Gothamist: Freelance does not mean "working for free"

Tom

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 16:41:56 -0500

Interesting comment on Gawker about this post...meeeow.

twooh

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 15:23:45 -0500

I have the same problem now. I've gotten some advice from people and I'm considering to take legal action and going through a "small claims court". I have done this before, and I won after my landlord refused to give me my deposit back.

John

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 12:29:40 -0500

Send your invoice to them via certified US Mail with delivery confirmation. Within the next 30 days, take them to small claims court. Stop being Mr. Nice Guy. They are in the wrong and they should pay up.

Jayson

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:42:38 -0500

I am in exactly the same situation for a larger sum of money. I called the company that owed my agent money and received a detailed list of payments that they sent to my agent. Essentially, through aggressive phone calls (to the agent) and schmoozing phone calls to the ultimate client, I was able to prove that the payments were made. Note that this does not guarantee payment, but does point out that you can sue. BTW, small claims court is only $15 and essentially you did the work and didn't get paid. What was in your contract about getting paid?

Carrie McLaren

Wed, 08 Jun 2005 11:29:42 -0500

If you have access to a high-traffic website, here's a solid method for collecting. This is only a last-ditch effort, after you've given a number of warnings and exhausted other possibilities: Post a webpage saying X owes you money. Make sure X's name is in the title and in the name of the file (ie x.html), and write a short paragraph about the problem. In order for this to show up on Google, you have to link to the page from a page with a high Google pagerank. (I put it on my magazine's About page, under a heading "People who owe us money.") Wait a few days and search for X's name on Google. If you're lucky, your page will have a high rank and will appear on the first page. Then send X an email showing the Google results. This has worked 9/10 times for me, and has been far more effective than filing for small claims. (Often my page will appear as the top one or two links on Google -- even above X's own site.) This doesn't work with common person names (John Smith etc.), though. And you should avoid any personal attacks.