Just had a really difficult few months trying to get money out of a client - I stupidly did work without getting any contracts signed… bad mistake.
It ended with me putting a page up saying ‘client name’ doesn’t pay bills - admittedly a little childish, but it sure felt good! I’ve given the chasing up for good…
Anyone else got any ****ey client stories?
When i worked in 3D animation i worked for a small company in soho. We had worked on a bollywood film for 5 months doing all the 3d effects. It was pretty much our main income generator. The guy who was making the film was a HUGE superstar over there and has made hundreds of movies. He always starred himself as the hero, and had an almost religious following in india.
All of a sudden he had a falling out with his producer, and just cancelled the film on the spot, he refused to pay us for over £100,000 of work. It caused the company i worked for to go bankrupt, and 10 or so animators to lose their jobs. And it happened over night, just like that. It was really frustrating.
■■■■! I feel a little better now… I’m actually toying with creating a little class that’ll maybe read an xml file on the designers website that only lets the clients site load if it gets the ok from it… otherwise it would display a payment notice.
what do you think?
Never deliver source before payment.
Never deliver a complete preview before incremental payment.
If a client says ‘I won’t pay until I see the finished product’, walk away. The only (ONLY) reason they would say this is if they wanted to leave the option open to screw you.
I would say is fair to ask 30% of the total amount before you even start the job…
dup post… it seems as well as being over-trusting, I’m also an idiot… see post below…
Yeah… I’ve started using a contract now… and I’ll never work without one again. I’m too over-trusting… I’m going to be a right b*stard now. 
[QUOTE=nortago;2353577]It ended with me putting a page up saying ‘client name’ doesn’t pay bills - admittedly a little childish, but it sure felt good![/QUOTE]
You replaced their page with this… bold, maybe childish, but sure funny
[QUOTE=nortago;2353581]I’m actually toying with creating a little class that’ll maybe read an xml file on the designers website that only lets the clients site load if it gets the ok from it… otherwise it would display a payment notice.[/QUOTE]
Interesting thought also. Fun fun. (darn clients)
A contract is always the way to go and the payment methods as sekasi suggested. Sorry to hear of your misfortune.
I used to put in a datecheck in the code. If the date was over 10 days after I was supposed to get paid, it didn’t do anything.
When I got paid I secretly updated the code.
What’s the name of this guy? I wouldn’t be surprised if it were Shahrukh Khan, owner of Red Chillies Entertainment. That sucka! 
Yep. That’s the fella!
edit: The number of hours i spent staring at his face when trying to line up our 3d with the film plates … man i grew to hate that bugger’s face!
Just add this little bit of code to the top of a global file
if (file_get_contents('http://YOURWEBSITE.com/client/tracker/SOMENUMBER.txt') == "nopay") {
die('<center><b>CLIENTNAME Does Not Pay Bills</b></center>');
}
Replace where necessary
Better to put something in the swf file since anyone can edit a php file, but decompiling is annoying.
paying upfront is still an advantage with this industry. good to hear that problem sorted out that fast.
Hmmm… So he outsourced his 3D work to a production house in Soho? Freaking biting really. No wonder that production house pays next to nothing to Indian animators and VFX artists. But I can’t complain now I guess. He didn’t pay you guys either. Bogus, over-rich, over-hyped piece of ugly bastardliness! :lol:
Soho london that is, not the other fake sohos! And yeah he is a twat. Apparently he did the same thing to a company in india, refusing to pay for work on a film that he actually released. They tried to sue him and a whole mob of his fans attacked their offices. I imagine the story got exaggerated in the repeated telling, but still … he is obviously a bit of an icon in india. Glad to see you have risen above the frenzy of the masses!
The really annoying thing is that i was fairly new in the game and was doing some really impressive stuff on the job. I had actually started showing the senior animators how to do the cool stuff i had thought up … and then the plug got pulled and it was all gone. I went from the work experience guy who swept the floors and made the coffee, to a junior animator, to telling the senior developers what to do, all in three months.
I would still be in the industry if it wasn’t the norm to work at least 4 hours overtime every night fir no extra money. **** that noise.
edit: Apparently “twat” needs to be added to the profanity censor.
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