Blackmailed by client

[TypicallyDutch]

Hi All,

I’ve been doing web development and SEO for over five years and have never had any trouble with clients until now.

In December last year, after I sent the development invoice for the website, the client began sending never-ending adjustment requests. Initially, I accommodated some of these requests under “support.” However, I eventually informed them that any new adjustments would be billed at my hourly rate, which they accepted and understood.

Recently, I also started doing SEO for them. I sent an invoice for the additional adjustments and the SEO work. However, they did not meet the payment terms. After 30 days, they informed me that they would not pay for the adjustments and SEO unless I did some additional adjustments for free first. Both the invoice for the adjustments and the SEO would not be paid. They stated that I need to process a bulk of adjustments first and they also refused to pay for the SEO because it has not yet resulted in any sales. I have repeatedly explained to them that they are in a competitive market and that SEO results will not lead to sales within just one month. As a result, I now have two outstanding SEO invoices and a web development adjustment invoice. Additionally, I have paid for licenses in advance for necessary agenda plugins.

I have received advice from multiple people to send a final notice with a strict payment deadline. If this deadline is not met, I’ve been advised to withdraw the licenses I paid for, which would render their website useless. Since I also handle their hosting, another suggestion was to temporarily suspend their entire website, resulting in no web traffic or email access.

Has anyone experienced a similar situation, and what did you do? I am generally a nice person and always seek the best possible outcome, but this approach seems to be at a dead end.

I would love to hear your thoughts before I send the final notice, including the consequences of non-payment.

Thank you.

 

[Dopious]

I have received advice from multiple people to send a final notice with a strict payment deadline. If this deadline is not met, I’ve been advised to withdraw the licenses I paid for, which would render their website useless. Since I also handle their hosting, another suggestion was to temporarily suspend their entire website, resulting in no web traffic or email access.

Tell them this is what you will do if not paid within 7 days. You really don´t wan´t clients like this.

 

[AccKing]

Accept your losses, say this client to go fuck himself and move on

 

[davids355]

Personally in this situation I allow 30 days for payment, I will then send overdue reminder and if it’s still not paid two weeks later, I’ll add a late payment fee to the invoice.

If it’s still not paid after that and I have control of the site/hosting etc then I will simply take the site down and wait for a call.

If it gets to that stage then I would also charge a re-a privation fee on top of the outstanding invoice(s).

You have to have a procedure in place and stick to it, otherwise people will abuse any slack you give them.

If I didn’t have control of the assets in question and/or they still don’t pay at that point then I’ll just write off the outstanding debt and move on; because the most important thing is filtering out clients like this and spending your time and effort on clients who do value your services.

 

[SaraJay]

Don't lose your energies and time with this kind of person

 

[roydan]

https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/b...red-my-oldest-client-for-this-reason.1492843/

I received some really interesting comments on that thread, some might give you an idea or two.

 

[BDZGroup]

Please be kind and share your client so how we know him what he did to you and to avoid it

 

[stranger]

When you don't pay your energy bills you get cut off.

Final demand, and if it's not met turn off the site. Small claims court perhaps? What country are you based in?

 

[BNB]

Since you can cancel them, to say it like that, just do it.

It is obvious that you're not dealing with normal customer.

They want to milk you, or they already gave up the project.

Now you are losing your time and resources dealing with this, thinking, losing energy.


Steps to take:

Disable everything you can, without thinking, right away.

Send an email that explains why everything is down and how it can be settled.

Do not engage in chat mode, 1 single email is everything you need.

 

[TypicallyDutch]

Thank you all for the comments. They have been supportive and helpful in guiding me on how to handle this situation. I'll keep you updated on the progress in the comment section.

Even though I told them I wouldn’t do any more web development work, I continued working on their SEO last month even after the overdue invoices, treating it as a separate service. However, they seem to view it as the same, so I will handle it accordingly.

And indeed, this situation has cost me a lot of energy. For the past month, and it occupies my mind all day, often resulting in sleepless nights.

I'm not going to share the company's name, even though they have treated me poorly. It's not my place to publicly shame them. If they continue this behavior, they will face the consequences eventually.

 

[SilverClouds]

That's first time this happened to you? Literally all my clients are like this, that's why I always take money upfront (even if returning client) and if I need to buy something for the 'job' I buy it with their money/once they pay me first. Better prevent than cure. But yeah, if this shit already happened suspend their hosting, sure.

 

[TypicallyDutch]

That's first time this happened to you? Literally all my clients are like this, that's why I always take money upfront (even if returning client) and if I need to buy something for the 'job' I buy it with their money/once they pay me first. Better prevent than cure. But yeah, if this shit already happened suspend their hosting, sure.

Indeed, this is the first time, and it's definitely a learning experience for the future.

 

[hideath]

if you're working according to signed up contract, you should get a good lawyer and file a lawsuit,
they'll be forced to pay their expenses and you'll be able to get extra for the damage they've done,
don't play nice, they made the mistake not you

 

[SilverClouds]

Indeed, this is the first time, and it's definitely a learning experience for the future.

