Working as a freelance creative, often there is a persistent feeling that you might not be justly rewarded for the long hours you put in. Sometimes clients are unhappy with your work, or say they are, and then try to renegotiate your fee.
Let's make this clear: YOU ARE PAID FOR YOUR TIME, NOT THE QUALITY OF YOUR WORK.
Sometimes, you submit an invoice, while eating an expensive breakfast the week after finishing a gig, exhausted, but safe in the knowledge that in a few weeks, you won't have to worry about money for a while. After you hear nothing from your client, even those with whom you made good friends during the job, you start to sweat. Five weeks pass, still no communication - not even to acknowledge receipt of your invoice. Making the rent becomes impossible, and you have to default and dent your credit history again - and then you can't save 20% for the tax man. And it's not your fault.
CLIENTS HAVE 28 DAYS FROM RECEIPT OF YOUR INVOICE TO PAY OR NEGOTIATE PAYMENT.
This page is a list of those clients who have, for one reason or another, failed to honour their part of the deal and pay on time, or who have in other ways failed their freelance workers. Often creative professionals who work freelance hang on every last paycheck to be paid on time - who can afford to let thousands of dollars/pounds/euros slide by six weeks without being asked first? No-one.
This blog aims to forewarn those who work freelance about the less scrupulous employers, and confirm the doubts of those who are still waiting to be paid six weeks after invoicing. Oftentimes you can never tell which clients are the least reliable - after all, we make friends and work hard on our freelance gigs, and expect the same effort on the part of our temporary employers. More than once I have bought new copies of Adobe Creative Suite, and Mac Pros, on behalf of the company at the start of a job - only for that same company to stutter and fumble in their pockets when it's a person that needs paying for.
This has to stop, but it never will - and with the absence of trade unions in our respective countries, it's up to small attempts like this page to protect hardworking creatives from employers who need professional, fast, experienced crew, but won't pay.
Welcome to Know Thy Client.
