Web development work. Upfront payments.

Right, this is it.

A bit angry at this point athough I may sound quite calm to you. Anyway, what I intend to say to all is that from now on, before thinking to hire me either for PSD coding or PHP development or any other job first read this thread and if you do not agree to my words then please do not bother contacting me. I will ignore you. I am no longer negotiating payment methods and I mean it. If you do not feel confortable with upfront payments then I am not suitable for you to hire, as simple as that.

Since January when I first joined this community I have been working hard to build a reputation that would help my business, not hurt it. Well, last night I got hit hard in the back (or at least this is what it looks like) by a member of this forum. Not happening to me for the first time and I have learned to deal with these cases over the time but well, it is not very funny this time.

Since I am not sure yet what has happened, I will not call any names. Will do this at a later date, if that's the case.

Right, my Paypal account was limited last night. My money locked, my recent withdrawals cancelled to cover the negative balance, all stuff like that, nice job. Instead of going to bed like a normal person at 3am in the morning (at best), I had to spend time fighting Paypal regulations and sending them proof of my ID and address, accepting verifying calls from them and all that party. Did I deserve that? I say no. What was the cause of the problem? 2 Paypal transactions that were suspected to be unauthorised by the buyer and therefore locked for further investigation.

One transaction of $150 was part of a finished deal that I completed by delivering work and receiving confirmation of customer satisfaction. Second transaction of $150 was part of a new agreement. Both paid upfront. Both part of a dispute that has caused my account to be limited and my business to be affected. Will I get compensation for this? Good joke. Customer isn't reachable, and I need to find an alternative way to accept payments until Paypal resolves my case.

Therefore, here is the question, if I can't save my money that is paid to me upfront, why would I accept to get paid after work is done? Give me a strong reason and I'll do business with you!

I am not a youngster, and not one just starting up doing business online. I own business and accept to code for others to satisfy my web development pleasure if you know what that means.

I can friendly if I receive appropriate treatment or I can be ignorant if consider that attitude to be necessary.

As far as payments are concerned, I hope I made myself clear on this, and I hope that my following words are clear enough for you to take them seriously before considering doing business with me:

- I guarantee satisfaction in turn for your money
- You know who I am and where to ask for your money back if I do not respect my obligations
- I cannot get to you if you run away with my work and do not wish to pay

In conclusion, I reserve the right to suspect a fraudulent payment in the future, and suspend development until any financial matters have been cleared.

 

Couldn't you just run off too?

 

Instead of causing a scene freaking out all tripping because someone nailed you once to the world you could try to think of a solution.

I've never seen you around here, so don't get me wrong. But You did post in the business section so I'm going to have to tell you straight out or you'll never hear it.

You possibly could be an excellent person to code up sites and what not, and you could be very good at working with others, but you gotta understand that its very hard to find someone who can create your vision. Obviously a few or your guys where not happy with the work. It may have been good, but you just couldn't get inside their head enough to make it the same.

Things you could do instead of saying "I reserve the right to not trust anyone"

-Maybe check the buyer background, check their topics at digital point to gather a bit of their personally for trust.
or
-Offer a 50% to start and 50% after.
-put in a little "off switch" in the coding just in case you get burned you can drop it and then he can come crying back to you. Once it's all done and you got your money for sure E-mail him to take away that code.

Of course you can always talk like this topic and watch your competitors burn you alive.

Take a business solution not an angry solution.

 

Well one job where I paid around $12,000 (50%) up front for some work a few years ago turned out they ripped us off - avoid www.blackwidowinternet.com

You live and learn

 

One word: Escrow.

Personally, I am extremely happy with RentACoder.com and it's built-in escrow system.

 

Whilst it is a pain you basically have to accept this as a risk of being a business and build it into your cost model.

Even if you accept payment up front the payment can still be reversed as unauthorised after you have completed the work and you are in the same situation as you are now.

By requesting full payment up front you risk turning away honest clients who fear you will do the same as what the buyer has done to you - though if you are only doing tiny $150 jobs then it may not be as much of an issue, not sure if you will get many people paying you $40,000 for a large project up front though without you having done a thing.

Escrow is an option but again doesnt include fraud protection in most cases but does help get round the above issue of asking for payment up front.

Really you have two choices. Accept monies by irreversable methods only which basically means cash, use a service that gives you fraud protection and just take a hit on every payment for the protection or accept it as a risk of being a business and build it into your cost model.

 

Thanks for taking a moment to read my words.

