We are pleased to announce that 3 of the stories that were posted here has been successfully resolved. They sent an email with the post link to the clients and the clients ended up paying up :)
Do share your stories if you have any and hope you can use this platform to get you money back :)
This guy Justin Sentian(http://www.facebook.com/justin.sentian) refuses to pay me RM300 based on the hourly rate for my work of deploying Fortran and getting his City Cat project which I have met the objective, which is to compilee and make the binary to run and work. Requiring me to further do his development work and not paying my past work hours makes me stop my delivery.
Submitted: Richard Aik
After featuring a story which was first submitted at launch, the developer managed to reach a settlement with the client. The post has since be taken down, and we are really happy for that developer :)
I built a complete web base order entry system including inventory control, complex pricing for Hollywood Markets wholesale division. I worked with Rick Welch, Thom Welch, Bob Welch, Kim Welch and Bill Welch Sr. . When the project was nearrly complete Kim Welch called me and told me to stop. Just stop she said. I waited and a week later we had a meeting. They said they lost thier contract on the wholesale division. They did not need the program anymore. I soad in 30 days I will have it done. We had a contract. They still owe $18,000.. . Bill Welch said to me ” We got screwed and so you got screwed. Thats just the way life is.” I had many meeting with them. I tried to get any resolution possible. After a while they came up with this lame excuse that the program was not ready. I built the software to replace an old DOS system that was still working. There was never a hurry as long as the old system was working. They never gave me a chance to finish. It was just an excuse not to pay me. I have never done this before, but people need to be warned.
Their name is Hollywood Markets 2670 W. Maple Road
Troy, Michigan 48084
Submitted by: Joe
Developed an entire website with complex Google Earth & Maps integration, social networking features, and streaming audio support. Received the halfway payment, but upon completion, they refused to pay. They wanted more and more development that was out of scope and specifically excluded from the start. I walked away.
Submitted by: Fosco Marotto
The site is http://route4me.com/
I’ve been developing iOS app for the guy behind it, his name is Dan Khasis. He was delaying the first payment for months, then eventually paid and I continued to work. I kept a log of what I was doing every day and billing appropriately, but eventually he decided not to pay at the end of the month and still owes me $2000.
Submitted by: Dmitry Stadnik
Thanks to the gpcz on Hacker News, here’s a video on how to avoid such situations.
2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from San Francisco Creative Mornings on Vimeo.
I did work for a guy called Carlos “Storm” Martinez, redesigning his brand and making him a new website from scratch. I posted shots of the design on Forrst and every one made it to the most popular page. I built a ruby on rails back end for him to manage and update his portfolio. When I finally sent him the bill, which was for a rate that’s about 1/3 of what I charge now about a year later, he said the most he would pay for the entire brand redesign, logo, website, and back end was $500, less than half the price.
After he wouldn’t negotiate to any more, I took him to court. He had signed a contract agreeing to my price and really didn’t have any other ground to stand on. He claimed that he was not happy with the result. After being in front of a judge for no more than 10 minutes, she said she had heard enough and a couple days later I received a notification that I had won and he owed me the full amount.
I sent him an email and let him know my address so he could send a check and my paypal account in case he preferred that. I never heard back from him.
Now I have to go to the police and have them go to his house and collect it forcibly. It’s almost a year after I started the job and I still haven’t been paid.
Be careful of people like Carlos ‘Storm’ Martinez. His company is called Creative Mixing, and can be found at http://creativemixing.com - note that the site is down, since I won’t let him use the one I made him until he pays (he tried to steal it, I put in a kill switch), and he got another crappy designer to put up a holding page. He is a sound designer, and this is his page on imdb: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2450255/
Submitted by: Jenius, http://blog.jenius.me/
Disputed by: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3535335
Thanks to the feedback from Hacker News, we have now updated the requirements for posting, to ensure responsible posting. People who feel that they have been wrongly accused can now send in feedback that they have been wronged and we will look into it.
Join in the discussions on Hacker News
:)
I worked for <Name Removed> for months, racking up $10k in bills programming an iOS app for him. He didn’t read the Human Interface Guidelines and designed an app that was impossible to create. Despite that, I made the app work, even knowing it would never be approved because of his mistake. He then got a job at Apple (looks like the bar has been lowered a lot), and has refused to pay me ever since.
Submitted by: http://dielaughing.tumblr.com/
Submitter, please submit evidence that this happened.
About I Wasn't Paid
