Certain clients believe they can take advantage of hardworking professionals without facing any consequences.
So, what would you do if a client refused to pay after praising your work and then ignored your efforts to collect?
Would you simply learn from the experience and move on?
Or would you hatch a plan to teach him a lesson?
In the following story, an IT professional finds himself in this very situation.
Here’s how it all went down.
A few years after I started my business, I was asked to clean up & optimize a number of PCs in multiple locations, as well as set up some forms & templates for a new client who owned a local restaurant.
The work, all labour apart from a little travel, was performed over the space of a month due to scheduling conflicts and school holidays.
However, on completing the last of it, the client confirmed verbally that he was happy with all I’d done and to go ahead and send an invoice.
I duly emailed an invoice for a sum just in excess of £400.
I waited for payment and never heard anything.
I sent reminder emails, called & left messages, but no response.
He ran into the client at the supermarket, and apparently, he wasn’t happy with the service.
Eventually, a couple of busy months passed, and I met the client by chance in the local supermarket.
On asking why he’d not paid or been in touch, he said that all the PCs were as bad as they had been before I’d started and that he HAD tried to contact me with no success.
As my landline & mobile phone had caller display as well as answering services, & there had been no emails, I knew the latter was untrue.
And as any PC user knows, a system can easily go back to pot if the user’s bad habits don’t change.
So I contacted a local debt collector, gave him the details, printouts of my call logs & post-invoicing emails, & he took them to the restaurateur.
Suing him would not be a good option.
On his return his words were “He’s not disputing the invoice, he’s saying that the work wasn’t done right – so it’s his word against yours.”
I queried if it was worth taking the guy to small claims, to which the debt collector said, “Even if you could prove he confirmed he was satisfied with the work, they might insist you get his computers back to their pre-invoice state again – do you really want to spend more time doing that?”
Of course the answer was no, so I stewed it over in my mind and came up with a plan.
Here’s where he went to work with an elaborate revenge plan.
At this point, it was late November, so I created two throwaway email accounts in female names.
I got in touch with the restaurant to book a large party for Valentine’s night the following February.
I put it down as “…my husband’s surprise 40th birthday party”, confirmed that “…my husband’s sister” (and cc’d her in the message with the other throwaway) couldn’t make the journey north, but would happily pay the £10/head deposit as her share towards the night.
Of course, as time went on, the ideas grew, including arms and legs.
The numbers attending increased until the owner suggested he’d reserve the whole restaurant for the evening, and they’d happily arrange the seating to suit us…
But could I please ensure the deposit was sorted ASAP?
It was tricky, but he kept stringing the guy along.
Of course, I confirmed that the ‘sister’ was a scatterbrain & that I’d ensure the cheque was with him very soon.
He emailed the sister using the cc address & ‘she’ confirmed it had been posted.
To keep him on board, I asked for a proposed menu in advance so that I could send it to all the attendees for pre-ordering.
Naturally, they were delighted to know this, as it makes their lives much easier.
Consequently, the numbers for all 3 courses were emailed in—with a few ‘fussy eater’ variables thrown in for good measure.
Needless to say, by the beginning of February, he was getting quite antsy about there being no sign of the deposit, but I reassured him that the sister’s cheque must have been lost in the post.
She’d send another by Special Delivery if they could ensure someone was there to sign for it.
Unfortunately for the owner, Valentine’s Day was a bust at his restaurant.
I knew the owner lived about 25 miles away, & the restaurant didn’t open ’til 5 pm, so he’d have to come in very early & hang around waiting for it.
It was a week before D-day, and he’d obviously had enough.
He emailed in a spat, saying they’d turned away numerous inquiries, had no deposit, and could no longer hold back on taking other bookings.
This time, I didn’t bother replying—my part was done.
My wife (at the time) and I were booked in at another restaurant close by for our own Valentine’s meal.
After which we took a walk past the restaurateur’s business premises to see just two cars in their parking lot, one of which was his!
The good thing was that lessons were learned.
I’m not sure how much he must have lost out on that night, but knowing his prices, I’d bet it was significantly more than the £400+ I’d invoiced him!
Of course, lessons were learned from me, too – getting written or emailed confirmation of job satisfaction for one, & not letting new clients go unbilled for too long was another!
Naturally, I had no hesitation letting all & sundry know how he’d behaved either, so he was blacklisted or forced to pay up-front for any work by IT & other professionals I knew locally.
Bravo! This guy had it coming!
Let’s see how the readers over at Reddit reacted to this situation.
Here’s a great idea for next time.
Yes, this was excellent revenge.
Doing so would’ve given him away.
Sometimes, going to court costs more than the original invoice.
He had no one to blame but himself.
Let’s hope that next time, he pays invoices when he accepts the service.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.
