NYCPHP Meetup

[Jim Hendricks]

Years ago the company I worked for dealt with this very situation.  The 
1st time it happened, they disabled the application but provided 
information to the company as to how to access their data.  They sued, 
and the cost of defense was too much.  My company settled out of court 
by re-activating the system and of all things paying like 5k.  They 
never collected, and with the settlement, ended up costing themselves to 
develop the app!

 From that point on they had much more explicit language in their 
contracts, but never had to deactivate an application again.  This was 
due to a more creative solution.  Errors.  Simply introduce code which 
once a set date is hit, cause the application to throw an error in a key 
area of the application.  When the customer calls to have it fixed, you 
say not until I receive payment for the app development, and advance 
payment for the estimated time to correct the "error".  Actual error 
correction was to remove this payment trap.

Tim Gales wrote:

>... client paid about 1/3 of the cost of the site up front and was
>supposed to pay the balance on delivery.  I delivered the site months
>ago and have not received further payment.  The site is still active
>and it has been receiving alot of traffic.  They receive hundreds of
>visits a day and many users submitting information.  Needless to say
>they are doing business with the site and making a profit from it.
>
>The owner of the site has not returned my many calls and emails over
>the past two months.  I am trying to figure out how to get him to
>acknowledge me and hopefully pay up!  I have a full time job as a
>Java/PHP/.NET programmer so I don't do freelance often. This was the
>only project I have done in years and it was as a favor to a friend.
>Now I regret doing it at all and feel that I was taken advantage of.
>
>Any advice?
>
>Well no legal advice -- that's for sure.
>
>A couple of thoughts which may be helpful:
>
>You could check with your local Small Business Administration office --
>they often can give you some good ideas on how to deal with problems 
>like this which are commonly faced by small businesses.
>
>Maybe sending them a certified letter with return receipt requested
>would be a good idea. I think it should have a pleasant tone --
>perhaps suggesting that the client has been too busy and overlooked
>payment of the invoice.
>
>But, at least, don't put anything in it which could be (mis)construed as
>threatening or harassing. I would most definitely not put a threat to
>sue them in writing. (Again, this is only what I would do -- not
>legal advice).
>
>  
>