Client issue: make sure you’re not paid in oddball funds

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…

1. 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:
2. 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).
3. I got fed up and quit. BUT I did turn in my contracted work first and they used it.
4. The client put my pay into a PayPal account back in December 2008. Not my PayPal account mind you because they misspelled my email.
5. 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.
6. I emailed the old annoying editor who also had not been paid and was of no help.
7. 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.
8. Finally one of the blog owners emailed in Mid April saying “OH SO SORRY” and said she’d send a check asap. Nothing.
9. 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.
10. 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?

Sneaky Clients – Acts That Should Make You Run for the Hills

Sneaky clients at best are somewhat silly to obnoxious, and at worst may want you to break the law. I’ve never had a network ask me to do anything questionable, but stand alone clients have been another story. Here are some things that a sneaky client might try.

Give you a demotion for low stats early on. First off, ask if you can have access to stats, then it’s easy to know where stats stand. Also, unless it was in your contract, you shouldn’t get a pay cut, especially not if it’s a new blog. It takes a long time to build stats, some clients aren’t smart enough to know this. I know one blogger who took a pay cut once on a blog because stats were low, but she already had a good long-term working relationship with her client, and there were other circumstances. In most cases if you do your job, you need to get paid.

Tell you to buy photos for posts. If it wasen’t agreed upon in the contract, do not pay for premium photos. There are places to find free images, and if it’s something like celebrity photos, that often do need to be bought, the client should pay, not you.

Tell you to take photos or text from another blog without permission and post it at their blog. Um, yeah. Don’t ever do this. Furthermore if a client asks you to do this run; run fast. You don’t want your name and rep as a blogger associated with them.

The twist on the above sneaky act is when clients add questionable stuff to your post after the fact. If your name is on the post, you could get in trouble for stolen content.

Wants you to post each day without fail at 3pm. You agree. Then they change it to 5am, then 10pm. You’re not a traffic guinea pig. If your client is being obnoxious with timing, don’t put up with it. There are plenty of clients who won’t do this.

Asks you to wait to agree on a pay amount until they see how you do. Don’t work for free – period. You could start your own blog “just to see how you’ll do” and make more money.

Changes your work and then tries to not pay you. I used to have this ghostwriting gig for a client. Until I know a client, I save posts in Word, which is a good thing, because this client was going in and changing my posts. Cutting words, cutting photos; and I had no clue. Then comes payday, and I get an email that says, “Due to you not following our contract, no pay” – I got pretty snippy and actually I did get paid, but I was just lucky. Of course I quit. Having gone through that, I’d suggest you pay attention to new clients until you know them.

What sneaky client acts have you run into?