. Real crooks put _lots_ of
| planning into taking money.
|
| _> Multiple very junior developers were touching (binary,
| TouchDesigner) code and deploying straight to production via
| thumb drive, with zero version control. In fact, they didn't know
| what version control was._
|
| I suspect many startups fit that description. If they survive,
| then they usually pull themselves up by the bootstraps,
| eventually. Many of them collapse, taking everything with them.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| I think you're right and it's fair to reframe this that way, in
| that in a certain sense, despite my naivety, I was the adult in
| the room and should have seen what they couldn't.
|
| But then given what I've learned since I think I can say with
| some certainty that this particular group saw the writing on
| the wall and were willing to use the skilled labor and time of
| an endless army of cannon fodder to try to staunch the bleeding
| or take one more long shot at getting final payment, and doing
| so without the agreement or awareness of the people they
| enlisted to the risk they were participating in.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I've seen similar, at a bigger scale.
|
| When the wheels start coming off, morals are first over the
| side.
|
| In some cases (think Theranos), it can go all the way into
| straight criminality. Most times, it just reaches the point
| where everything collapses, when the supports rust away.
| burnt-resistor wrote:
| I was owed billable hours from Stanford University but refused to
| do any further work until the outstanding invoice was paid. Their
| accounts payable department didn't want to, so I had to tell the
| client "sorry" and walked away. It's really weird because I
| didn't have a problem in the near past then and was even an FTE
| at one point. I'm unwilling to work for free or for imaginary,
| low liquidation preference equity of a worthless startup.
|
| Ordinarily, I would sign master agreements and set PO terms up-
| front. Typically, the better customers would agree to very strict
| requirements / objectives for a particular time period for a
| specific price. Any deviations would require negotiation. Hourly
| is fine too but there must be regular milestone deliveries so
| that there's demonstrable value for money being conveyed rather
| than an appearance of a milking-oriented consultant. Expectations
| must always be managed.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Sometimes you just have to get scammed to be able to recognize
| scams. Seems obvious to outsiders, but can be hard to see when
| you're in it.
|
| Some favorites:
|
| - No way they would _actually_ screw me over! We 're buds/they
| got me tiger balm/they paid some/I did them a solid
|
| - Thin veneer of safe fallbacks that doesn't hold up under
| scrutiny. Legal or other 'repercussions'
|
| - Endless delays and excuses (though it's usually too late by
| this point)
| veunes wrote:
| Yeah, a lot of it only becomes obvious in hindsight because
| each individual signal is easy to rationalize away
| ian_d wrote:
| Evergreen advice from the design side:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U (Mike Monteiro: F*ck
| You, Pay Me)
| normie3000 wrote:
| Watched a couple of times, but I don't fully understand the
| message in this video. Can someone ELI5?
| Kye wrote:
| Have a contract that encodes "fuck you, pay me" into the
| terms. Ideally, have an actual lawyer take care of the
| contract and the enforcement. There's a lot of law-y stuff
| out there that won't hold up in reality. Mortgage companies
| don't take payment in excuses from your clients, so neither
| should you.
| post-it wrote:
| The message is to have a contract and insist on being paid
| according to the contract, and refuse further work until you
| get paid.
| apt-apt-apt-apt wrote:
| Actually sort of darkly clever- they turned OP into an unwitting
| investor.
|
| Project goes well, he gets paid and they're best buds, and he
| doesn't even realize he was scammed (by intent). If not, well
| there's no point suing a failed company.
| dilyevsky wrote:
| If you're in California, even if business goes totally kaput
| and runs out of money company officers are _personally_ liable
| for any and all unpaid wages. Labor Commission Office will also
| include a hefty punitive sum to boot.
| sudobash1 wrote:
| I don't think this makes a difference for independent
| contractors.
| Analemma_ wrote:
| Doesn't apply to contractors. In fact, if you do contract
| work for a company which misses payroll, courts can claw back
| money out of your bank account in order to pay it. It's rare,
| because _usually_ this is about "contractors" who are
| actually accomplices of the owner, getting free money out of
| the failing company with inflated payments for fake work, but
| it does happen.
