Payment troubles

[Ricod]

I worked for a company that wanted to make a 3D shooter. After not getting paid I asked why not and got petty excuse after petty excuse ! After 3 months I'm quite fed up with this as you can imagine (they too I guess since they don't answer, but who cares about them !)

I accepted the fact that the money and time is lost. But want to take revenge because they do not deserve to make money over my work (and others who were also cheated)! Anyone know something good ?

[vosgien]

Hi Ricod,
Sympathies to you - shitty thing to do to a guy. I'm not sure I know of any revenge tactics other than letting the world know who they are and warning others before they accept work from them.
One thing that I have started to do is that with any work I take on, it is parked on one of my subdomains for testing and final approval, it is not removed from the subdomain or given to the client until payment is recieved. That is now part of my terms for any web based work I take on.

Cheers

Vosgien

[Ricod]

Thanks for the support Vosgien !

Unfortunately it wasn't web work, but (among other tasks) the design doc for their game "Lost Legion". As I was doing this with a colleague, I couldn't prevent them from getting the files. I'm not the first to have experienced this with this company, and unfortunately won't be the last since people still start working for them.

The problem is than unlike other countries, the Netherlands only have 4 game development companies, of which 2 had to let go half their staff and the other one is a pretty settled team and not hiring (Triumph Studios with their excellent Age of Wonders line up). Dutch people who want to be in the gaming industry have little choice.

Since they are also involved with webbased applications : Please think twice before dealing with ZZICT.

[vilehelm]

What kind of documnetation do you have?

Here in the US we have what is called a civil court. I've had to go through this once. You file your complaint and basically take 'em to court but no lawyer is needed. Civil court is for lower amounts of money. I think $2500 or less.

Find out also if there is any government group you can lodge a complaint with. Again this is the US but things like Chamber of Commerce, Better Business Bureau, etc... Lodge a complaint with every single governing body you can find. These sorts of things really do impact. Companies sweat when the BIG flaming eye of government peers at them.

Also, this is hard to do, but the best way to get paid is to walk right up to them in person and say "pay me!"and don't leave until they cut you a check. It's not an easy thing to do but it works better than a long line of emails.

[Ricod]

Thanks for tips Vile !
I'm looking into the legal business at the moment. the problem is that I have a contract, but its a word doc, not a paper version.

As for the last, knowing that guy his check would probably be 'uncovered'.

[vilehelm]

Do you have an email? with the attachement?

Save it if you do.

Also, I sometimes don't get any money up front to dangle the carrot infront of myself. But from now on force yourself to get a deposit if you can.

[Rupert]

I agree with vilehelm here. Definately look into your legal recourse. Almost all western world countries have some kind of government authority looking after small business and individuals. In Australia we have Fair Trading and The Small Claims Tribunal. Here you can also report a company to what we call ASIC - who manage the registration of companies - and the reported company will have it on their permanent record that they are responsible for non payment. We just "hinted" to a company once that this was going to happen and hello - the cheque arrived by express courier.

There are always unscrupulous mongrels out there, and If you have done work for them and not got paid I reckon pursue them for it through whatever means you can. These people rely on you NOT fighting for your money - they rely on the fact that most people just go "screw it, its too hard" and let it slide. I don't know what the law is where you are, but I'm sure if you have any documentation you'll get somewhere if yo0u push it. In many countries a witnessed verbal agreement is good enough.

Go get your money and yes, tell every single person you know what happened.

[Jesse]

Provided it's over the minimum limit I'd take them to court. This is why I always deman payment before handing over anything other than an SWF which doesn't have a big pink logo saying "SAMPLE DEISGNED BY..."
Unfortunately some people aren't trustworthy. Sorry to hear it happenned to you mate.

[sfa]

Very sorry to hear about this mishap but there must be a way to get it and if you are so frustrated you should do what Vile said and just turn up and stay till they pay you.
I know you couldnt do that but one thing I like to do is give them an swf with a big text box on the first page with a loadvars command. If they dont pay I will place some very vulgar and offensive words (ex. This company endorses all Celine Dion productions) in the text file that loads into the text field so as to give them bad publicity. If they pay me I give them an swf without it.

Good luck..

SFA

[Ricod]

Thanks for all the sympathy and tips people ! :D

I'm thoroughly researching all means at my disposal ! In the meantime telling everybody what happened !

