Non-paying client - What to do.

I built a bespoke website for a client who has paid me for it in full. I also included Facebook and Twitter accounts and registration with directories for well under a grand.

He then wanted to be on page one of Google, so I set-up an Adwords account which got him 'up there' with the established competition for a few pounds a day. He agreed the spend. His web traffic increased from zero to up to twenty visits a day and it was costing him about 50 pence per click to get people to his site. He only got a handful of leads from the site contact form over six weeks and is now blaming me for this.

He is dragging his heels about compensating me for the money I have already laid out on the Adwords campaign (which I paused ages ago). I doubt I will be paid for the time I spent honing the account and reviewing visitor stats and behaviour.

I still host his website and email accounts and manage his domain (which I bought and registered to him). I took his website down after he kept fobbing me off and he went ballistic, including making threats. I think he thinks I have stolen it. He isn't very IT savvy.

What would you do in this kind of situation? Any insight would be much appreciated.

keep doing exactly that, disable the website, facebook and twitter, its your intellectual property until he pays.

keep doing exactly that, disable the website, facebook and twitter, its your intellectual property until he pays.

The client has paid for the website though, so it's no as easy as that.

keep doing exactly that, disable the website, facebook and twitter, its your intellectual property until he pays.

maybe it is, maybe it isn't

http://www.contractoruk.com/contracts/contractors_questions_does_leaving_me_unpaid_reduce_their_right_ip.html

The client has paid for the website though, so it's no as easy as that.

as the OP is the Hosting company i think he is within his rights to suspend the site after giving plenty of warnings writtten and verbal.

did you confirm the scope of the project in writing ? or did he just have "expectation creep" and you were happy because he was?

If he paid you for the site - knock it offline and send it to him - (source files on a CD) and let him figure it out for himself. He will have no clue about nameservers and all that fiddly stuff so you can relax knowing it is he who has the problems.

Put the rest down to experience - probably just going to cause yourself more aggro in the short term and maybe not recover you money in the long.

Realistically its not hard to host a site one click with godaddy et al. so changing nameservers etc. is a 2 minute job.

Try and make an arrangement with customer to pay at least some of the bill, make sure you've invoiced the correct amount first. Maybe you can negotiate.

If not, put it down to experience and move on. The worst thing you can do is start blocking access, taking sites down in spite, disabling social media etc. it just puts you in a bad light.

Realistically its not hard to host a site one click with godaddy et al. so the nameservers thing is a 2 minute job.

 

It does if you know how to do it...

It's a known fact that godaddy practice "confusion marketing" with upsells and cross sells rather than actually showing you what to do.

Agree 100% with rest of your post.

as the OP is the Hosting company i think he is within his rights to suspend the site after giving plenty of warnings writtten and verbal.

With respect this advice sucks and is a sure-fire way for the OP not to get his money.

---------- Post added 12-12-2014 at 16:01 ----------

It does if you know how to do it...

 

It's a known fact that godaddy practice "confusion marketing" with upsells and cross sells rather than actually showing you what to do.

 

Agree 100% with rest of your post.

Used GD for 100's of sites. It's actually got a lot more streamlined than a few years ago. I know what you're saying about the upsells though.

---------- Post added 12-12-2014 at 16:06 ----------

did you confirm the scope of the project in writing ? or did he just have "expectation creep" and you were happy because he was?

 

If he paid you for the site - knock it offline and send it to him - (source files on a CD) and let him figure it out for himself. He will have no clue about nameservers and all that fiddly stuff so you can relax knowing it is he who has the problems.

 

Put the rest down to experience - probably just going to cause yourself more aggro in the short term and maybe not recover you money in the long.

Good advice about the initial agreement. It's so easy to get carried away with the project without having that watertight arrangement. Intangibles (without any result) like web analytics and reporting get lost in the ether!

---------- Post added 12-12-2014 at 16:12 ----------

I built a bespoke website for a client who has paid me for it in full. I also included Facebook and Twitter accounts and registration with directories for well under a grand.

 

He then wanted to be on page one of Google, so I set-up an Adwords account which got him 'up there' with the established competition for a few pounds a day. He agreed the spend. His web traffic increased from zero to up to twenty visits a day and it was costing him about 50 pence per click to get people to his site. He only got a handful of leads from the site contact form over six weeks and is now blaming me for this.

 

He is dragging his heels about compensating me for the money I have already laid out on the Adwords campaign (which I paused ages ago). I doubt I will be paid for the time I spent honing the account and reviewing visitor stats and behaviour.

 

I still host his website and email accounts and manage his domain (which I bought and registered to him). I took his website down after he kept fobbing me off and he went ballistic, including making threats. I think he thinks I have stolen it. He isn't very IT savvy.

 

What would you do in this kind of situation? Any insight would be much appreciated.

Let us know what happened. It sucks not getting paid for work and it sounds like it wasn't your fault with the results. To be brutally honest it's 99% the clients call why they don't get conversions. Usually because they don't listen and act upon data / advice. 50p is a reasonable cost per click on Adwords.

Thanks for the comments so far. I specified the website detail in a contract but not the Adwords work which 'evolved'. The social media stuff was done as a 'favour' to help with SEO. I have invoiced him and was fobbed-off until I took the site down temporarily. I'm willing to send the client the website (perhaps without all the free pictures I sourced as he didn't want to pay for any) as he has paid for it.

If I take any action it is likely to result in further threats and I would then be tempted to lock him out of his domain.

PM'ed you a link. Maybe that will help.

Thanks for the comments so far. I specified the website detail in a contract but not the Adwords work which 'evolved'. The social media stuff was done as a 'favour' to help with SEO. I have invoiced him and was fobbed-off until I took the site down temporarily. I'm willing to send the client the website (perhaps without all the free pictures I sourced as he didn't want to pay for any) as he has paid for it. .

If the pictures form part of the site, I wouldn't do that. I agree with lots of the above. Give him a back up copy of the site (if this is what he has paid for, same with the domain...get is transferred to him) and put the rest down to experience and move on (BTW, you will not be the first or last to put trust in a client. Remember, in future, to formalise everything and make it clear what the client will and will not get).

As a bit of light relief...