| ng12 wrote:
| One thing I learned from consulting is if you position yourself
| as the "fix your mess" guy you have to be very defensive. Ask for
| more up-front, and bail at the first sign of underpayment.
|
| Be pleasantly surprised when a poorly run project is being run by
| nice, honest people. Prep for the opposite.
| veunes wrote:
| You're not just delivering expertise, you're stepping into a
| situation where incentives are already misaligned, expectations
| are fuzzy, and there's often a cashflow problem hiding
| somewhere
| randomNumber7 wrote:
| It sounds counterintuitive but from my experience it are often
| nice and (somewhat) honest people. They just came after whoever
| messed it up horribly in the first place and at some point they
| came to the conclusion that they need some external help.
| jordanb wrote:
| Wage theft is the most lucrative and least prosecuted crime in
| America.
| QuarterReptile wrote:
| FTA: China
| avoidyc wrote:
| Worked in the SF tech scene since 2010, and so many founders who
| I found through YC/HN and AngelList failed to pay me over the
| years.
|
| Often paid late, but FIVE times, I never got paid at all, one
| time it was several thousands over the course of months and I
| almost pursued it in court, but in the end I took the L.
|
| It's always these incubator types, they're the absolute worst
| clients. They have the cash in the bank too, they often just
| forget or feel entitled and don't want to back down.
|
| NEVER work for a YC founder.
| munificent wrote:
| _> NEVER work for a YC founder._
|
| I would generalize this to "don't work for someone whose
| ability to pay is based on a high-risk gamble".
|
| There are certainly shady people who _can_ pay but don 't
| because they are greedy avaricious bastards. But there are also
| plenty of people who would _like_ to pay but whose business
| venture fails and with it goes their funds.
|
| In the author's story, they probably should have concluded
| fairly early on that a team that wildly incompetent was also
| unlikely to produce a product that satisfies their client. And
| if the client doesn't pay, no one gets paid.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| "I'll get you the money tomorrow. I'm heading down to the
| track to go get it."
| gavinray wrote:
| I'd say it's almost something of a rite of passage to get taken
| advantage of if you're young and working in tech startups.
| Usually this is in the form of abysmally low pay, along with
| "Sweat Equity":
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_equity
|
| Of course, the startup doesn't go anywhere, and your sweat
| equity never materializes, so you're left with just the pitiful
| pay.
|
| I went through this in my late teens/early 20's, along with
| many friends.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| I've been part of 2 startups, 2000 and 2005. In both cases,
| taking the "more salary and less stock" option worked out to
| my advantage.
| tombert wrote:
| Back in 2015 I worked for a startup. I turned down a job at a
| more stable company because this startup had me doing Erlang
| and I really wanted to work with that.
|
| The job worked fine for about six months, and then one week my
| paycheck (which usually was on the second and fourth Wednesday
| of the month) wasn't in my bank account. I go the CEO of the
| company and mention this and he said something like "Oh yeah,
| something got fucked up with payroll man, don't worry we'll
| give you a double paycheck next time, with interest man".
|
| I was young enough in my career to just accept that, and so I
| waited two more weeks and again, no money in my checking
| account. I confront the CEO about this, and he says the payroll
| stuff is still fucked but don't worry man I got you, next
| paycheck will be a triple paycheck, and an extra two grand for
| everyone.
|
| Two weeks later, the building's doors are locked, and none of
| us are able to get into the building. One of the other
| engineers called one of the investors and apparently the CEO
| "could not be found", and all of us were laid off on the spot.
|
| This began one of the worst times in my life. I was already not
| the best at managing money, and because I had naively believed
| him about eventually getting all my backpay I hadn't been
| saving especially. I hadn't been conservative with my money,
| and I had gone a month and a half without a paycheck, and as
| such I was completely broke.
|
| This led to a lot of terrible stuff happening; my landlord
| filed a lawsuit against me for back rent, my wife started
| having medical issues with her eye and we didn't have any
| insurance or money so we couldn't get it looked at, and I had
| to call a friend and beg him to loan me $400 to pay some bills
| and so I could get groceries. He's a very good friend, and he
| did help me out and I did eventually pay him back, but it was
| unbelievably depressing to me.
