As a freelancer, I’ve been pretty lucky that on the whole, I usually get paid, but every once in a while I get caught. You know how it goes, you build a relationship and everything is tracking pretty well. You’ve worked for the client on quite a few jobs, so you don’t expect any issues. Suddenly WHAM! The client takes your work, the most expensive piece commissioned to date, publishes it and decides not to pay your bill. They just go silent and fail to acknowledge all contact attempts, despite the fact that I can clearly see them active in social media and LinkedIn, so I know jolly well that they are very much alive and kicking!

What do you do? If you’re me, you try to sort things out amicably, but when there’s no response, over several weeks, there is little to be done. Of course, I could go public, but my reputation is built on confidentiality, so it’ll do me more harm than good.

I suck it up, send a polite note to the client expressing my disappointment in their integrity and wish them well with their life and career. I won’t lower my standards and my reputation remains intact. I do however believe in karma and what goes round comes round. I also continue to place my trust in humanity and refuse to lose that despite a couple of negative experiences.

Love to hear how others, who work in a highly confidential space, deal with these kinds of situations?

Michelle