I guess everyone gets a chance to run off with someone else''s money.
I won't take your words as an offense though.

Well, I've been around for slightly less than 8 months which is far from a record but I believe I've proved my good business intentions to those interested. If I were you, I'd rather be more concerned about finding out who those people are (instead of who I am), since they are also members here on DP, possibly running multiple accounts as it has turned out during the past few days of investigation. There are also a company name and a website name are involved that could bring in some light about who to avoid in the future, a 3rd party designer actively cooperating towards resolving the dispute, and another team declining my authorship for the codes that I made and have full proof of.

I am not complaining about anything to you nor am I trying to force someone to accept my business model, I was just making a statement and willing to help others to avoid unfortunate situations on the forum as much as I could.

So true, I've been learning for the past 6 years now. Still trying my best

Thanks, Will. I will indeed consider using an escrow when it comes to deals where high amount of money is involved while as jobs within the range of $150 seem to be a bit under the acceptable line for an escrow service to be used, I think.

Thanks for the constructive note, AstarothSolutions.
We do have to evaluate and accept the risks of our business models, sadly no one is safe from cammers these days.

 

I know what it's like to not be paid for work done.

I suggest using MoneyBookers. Their transactions are virtually irreversable, and they're quickly becoming a popular option.

I think you will find many people not trusting enough to give 100% of money upfront. As suggested above, try the escrow services. They tend to work very well in preventing fraud.

Either way, good luck in getting this resolved.

 

I wasn't meaning my words in any way offensively, Clive, I was just making a point. If buyers can run off, so can sellers, you know?

Regardless, this is a major issue, I agree.

 

So for larger project you are being recommended to both use an escrow service (so buyers dont get scared about giving you all their money up front) and also using a payment method like MoneyBookers which is irreversible

First of all note what it says on the moneybookers site:

With other irreversible services I have known that they with draw the protection exceptionally quickly - but it does protect you for the first one or two.

You cannot use the likes of eLance or Rentacoder escrow because it is into their account that it is paid so you have no idea if they chargeback protection or not.

Seperate escrow services are very expensive and normally fixed fee rather than a percentage.

Add these together and you have a very high transaction cost which you then have to build into your cost model - certainly would be questionable that it is better to do this than simply increase your prices by X% to cover the cost of runners unless you land a single large contract which you dont expect to repeat

 

Sure he could. That's why he has a reputation - with a good reputation he most likely won't run off but a person with no reputation is more likely to do so.

 

I know that.

I'm just saying, his entire premise of his post was anyone could run off at any time... I was just kindly pointing out the other person could be thinking the same thing.

 

True, but in all likelyhood Clive has a better reputation than the buyer. To be safest the person with the lower reputation should pay/develop up front (or just escrow).

 

I have been already ditched by 3 buyers, but now we have moved to new parameters, Try escrow payment, they buyer made upfront payment and reserved with escrow, once the project completed, with the agreement of buyer seller can have the money without any problem.

 

Escrow doesnt protect against chargebacks though.

Money is paid to Escrow, work is done, you receive money and hand over work, charge back is made and money taken from escrow company, escrow company pursue you for the money.

 

Luckily, I managed to get hold of the people involved in the fraudulent transactions that I was affected by last week, good detective skills do help sometimes.

Last night, Paypal finally brought the mess to and end and has reversed the 2 transactions to the buyer without giving any explanation to me though. I still deserved that money after all. I did not hear a word from the other Paypal account owner as if he were inexistent. God knows what's going on.

Anyway, client has agreed to repeat the payment and that was done today.

Paypal is still playing the automated emails game, I've got loads of alerts about the open case on my account, and I have no idea what else they will come up with. They even know my parents' names now, what next...

I have sent over copies of proof of ID, bank statements, driving license, bills, they have even checked my phone number, but hey that's not enough. Their latest request was to fax over tracking information and invoice copies on the last 7 transactions on my account. Gosh, I did not kill anyone, and I feel sick already, all that "I did" was receive unauthorised payment for work that I delivered on time. I do believe I should get back to the client and thank him once again for the trouble he's put me through.

Anyway, things are getting back to normal slowly, I'm still waiting to have my current paypal balance unlocked but I guess I can live with that for now. Got higher priorities on my list at the moment...

 

I was in the same situation with an unauthorized transaction but the process was simpler for me. I took about a week but it was relatively simple, I just faxed and uploaded a utility bill and Tax File Number then they reversed the transaction and fixed up my account.