|
| The part that sticks out to me was when I had to fly to Seattle
| for an interview with Amazon, and while they would happily
| reimburse everything for the trip, I realized that I didn't
| have enough money on my debit card to do the "pre-charge" thing
| that hotels do, and my credit card was maxed out. I was afraid
| that I was going to be stuck being homeless in Seattle for two
| days because of an interview that I knew I would not get, and I
| felt so bad that I let my life get this way. Fortunately in
| this case, I was able to call my mom once I got there, lied and
| said I "lost" my credit card and I was able to get her to call
| in a credit card to the hotel, so I wasn't homeless, but that
| didn't occur to me until about five minutes after I arrived at
| the hotel.
|
| Eventually I was able to get my stepfather-in-law to loan us
| enough money to get my landlord to drop the lawsuit, and
| eventually I found the job at Jet.com, which was a great job
| that paid well and ended up being a huge stepping stone in my
| career and where I met a ton of ridiculously smart and cool
| people that I still chat with to this day.
|
| I will never forgive that CEO for that period of my life. While
| it _did_ end up working out, I still occasionally have
| nightmares about that time in my life, and how upset I was, and
| how I wouldn 't wish that feeling of worthlessness on my worst
| enemy. In some senses I'm kind of grateful for the experience
| because it did really force me to grow up and learn how to take
| care of myself, but ultimately I still wish it hadn't happened.
|
| This wasn't YC, but it was still a VC-funded megalomaniacal
| CEO, which is why this reminded me of it.
| luckyyou wrote:
| > then I called my mom
|
| Not all of us can do that, or our dad, and there's nobody to
| help us nor a savings to fall back on.
|
| Almost everyone gets hooked up by their parents and society
| is designed around that.
|
| I don't know anyone else in the world except for me who
| doesn't have any help.
|
| Even the homeless people get more help than me. Often they
| have parents and even kids somewhere.
|
| Pretty broken system we have where basically nothing you do
| in your life matters, it's all about how much money your
| parents had.
|
| Almost everyone on this site comes from a background like
| that, just free shit without any merit while the rest of us
| struggle, crazy
| tombert wrote:
| No argument that I was extremely fortunate to have the
| people I was able to reach out to and get help from. My
| friend, my mom (though she didn't actually spend any money
| in this case, just called in a credit card for the hotel
| prebill), and my stepfather-in-law made what would have
| been an extremely terrible situation to just a very
| terrible situation.
|
| I'm sorry you don't feel like you get the help you need,
| though I think just based on this comment you would benefit
| from talking to a therapist. This isn't a dig, I see a
| therapist.
| yeahookbro wrote:
| You types are really into it (therapy) but it isn't for
| me.
|
| I have no problem bitching about my problems or even
| finding people (like yourself) to listen.
|
| I just need money.
| tombert wrote:
| Therapy is much more than just bitching about your
| problems, and I'm afraid that if you think that whining
| on Hacker News is going to do _anything_ to help you,
| then you 're either deluded or stupid.
|
| I also don't know what "you types" means? My parents were
| super against therapy and wouldn't let me go to a
| therapist or psychiatrist. I sought it out when I was 26
| years old.
| lolforreal wrote:
| You all have the exact same personality.
|
| I thought you were aware of it and that it was
| intentional, like being a good member of society and all
| that.
|
| But to be accidentally boring? It's sad. Like you have
| been mentally deprived in some way.
|
| None of that really matters though.
| tombert wrote:
| I think what's sad is to find a long post about being
| ripped off by a startup and then using it _extremely
| tangentially_ as an excuse to try and tell everyone to
| feel bad for you. "Woe is me, I would try to do
| something to improve my life but alas all I can muster is
| typing on a keyboard to a bunch of uncaring strangers on
| an internet forum full of software engineers."
|
| I don't really know what I should be "aware" of; I stand
| by that you should consider seeing a therapist, because
| clearly you are dealing with some stuff that is far
| beyond the scope of what you're going to get on Hacker
| news.