All the tips on securing the deal are also appreciated (although not appliable in this case, since we're talking about couple of Word docs)

*And if they won't pay ... SFA, you're a gangstah right ? Can you intimidate him ? He doesn't have a horse, but I'm sure you can find something to put in his bed ! (like a furball)* ;)

[mrfluffy]

Originally posted by sfa
I like to do is give them an swf with a big text box on the first page with a loadvars command. If they dont pay I will place some very vulgar and offensive words (ex. This company endorses all Celine Dion productions)
you should do anyway :D

[texbala]

is there any way to make the code not work after a certain no. of days.. just a security code (with a master password) !!!, which can be deleted in the final stage after getting the final payment etc... not sure whether it can be done.. but had a thought!!

[sfa]

You can do it that way, you could just check the month for example but it is easier to just load some text into a textbox. If you use the getMonth function, anyway with their date set wrongly might be able to view the site.

SFA

[Ricod]

Bah ! Why can't we have one o those little virus thingies that keep broadcasting 'pay up you bastard !' while formatting the hds of their computers ! (then again, with most sites running on a webhost, we'd be punishing the wrong people. )

[toolslive]

This thread has been brought to my attention, and I feel obliged to respond (I probably better not, but what the heck).

First, a contract is a contract, even a verbal contract is valid. In this case, both parties agree there is one, so a civil court could be addressed.

Second, the plan was that RicoD would deliver us 3DSMax models for the fps ZZICT Entertainment is developing, the deal being ZZICT would pay on a per model basis, for every APPROVED model. Since RicoD did not deliver any model that we liked or are going to use, we don't feel obliged to pay him for that work.

I'm not here to start an aesthetical or a legal dispute nor am I going to throw mudd at anyone. I just wanted to clarify the situation.

BTW,
we recently noticed an increase in scripting attacks on the ZZICT web servers, but before you try to get root access on the web server, realise it is a linux machine so stop throwing /scripts/shell.exe stuff at us ok, :p


Romain Slootmaekers.
ZZICT Technologies.

[Jesse]

A right of reply is of course granted, but I'd like to point out to both parties that this forum isn't a good place to publicly air specifics of sensitive issues such as this. Private emails etc are good for that :)

[pixelstar]

HI

I am sorry to hear that you did some work and didn't get paid for it. I have been having similar problems with some of my clients (but on a smaller scale).There is a way to get around that the next time. Rather break up the payment into modules rather than payment on delivery. That is, after each stage of the project the client would evaluate the work done so far, approve it and sign it off, then you invoice them for that stage. Once it is approved you move onto the next stage.

This way if the client pulls out, they have paid for the work done or time put in and the time you have spent hasn't been in vain. Also by the client approving each stage you have a better indication of what the client is expecting from the project and the client is more invovled in the process (They get a better understanding of what it takes to give them what they are expecting/want)

And at the same time you have signed documents approving each section (with no misunderstandings) so they can't turn back on what they said and these can be used for any legal action you might take.

It also has advantages for the client, so it's a win-win situation without any sticky messes.

goodluck

[vilehelm]

I was just thinking too that when dealing with larger companies make sure going in you understand what the payment timeline is like. Some of them can be quite extended. 30 days is not unheard of. They seem to have a time of the month when all checks are written.

[farafiro]

hey pixelstar
y repeating your post

[Ricod]

Now this is dissapointing... I knew that Arnold Obbens wasn't honest (Not once did he spoke the truth to me. ), but from Romain I would have expected better.

I don't know about Arnold, but I know that all are conversations were logged in ICQ. In which you'll find conversations were you could see that my work wasn't to deliver models, but to make a design document, a style document and a mission document and where Arnold states that he's VERY pleased with my work !

And when pay time arrives, all of a sudden he claims I didn't work for ZZICT (thats what he wrote to my civil rights help) and never wanted to work for ZZICT ...

and oh ... my model WAS already used in the demo which was shown to the evalution team ... you wou'd have known if you were there ... and the model was approved back then, because of every comment, I made a revision of it until it was found suitable. Don't change FACTS just because the truth isn't to your liking. I'm willing to let this go all the way to the court and make statements on a lie detector. Are you ?

*Sorry Jesse... just HAD to make a reply. I HATE dishonesty !*