Hope you get this sorted and stop stressing over it. Money is one (very important) thing, but the stress you get from this is the real damage. Good luck and get some sleep.

 

[Juhku]

You should always include some clause in the work contract that limits revisions.

I personally allow for 3 small revisions in my contracts.


I’d advise you to not spend anymore of your energy into this matter and just sell their debts to a debt collector. At this stage you’d most likely get something around the range of 85% of the original invoice sum.

One of my businesses sell web development work and related jobs, and I always sell my invoices to finance companies/debt collectors the exact moment my clients sign the contract; I get 97.5% of the original invoice.

I would also highly advise you to do the same so you don’t have to deal with this type of energy and time waste in the future.

 

[KalseoAgency]

You should come to adjustment, where you and your client both can be minimum loses, you are working since many time, your client may has trouble recently.

 

[SilverClouds]

You should always include some clause in the work contract that limits revisions.

I personally allow for 3 small revisions in my contracts.


I’d advise you to not spend anymore of your energy into this matter and just sell their debts to a debt collector. At this stage you’d most likely get something around the range of 85% of the original invoice sum.

One of my businesses sell web development work and related jobs, and I always sell my invoices to finance companies/debt collectors the exact moment my clients sign the contract; I get 97.5% of the original invoice.

I would also highly advise you to do the same so you don’t have to deal with this type of energy and time waste in the future.

Ahhh so you take money from clients after, right? That increases the conversion rate, I always loose some potential clients when I tell them to pay upfront. The reason you get money right away is you sell to debt collectors. Thanks for sharing.

I mean it's very clever way to increase the conversion, but now I understand why you're so stressed.

 

[TypicallyDutch]

You should always include some clause in the work contract that limits revisions.

I personally allow for 3 small revisions in my contracts.


I’d advise you to not spend anymore of your energy into this matter and just sell their debts to a debt collector. At this stage you’d most likely get something around the range of 85% of the original invoice sum.

One of my businesses sell web development work and related jobs, and I always sell my invoices to finance companies/debt collectors the exact moment my clients sign the contract; I get 97.5% of the original invoice.

I would also highly advise you to do the same so you don’t have to deal with this type of energy and time waste in the future.

That's interesting; I hadn't considered selling the debt to a collection agency. In the original project agreement, it did state that only three revisions were included.

The issue is that they don't provide a comprehensive list of changes all at once. Instead, they continuously request small changes, even though I've advised them to compile a feedback document with all their requests. It seems they are unwilling to invest the time to do so.

My luck here is, I have a complete paper trail with all the communication and agreements on the extra work + extra costs.

But next time, my contracts will be more strict to avoid such situations.

 

[Juhku]

Ahhh so you take money from clients after, right? That increases the conversion rate, I always loose some potential clients when I tell them to pay upfront. The reason you get money right away is you sell to debt collectors. Thanks for sharing.

I mean it's very clever way to increase the conversion, but now I understand why you're so stressed.

Yep, you got it almost right.

My web dev agency does not take any upfront payments.
After all the work is done, my clients need to pay in 30 days.
If they can’t make the payments in 30 days, they get a late payment fee or are moved to monthly payments over 12 months.

The exact moment my clients sign the work conctract, I sell the debts to Finnish finance/debt collecting companies that I have a partnership with.

I get 97.5% of the original invoice the exact moment my clients have signed the contract, well before any work has even been done.
If any of my clients can’t make the payments in time, it’s not my problem anymore. I don’t have to deal with that shit in any kind of way.

I will happily pay for the 2.5% to not deal with that shit.

 

[justalazyseo]

I think advise you have received is valid. Selling the debt to debt collectors really depends on jurisdiction. They are usually not super tight tho.

Try and offer them an option where they can keep their ego, even if you feel like "showing them" or "putting them down".

For the email itself, it's good to add basic stuff, state that services have been rendered and give them hard deadline for payment. I would not advise demanding them to answer in X hours, because it could be their ego will not allow this and they can't admit their loss to you and will just quietly pay.

Remove any of their accesses to any admin panels etc.

Additionally, it's easy to add gravity to the situation by enumarating each service that will be affected with consequences explicitly stated.
e,g

If the amount due is not received by the deadline, following services will be suspended:
- Web Hosting resulting at your site being offline
- Email Services, resulting at all of your @business.com emails to become inaccessible and non-functional
- Domain name (if you own this) will be posted for sale

If they are on Google Workspace or some other cloud service, I'd recommend locking it down immediately, you can do this from Google Admin. Do not delete anything. But if they use it a lot, they will get a taste how much harder their life is about to get if they are difficult.

"Your Google Workspace access has been suspended, active immediately."

Other than that, there is probably not much that you can do here. Some people will rather die than lose their ego. Learn from this to have more clear contract in regards what is and isn't included in support. Also add fine print clauses that enable you to shut down the services if payment is not received.

If you can't get the money, this is the cost of doing independent freelancer business. Happens in non-SEO jobs, too. Good luck