|
| I probably _am_ mentally deprived in some way, but at
| least I 'm self aware enough to _actually_ try and
| improve my life instead of, you know, bitching about how
| the world is rigged against me.
|
| Also, I find it telling and cowardly that you keep making
| throwaway accounts instead of owning your opinions. I
| can't say that I think you really stand by your
| convictions.
| livinglist wrote:
| May I ask why did you take the L in the end?
| cantwin wrote:
| He kept using the work product and brand assets for a while,
| I sent a follow-up email later saying there would be legal
| action if he didn't stop using them since he didn't pay for
| them.
|
| He left the site up for years but became the CEO of another
| startup, and the emails started bouncing at the other one.
|
| Advice I got was basically there is not shit I can do, I was
| a contractor (1099) and even if I had been W2 and had payroll
| protections the company no longer exists.
|
| It's very easy to re-brand and start anew in fact that's what
| I was helping him do from the last time.
| ycarechildren wrote:
| The same founders who require employees to work 24/7/365 while
| they jack off to Hentai all day are the same ones who don't pay:
|
| HockeyStack, Greptile, Velt all had problems paying me and all
| required 7 day a week, overnight, etc.
| cainxinth wrote:
| I have a friend who retired but still does some contract work.
| They were on salary their whole career and are not used to
| sending invoices and tracking down payments. One of their clients
| was late paying and my friend wasn't concerned, but I encouraged
| them to be diligent about insisting on being paid on time. I have
| been a freelancer for over a decade and in my experience, the
| further away you get from a bill, the less real it becomes to the
| person who owes it. They start forgetting what the project was,
| or worse, start questioning why they even have to pay for it. You
| have to stay on top of these things or they can spiral out of
| control.
| bityard wrote:
| Just for my own general curiosity, once a bill is overdue, how
| often do you nag the customer about it? Or does it look more
| like an escalation process? (Start out with a polite email,
| then a phone call, then a phone call to their manager/business
| partner, etc?) Do you ever "fire" customers who always pay, but
| always pay late and only after they've been reminded 3 times?
| cainxinth wrote:
| They get 30 days to pay. I used to start sending reminders if
| they were late by even a day past that, but I quickly learned
| that can unnecessarily embarrass or annoy some clients, so
| now everyone gets a two week grace period after the 30 days
| are up.
|
| I send a gentle reminder just to my immediate point of
| contact to start. If that doesn't work, I start sending more
| business-like requests for payment every week, and I CC
| anyone I think might help make it happen.
|
| I've never fired anyone, and everyone has eventually paid
| (knock wood), but there have been times when I assumed the
| money was a lost cause (though never five figures worth like
| the person who shared this blog post).
|
| But more than once, I've had a client contact me and request
| new work, and I've had to remind them they still have an
| unpaid invoice. I'll tell them I can't start anything new
| until the old work is paid. They almost invariably blame the
| delay on their billing department, and the money eventually
| finds its way to me.
| _whiteCaps_ wrote:
| Net 30 is a standard way to do this. Lots of examples online
| on how to add this to your invoices.
|
| Well run businesses will pay you on the 29th day. :)
| freediddy wrote:
| When you walk into a shitshow like this, the first thing you do
| is secure your payments. Anyone who is in such bad shape like how
| OP described it means that they are desperate, and desperate
| people will do and say anything to get help.
|
| It is most likely going to not pay anyone so you need to make
| sure you're paid above and beyond anything else otherwise walk.
| notquitebuddy wrote:
| You forgot the middleground where there are thousands of laid
| off people who can do your exact job and undercut you etc.
|
| These founders hire/fire through hundreds of us, they don't
| give a shit.
|
| If you say 1 thing they don't like they go to the next.
| freediddy wrote:
| That's not the middle ground. That's the other extreme, where
| people are desperate for work so they will say they can do
| anything in order to get work.
| noident wrote:
| How many of those people have experience with augmented
| reality? Probably not that many.
|
| $35k seems pretty low for this job. Hindsight is 20/20 of
| course.
