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Non paying customer

Chojin

Chojin

Chojin

Soldato
Joined
21 Nov 2004
Posts
2,876
I do some part-time IT work for some local businesses and am suffering from a non paying customer, for an invoice dating back to January. I believe this is because my main contact there has left and between themselves they are disputing the work I have done for them. I am almost to the stage of going legal.

I got a voicemail message today from someone at the company asking for the password for a wireless access point I set up. In addition I can't remote desktop into their server anymore. I feel the relationship has soured and am hesitant to provide them the password as this may still be some leverage to receiving payment. Just wondering if anyone has any advice in this situation and if withholding the password could bite me in the ass?
 
I don't have any signed contract as such but an initial agreement by e-mail for ad hoc work. 99% of the work I have done was requested by e-mail, without any purchase orders.
 
if it's an amount you can afford to lose - i'd personally just walk away and refuse to give any passwords etc.

if not, get yourself down to the citizen advice centre.
 
stokecity_m said:
may i ask the rough amount they owe you?
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Value is just over £600 which covered work done for the latter half of last year.

brummie said:
They dispute you did the work but they ask you for a password to work you did??
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That's the impression I get as the person I used to deal with left the company and my work probably wasn't communicated to the rest of the company. I haven't had any success talking to senior person there, only the admin person so far.
 
Just phone the person who messaged you asking for the password and tell them you will happily supply the password once payment for your work has been received , tell them the invoice was submitted in January and it has still not been resolved.

Safe to say this over the phone, but if you end up writing to them you need to be very careful with your wording or it could be your undoing if the matter does end up in legal proceedings. If you are going to go the 'Legal' route I would have zero communication direct with that company, let your appointed representative deal with everything.
 
How are you trying to get the money from them? As its best to go in person (rather than phone or email), if you haven't already done so.
 
I'd call them back and say that as you have an outstanding invoice, you'd like to clear this up before you can help them any further. The password details were all passed onto Mr.X (replace x with old contact name), so they have the details already.

Try and be helpfull but at the same time, I wouldn't supply it until they've paid. Perhaps suggest, if they get a cheque ready, you'll pop in, get/reset the password and collect it at the same time.

If the above works out, don't fall into the same trap again.
 
Next time they ring just say you never did any work for them. When they insist you did tell them you can prove you didn't via your financial records. :p

If it were me (and I'm not suggesting you necessarily try this) I'd call them back in relation to the password problem, bring up the outstanding invoice, and when they give you an excuse say you're having trouble remembering the password and if they give you a call later on to sort the invoice out you might have remembered it. Should give them the hint without putting you in an actionable position.
 
Paramount said:
New wireless access point = £50? You = £600.

New wireless access point, I CHOOSE YOU!
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Well if he ends up taking them to court they'll end up paying the £600 (+ court fees) anyway, so they may as well do it amicably :) .

You're also assuming the people concerned are smart enough to buy a new WAP and set it up properly (which I assume is what the OP was paid to do with the original, along with the rest of the network).
 
St0rmer66 said:
Well if he ends up taking them to court they'll end up paying the £600 (+ court fees) anyway, so they may as well do it amicably :) .

You're also assuming the people concerned are smart enough to buy a new WAP and set it up properly (which I assume is what the OP was paid to do with the original, along with the rest of the network).
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True, but if he's been chasing since Jan then eek :eek:

We very rarely have to chase people up for payment but I have used Moneyclaim and it's excellent - takes about 10 minutes to do.
 
St0rmer66 said:
Well if he ends up taking them to court they'll end up paying the £600 (+ court fees) anyway, so they may as well do it amicably :) .

You're also assuming the people concerned are smart enough to buy a new WAP and set it up properly (which I assume is what the OP was paid to do with the original, along with the rest of the network).
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I set up their whole IT last February and they were a new company so it feels quite disloyal of them to do this. The network equipment is Cisco, I also hold the password to their VPN/ firewall so the cost of getting someone to set these up again won't exactly be nominal.
 
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