What do you do when your clients don't pay you and ignore your PMs requesting payment? I understand if a client has to pay later, but they should at least keep us informed or give an explanation. I want to give these clients a negative rating, but I don't want them to retaliate (it has happened before). They have to be reprimanded somehow though.
This is something that everyone has to figure out for themselves, but here's how I approach it as a writer. Until I have established myself that someone is reliable when it comes to payment, I don't do more than $50-75 worth of work for them. With new clients and orders of $50 or more, I generally require that they pay me half upfront. If I have a client that I have acquired through forums, then I will not hesitate to leave them bad feedback. If I'm doing my job well, then they will not be able to hurt my overall reputation with a single false report.
Good tactics, potentialeight. I generally have new clients pay half upfront for large assignments or pay for assignments piecemeal. These were forum posting assignments though; smaller sums of money, but it still took up a lot of my time. I think that I'll just go ahead and deal with the bad ratings if they retaliate. It has made things harder, but it seems like things are drying out anyway.
With web development, i always ask for 50% payment upfront and then once the site is completed i ask for the remaining 50%. I always keep the domain name and hosting account in my name until i have received all the money... and only then will i transfer this over. Always make sure you have some control over the project.
Just look at the feedback or reviews received to the buyer. Search the buyer's identity on google. you'll find much more information than you require. Don't go for any buyer who has no feedback or reviews, especially if the buyer is new on the forum. It might be the case that the buyer created a new account solely for the purpose of cheating the freelancer. So you have to be capacious even before applying for the jobs.
Clients not paying for the service are really a pain in the neck after an excellent output. There's a lot of way to deal with this kind of issue, one is to ask for atleast 30%-50% upfront, that is depends on the scope of the work. You may also do what I am practicing with my other clients, sometimes I write an article and when I submitted the article to them, I put a water mark in my document in pdf file. Once I got the payment, I resend the article in clear document. Cheers!
HI friend, I am a Paid links sell, and if any client not pay me after links alive then i just send a massage (if he not pay me then i will remove his link on my site and give him negative Rating and also start Negative SEO on his site, when i start this then his site will down in few days.) Then client must reply and send payment, My this trick always always help me in my work....
It is important that you should make sure that someone or client is reliable when it comes to payment. If you don't have any idea if your client will pay, you need not to do more than $50-75 worth of work for them. Best thing to do is to pay you half upfront.
I would leave them negative feedback and gather your proof (conversations, etc.). If they in return leave you negative feedback, what proof do they possibly have? Any competent person reading your reviews will realize the negative review was not valid.
This is why you should always get payment upfront for your services. But if you choose to do the work, then get payment, or someone does a Credit Card chargeback (wow that is just plain stealing!) then it's probably best to chalk it up as a loss.