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > End clients can't tell the difference between these bozos and
| me. I don't know what to do with that information but it feels
| bad.
|
| This is unfortunately all too common. It's hard for someone who
| isn't an expert in the specific field to separate a smooth
| grifter from a more typical sales pitch
| jancsika wrote:
| > The faith was that if they could't pay, they'd let me know
| because I was actively digging their asses out of a hole they'd
| dug, and doing so tirelessly and professionally, without
| complaint.
|
| I get what the author is saying here. But it's a bad idea to
| treat one's work team with deep communal devotion in this way, as
| if they are a kind of dysfunctional family-- or, in the author's
| case, apparently _higher_ in status than real family.
|
| Doing this without proper remuneration creates a market
| distortion, and that is bad for capitalism.
| b8 wrote:
| There's not any incentives to pay you when they're in China and
| there's no legal recourse from the US. Even in the US suing is
| often times not worth it economically and getting someone to pay
| after a win is painful too if they don't just file bankruptcy.
| Escrow or upfront only is the best way to go.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| This was a California company and contract, but your comment
| does apply to their situation with their client
| deaddodo wrote:
| The company was California-based, they were offering services
| in China. At least, that was my read. The contractor was also
| in California.
|
| Honestly, this seems to be bad advice from their recovery
| services. Suing is 100% recommended here. There are plenty of
| lawyers that will work on a _pro rata_ basis for account
| recovery in California. Sure, you lose a portion of your 35k;
| but you get more than you would have letting them get away with
| paying zero.
|
| There's also laws in place to keep companies from "closing up
| shop" and opening in a new entity. It doesn't necessarily erase
| your debt (it can, but only in rare circumstances). And, even
| if they do get around it, it keeps them from pulling the same
| shenanigans going forward, in the state.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| Not saying I know better but this contradicts what I heard
| from multiple collections companies with in-house legal -
| they all said suing would not be worth the ~$2,500 upfront
| fees and that the debtor would just vanish. The debt still
| exists so I'd love to think otherwise! Feel free to HMU if
| you have a specific lawyer/practice in mind ;
| deaddodo wrote:
| The debtor can't "vanish", they are either an individual or
| an entity with registered individuals attached to it.
| Obviously, their structure matters a little bit along with
| where they are incorporated. But if they are incorporated
| in California, their debt is 95% recoverable if they want
| to continue doing business in any way. As an individual you
| can go after garnishment and other relief. As an entity,
| it's similar but to their company/corporate holdings.
|
| If they try to dissolve and create another business that
| operates in the same sphere/as a successor or with the same
| management team; the debt doesn't disappear, you just
| prosecute the new entity. With an added cherry of potential
| criminal prosecution, if they're particularly egregious
| about it.
|
| People can 100% get around paying, that happens. But the
| judgement will remain on their record. This will make
| reincorporation difficult as well as just acting as a
| warning to future partners that do basic due diligence.
|
| No one's saying it's _easy_ to get the money back, but
| rolling over probably is the least desirable outcome (and
| probably why they 've acted this way with so many people).
|
| As to your collection firms, I can't speak to it. Maybe
| your situation is more complicated (e.g. registered entity
| out of state, unclear contract terms, etc) or they just
| don't want to go through with the hassle of doing more than
| they were hired to do (send nag letters and hope for easy
| turnover).
|
| In the future, you can use it as a learning experience.
| Keep your deliverables under the small claims limit, do
| metered payouts, etc.
| dangus wrote:
| OP wasn't ripped off, OP just forgot to define their contract.
| Like, entirely.
|
| Nobody forced OP to work 11-14 hour days. Contracting 101
| stipulates that you define your hours ahead of time. You come in,
| you provide your expertise, and you leave at the end of the day.
| Let the client's junior employees work long hours. Not your
| problem.
|
| OP brought their own equipment, which is totally fine but "who
| provides equipment" is also in the contract from the start. OP
| should have made a list of equipment that the client will require
| to complete such a project and stipulate a client budget be set
| aside to cover any shortcomings as they arise.
