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Non-payment of invoice and no reason given.
Thread poster: JamesPH90
JamesPH90
JamesPH90
United States
Local time: 02:23
English to Irish
+ ...
TOPIC STARTER
Protocols Jun 10, 2022

Katrin Braams wrote:

It seems to me that you did not follow proper invoicing protocols.

First of all, did you generate an invoice in their system or did you sent them your own invoice ?

If they have a platform where you generated an invoice either on this invoice or somewhere in their platform it should be stated when your payment is due.
If you sent your own invoice you should have given a due date.

In both cases one week after the due date send them a formal 1st reminder where you ask for immediate payment up to June XY (3 working days).

If you are currently working on a project for them, stop this work and tell the PM that you cannot complete their project because you are not getting paid. This causes a major problem for the PM and most likely they will side with you and talk to their AP department.

If they don’t pay within the deadline stated in your reminder send them a 2nd reminder with another tight deadline and mention that you will take legal measures.
At the same time I would give them a bad review on the BB and in any suitable forum/on Google and wherever else you can think of. Make sure to let them know about that. Threaten to contact the end client to let them know that you are not getting paid.

Next step is a lawyer/dead collection agency.

But to have a valid case you need to have sent them a proper invoice with a clear deadline plus one or two formal reminders (depending on the legal requirements in Ireland).

For future jobs: Never allow a client to owe you that much money, particularly if it is a new client.
It's an invoice template generated by the agency. I triple checked the outstanding invoices and there were no mistakes on my part. I followed the "proper invoicing protocols". Update: I told the PMs on Tuesday I would not be taking on any new jobs until I was paid. This proved to be effective as payment came through for one of the invoices today. I did not threaten legal action in any of the reminder notices I had sent. To sum up: I sent three reminder notices in total, followed by an email informing them I would not accept any more work until I was paid.
 
Michael Newton
Michael Newton  Identity Verified
United States
Local time: 06:23
Japanese to English
+ ...
non-payment Jun 11, 2022

"Large agencies are less likely to scam you". Believe me, I have been scammed by the three largest agencies. One of these, now banned, has been taken over by [spoiler alert] Questel, quite a name in the US.

Thomas T. Frost
 
Dan Lucas
Dan Lucas  Identity Verified
United Kingdom
Local time: 11:23
Member (2014)
Japanese to English
Large can mean many things Jun 11, 2022

Michael Newton wrote:
"Large agencies are less likely to scam you". Believe me, I have been scammed by the three largest agencies.

I don't think size is necessarily a positive attribute from the freelancer's perspective. I imagine that one of the reasons certain agencies have grown very large is that they are good at extracting the maximum possible from their freelancers. Do the pips enjoy being squeezed until they squeak?

When one of the top three global agencies made an (unsolicited) approach to me, they wouldn't even let me read the terms and conditions they wanted me to agree to if I passed their (unpaid) test. Nor would they discuss rates beforehand.

This was clearly an attempt to get me invested in the signing-up process and then use that as psychological leverage to negotiate me down after I had signed up. Sophisticated? Well, to a limited extent, but not what I want in a business partner. I felt that with a company like that I would need to always be on my guard, and perpetually negotiating. I like to set the parameters of interaction then forget about them.

I also felt that by working with such a company I would be enabling it at the expense of my existing clients, who are a much fairer bunch of people. Given that my capacity is limited and precious, why should I allocate it away from them to a company whose work practices appear dubious?

I declined the offer, obviously.

Regards,
Dan

Thomas T. Frost
Peter Shortall
Christel Zipfel
JaneD
 
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Non-payment of invoice and no reason given.







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