Client issue: make sure you’re not paid in oddball funds
May 19, 2009 by Jennifer
Filed under Blog Tips, Blog Tools, Blogging Jobs, Rants and Raves
Here’s a situation I haven’t run into before. I’m sure many writers have, but luckily this issue has escaped me; until now that is…
- First of all I took a gig with a somewhat promising blog client. The editor I had to report to was cool, the blog was my style, it seemed all good. Then:
- The editor that hired me quit immediately and the new editor they hired was the world’s biggest pain. She peppered her emails and posts with flowery, wordy, annoying to the max wording. For example, she always called the writers things like deary and the most bestest of friends (OMG).
- I got fed up and quit. BUT I did turn in my contracted work first and they used it.
- The client put my pay into a PayPal account back in December 2008. Not my PayPal account mind you because they misspelled my email.
- I emailed (in December) and for some reason they couldn’t get it fixed. No one seemed to be able to get my $ into my actual PayPal account.
- I emailed the old annoying editor who also had not been paid and was of no help.
- Finally in April I decided to email every single day until they paid me, hoping that by being annoying, I’d maybe get my $. Up til then I’d been emailing every week.
- Finally one of the blog owners emailed in Mid April saying “OH SO SORRY” and said she’d send a check asap. Nothing.
- I emailed again. The owner says, “I just had a baby and was busy.” Um, ok. That would be a decent excuse if my payment wasn’t already 5 months late. I had a long labor with my son, but really, not 5 months. Geez.
- So amazing beyond amazing I get a check the other day. Guess in what sort of funds…? That would be Canadian. Since I’m in the U.S. the exchange rate is not currently in my favor and I’d lose part of my money if I cashed it.
I don’t care if a client owes you $20 or $200 not paying you is the lamest damn client deal ever, and it’s so annoying because I’ve never had this issue in other types of work. Writing appears to be the only career where clients feel it’s a luxury to pay you or not pay you for the work you’ve done on a whim. Not all clients of course, some are great, but all in all writers run into this too often.
Long story short – SUPER obnoxious client, but there’s a lesson here too. Before this, I never even thought to check and see what sort of funds a client will pay you in. If you’re in a different country, you should make sure you’re going to get paid say the $50 they owe you in actual U.S. funds. I know I will from now on for sure.
Have you ever had clients try to pay you in funds that lower due to the exchange rate?
Oh man, that is beyond frustrating!
I don’t ever take PayPal payments because 1.) PayPal gets a cut of my pay 2.) I don’t want to run the risk of the payment getting sent to someone else’s email account and 3.) if a client only offers payment via PayPal, they must not be very legit.
Not all PayPal clients result in a cut. I have many clients who pay through PP and only one ends up loosing me a couple dollars. Also many totally legit clients pay through PayPal including most blog networks. Most of my best gigs pay through them. Although, I’ve seen a switch lately with some clients to Direct Deposit (to my bank) which I like better.
I’m Canadian and get US cheques. Even though I live here, I won’t accept a job that pays in CDN funds (for income tax reasons). I play the exchange game and try to exchange my USD when the Canadian dollar drops. Hold the pay and check the exchange rates once in awhile to try and get the most money you can out of it.
It is very important to know what dollar you are to be paid in. I wonder though, was this a case of the client trying to pay you in “lower funds” or a case of the client being in Canada and you not realizing you were applying to work for a Canadian client? If the company is Canadian, you can’t really expect them to pay in USD.
Actually they were paying me in US funds via PayPal, so they know I’m here. This time was the first time this client sent a check. AFTER I’d asked them to put it in PayPal. So, I’m not sure what they’re up to.
Thankfully, no. I’m in Canada and get paid in U.S. funds, so it works in my favor.
Hi Jen,
I’ve had clients who switched from PayPal to checks because the clients had registered as individuals with PayPal, but PayPal determined that their accounts were being used for business purposes. Paypal then changed my clients’ accounts’ status from “personal” to “business.”
PayPal’s fees for businesses are much higher than for personal accounts, so my clients switched to checks.
Also, I’ve had clients who had insufficient funds to cover their PayPal payments–PayPal then taps into the account’s secondary financial resources (often credit cards), which can really rack up the costs of doing business.
I suppose, in situations like these, the best approach is to be grateful that you’ve been paid (hope there’s sufficent $$$, Canadian or otherwise, in their bank account) and that you’ll no longer have to deal with feigned “terms of endearment.”
Hope you have a good holiday weekend–
Bobbi
I worked for the same client you just described. It cost me 10% of the income I made just to cash the check, because my bank has a fee for foreign transactions in addition to the exchange rate.
I was an unhappy camper, as well.
I think that most of the time this falls under the category of doing your homework. I have written for clients in Hong Kong, US, Spain, UK and Australia. I have accepted all kinds of currency. (Money is money!) But I always make sure in advance what the payment currency will be, and try to have a rough understanding of the average exchange rate.
The advantage of Paypal is that you can keep funds in different currencies until the exchange rate picks up. I wrote a piece for $600 a few months ago, but the exchange rate to British sterling was 1.9 It is now at 1.5, so I made an extra 80 pounds or so by holding off exchanging the funds for a few months.
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