|
| The contract is where you define when you get paid. "Deposit is
| XYZ quantity, non-refundable. Contractor will be paid for the
| upcoming week in advance by X date. Failure to remit payment will
| halt work."
|
| I understand that the point of this blog piece is that it _was_ a
| learning experience for OP but this stuff is pretty obvious isn
| 't it? This is pretty much what comes up when you google stuff
| like "how to get into freelance contracting." I'm shocked and
| feel bad for OP for letting things get this far. Sadly, they were
| not ripped off by anyone but themselves.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| These types of situations are endemic to my industry, for
| better or worse. I wasn't intending to complain about the
| working conditions by way of making it seem as though any of
| those things were unusual -- I was providing that context by
| way of saying I conducted myself as a professional does in
| these situations. I've been in this (immersive, interactive,
| creative tech) industry for 20 years and those conditions are
| absolutely expected onsite when commissioning, installing, or
| preparing for a live event. Refusing to work beyond say an 8-10
| hour day would leave the project unfinished and we work on a
| 'show must go on basis'. With that said, doing this for 20+
| days without a break is unusually grueling, even for this
| industry.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Back in my younger days I found a bunch of liberals who were
| claiming to run a software company. They were really into the
| social justice BS.
|
| After about a month of employment, I was told I was being rude to
| ask for payment. Apparently they neglected to tell me that they
| actually only pay their employees 60 to 70 days after they start.
|
| Of course the first red flag was them doing the 1099 dance for
| slightly above minimum wage. I had been forced to do that before,
| but guess what. They paid us every single week.
|
| Quiting without notice was one of the greatest feelings with
| these clowns. By this time they had started to ask me to
| literally work for free. "Unpaid training". They stopped
| scheduling me for paid hours anyway, so no notice needed.
|
| Right after that I worked for some conservatives. They paid me
| early. My first year I got a large raise.
|
| There were some awkward moments like the CEO telling me who to
| vote for. But for the most part it was awesome.
|
| I still consider myself to be very liberal, but I don't want to
| work anywhere that does a lot of virtue signaling. Your beliefs
| don't make you a good person, your actions do.
| bena wrote:
| You realize that your anecdote here is itself virtue signaling,
| right?
|
| Because, I'm sure multiple people here could tell similar
| stories with the political leanings of the groups involved
| reversed.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| I'm an individual. I can have beliefs.
|
| Corporations, can not. I've been though this twice. If
| they're doing press releases about how liberal they are, it's
| probably not a good fit.
|
| Now that I'm old and jaded, I want politics out of my
| workplace.
| add-sub-mul-div wrote:
| A bunch of liberals got into my walls and started chewing the
| wires.
| veunes wrote:
| This reads less like a "got ripped off" story and more like a
| perfect storm of every classic consulting red flag showing up at
| once
| Aurornis wrote:
| Good lessons in here, but the part about giving up on legal
| action because they told him they'd dissolve the entity is
| questionable. This is where it pays to have a good relationship
| with a lawyer who will be up front about your chances and the
| cost of legal action. The sum discussed falls into the difficult
| range where it could take enough hours to try to collect that
| you'd be worse off than where you started if the lawyer can't
| deliver anything.
|
| However them dissolving the entity and moving their assets and IP
| around is also not free and will incur overhead, if they actually
| did it.
|
| Threatening to dissolve the entity seemingly admits that they do
| have something worth collecting against. In my experience the
| companies who run out of money just tell you that they're out of
| money and they also start losing key employees and your email
| contacts because they're not getting paid either. If the company
| continues to exist and they're threatening you to not sue, that
| might be a sign that they do have the money but they're relying
| on intimidating contractors to not try collecting it.
|
| Legal action is not free, so all of this has to be weighed.
|
| EDIT: I should explain how I know this. Younger me took a job
| with a startup that got in over its head with spending but the
| CEO didn't want the party to stop. His strategy was to stop
| paying any vendors and use the remaining cash flow to only pay
| past invoices for vendors that we needed something from (more
| work, more product) or anyone who looked like they were going to
| sue us. If someone got lawyers involved, they got paid. Needless
| to say I didn't keep that job very long.
| jagged-chisel wrote:
| I don't know this for certain, IANAL, but it seems to me if
| they're threatening to dissolve the entity, that could open the
| owners to personal liability.
|
| Definitely bring it up with your lawyer.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| I believe dissolving a corporation requires you to attest
| you've paid all debts. If that's impossible, you have to go
| through the bankruptcy process. If you attest that you've
| paid all debts but you haven't, now you're committing frame
| against the government which they really don't like. You
| could be imprisoned for that.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| Is that how it works in China, though, when the debt is
| owned to someone in the US?
| alsetmusic wrote:
| The page is actively hostile to me using reader mode on my phone.
| It keeps resetting my scroll progress to the top of the article.
| This is the second time I've run into this (first was within the
| last two weeks).
|
| I hope this is a bug in my phone's handling of something and not
| intentional. Until I know otherwise, I'm treating sites where
| this happens as deliberately hostile for the same reason as
| always: ads. I use reader mode to escape ads that my ad blockers
| miss but also to avoid poor design or hard to read fonts and the
| like. My response is the same as ever: I closed the article.
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| think you got a bug my friend - this is a static site
| alsetmusic wrote:
| Thanks for confirming. I was confident the first time because
| many websites are hostile to users. Seeing it again within a
| short window made my spidey-sense tingle.
| uxcolumbo wrote:
| Your blog is a treasure trove - thanks for sharing.
|
| Do you still cut your own hair ;) ?
|
| But yes us folks in the creative world can learn a few things
| from the corporate world when it comes to contracts and payment
| schedules. Mike Monteiro's talk 'F*ck you, pay me' comes to mind.
|
| ---
|
| https://www.mikemonteiro.com/
|
| https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1
| doctorhandshake wrote:
| Thanks - still cut my own hair but rethinking after a
| particularly disastrous one recently!
| TravelTechGuy wrote:
| Sadly every consultant can tell you at least one (hopefully only
| one) story about clients who refuse to pay. Either outright, or
| with some excuse about you "not delivering", or they "not liking"
| what you delivered. I have one of those stories as well.
|
| My SO has her own story - she ran into a guy whom she later found
| out does it as a policy: hires people, never pays, threatens to
| sue them if they publish their story. Her lawyer told her to just
| forget about it.
|
| It's then that find out the limitations of our legal system: if
| the client is international, forget about it. If they're out of
| state, prepare to deal with an expensive legal process taking
| place where the laws may not always favor you. And even if it's
| local, and you won in a small claims court - good luck
| collecting.
|
| I have periodic payments built into all my contracts, with the
| final payment taking place after acceptance tests, but before me
| surrendering all materials and code. I won't say this is a 100%
| bulletproof solution, but the alternatives suck.
| njovin wrote:
| > If they're out of state, prepare to deal with an expensive
| legal process > you won in a small claims court - good luck
| collecting
|
| While these statements are generally true, it shouldn't
| dissuade anyone from pursuing these remedies.
|
| Years back I took a small programming contract with a 'friend
| of a friend' that ended with me delivering what was asked and
| them suddenly not having any money, claiming the company was
| going under.
|
| They were in another state. I filed small claims by mail and
| they never responded, so I got a default judgement without ever
| needing to travel, for under $500 in total fees. The judgement
| is worthless though, right? Probably...
|
| Fast forward about a month and they had an investor willing to
| float the company for a while longer, but now my judgement is a
| giant wrench - the investor won't give them money as long as
| this is hanging around. I got the cofounders to jointly take on
| the debt personally (after consulting with a lawyer that this
| was possible - he didn't even charge for the consult!) and I
| vacated the judgement against the LLC.
|
| A short while later the LLC went under anyway, but since I had
| both founders' personal finances under my thumb (which would
| allow garnishing wages, obtaining leins, etc.) I was able to
| recoup the entire contract amount from them personally.
|
| I wouldn't have spent more than about $1,000 chasing that money
| down, but a few hours of paperwork and a few hundred dollars
| ended up making it easily worth my while.
| andix wrote:
| In such a situation (startup with unclear financial situation,
| foreign country) I would demand weekly payments. And if it is
| more than a week late, I would just leave.
| yawnxyz wrote:
| Very very important to get something up front; sometimes half up
| front doesn't always work for long projects, but you can scope
| out tranches where if you dont get paid for the first section of
| work, you walk away.
|
| Has saved me from wasting my time on loads of projects before.
|
| Reading the thread, I think most of us who have worked contracts
| here have been burned one way or another
| TheMagicHorsey wrote:
| I don't know what it is about me, but I have a sixth sense for
| losers who will not pay. There's been a number of times where
| acquaintences have taken contracts I've turned down (against my
| advice too) and have not been paid. There's something about slick
| communicators that just activates my spidey sense.
|
| And TBH, I have also had a few false positives. One contract I
| did not take (it was for a mix of equity and cash) turned into a
| 10B+ company, and I would have made enough to retire (again) on
| it over a 1-year contract. I didn't because the founder who
| called me just sounded completely clueless and was barraging me
| with marketing speak instead of explaining what he needed. I was
| so exhausted from his BS I just decided I didn't need the
| headache. (This is also a danger of having enough to retire ...
| you turn down a lot of potentially lucrative work because you
| just don't think the headaches are worth it).
|
| In the grand scheme of things, other than that one big missed
| opportunity, I haven't missed too much upside by being so picky.
| And when I'm counseling colleagues about their unpaid contracts
| and conflicts, I'm always silently thanking the stars I have the
| luxury to say no. I know that's a priviledge.
| TrackerFF wrote:
| One thing I've learned from working in different fields, which
| seems to hold true for all business: If a client approaches you
| with a dumpster fire of a repair job, are too broke to get a real
| fix, and get agitated (or simply ignore) by the talk of what the
| job will cost - simply tell them _" sorry, I can't help you with
| this one"_.
|
| 99 out 100 times they will be a hassle, and you'll be lucky if
| they pay you anything beyond the upfront payment.
|
| Even worse if it is another business, as the author writes, those
| can just declare bankruptcy and walk away.
| harvey9 wrote:
| Not really to the point of the post, but how can you deal with
| parallax error when your users are sitting on bus seats and your
| display is built into the bus window anyway?
| thesaintlives wrote:
| You went to China and worked for free. What you whining about?
| Are you surprised they did not pay you? You even had a sore
| wrist. What a hero! No sympathy whatsoever.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| Author - I don't think you learned the correct lessons here.
|
| The most important thing is that you weren't "ripped off" - you
| were taken advantage of. Ripped off is when you buy a TV that's
| supposed to work and it doesn't. Or you just don't get one.
|
| You were taken advantage of - which requires your active consent.
| Nobody made you do all these things for them on faith. You could
| have left after a few days. You could have demanded payment up
| front. But you volunteered to continue down this awful path.
|
| I hope you learn to value your time, and yourself, higher than
| this in the future.
| 3abiton wrote:
| Man that was an awful read (but well written). As someone who is
| starting to slowly work on my own consulting activities, I feel I
| am up against a world of "ripping-off". Thanks for sharing.
| hn_acc1 wrote:
| When I was unemployed, looking for a job, living off severance,
| someone from my previous job contacted me to do some consulting
| work "for a friend". Initial terms were for some kind of stock in
| the company.
|
| It seemed shady from the start, but since it involved python,
| something I had very little experience with, I decided to try it.
| I worked like 15-20 hours per week for a few months, learned
| enough python to be comfortable with it and some other APIs as
| well (being a little vague on purpose). Later said they could
| maybe afford to pay me some $$ due to another company they had
| founded being sold (I verified this much, the person had founded
| and sold a few companies).
|
| It eventually fell apart after my first deliverable (as I
| expected, mostly). I used encryption to send python files that
| would only work for a couple of weeks. Not sure if they ever did
| anything with it (it's been a few years). Oh well, it ended up
| helping me get another job where python was a good skill to have.
|
| The biggest loss was that of losing all trust in the person
| setting things up.
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