Fired! Client wants ALL project related material

[Ron Lindeboom]

I forgot to mention that were you able to dig into this guy’s past, I would guarantee you that you are not the first person that he has done this to.

Clients work through relationships and you earn your way into their sphere of influence and circle of friends. Grinders always swim alone and if they are such great “producers,” then why on earth was he without a support system and/or network and needed to hire someone he now claims is a total fraud??? I think it goes without saying, as to who is the real fraud.

Ron Lindeboom

[Tony]

The missiles are in the air.

Prepare for war!!! You client has fired the first blow and now you must take defensive action. Pull out all the stops and sue his dumb @@#$$ss.

Forget about hiring a lawyer and go straight to small claims court immediately.

However you need to know some critical information in order to file properly.

1) Full legal name of the defendant (your scumbag client) – I advise naming the individual (full legal name) as well as his company and other parties associated with the deal. Do some research on who are the principals in his company (wife, partner etc) and name them on the lawsuit. Most cities have a division where you can look up who are the principals in a company.

You must name them all individually in order to win a claim against one or all of them.

2) You will need to hire a process server or find a neutral party to deliver “serve” the defendant the court paperwork. You need to be sly about this as you will need to provide the best time and opportunity for the process server to “catch” the client and deliver the paperwork with that great line “You have been served”.

3)Here in California even if the client does not show up for the court hearing and you win by default you still have to wait an additional 30 days before your claim if finalized.

4)Winning the case is half the battle collecting the money is the hard part. Unless you have the defendant’s bank account information ie checking acount number (did you get any credit information on file prior to taking the job?) collecting the money you are owed is going to be an uphill battle.
The only leverage you have at this point in time is the client’s tapes which you should put a lien on.

5) Research the proper paperwork and court procedures to legal file the lien on the tapes so that this does not go against you if he countersues you.

6)If you claim is finalized in your favor immediately file a lien against any and all property the defendant owns. This is your most power “weapon” in this “war”. The defendant may ignore you and not pay you immediately but when they go to sell or refinance their property the lien will show up and they are F@#$%%ed. In most cases they respond immediately to clear up the mess. You will be able to collect interest starting from the award date to the date they pay.

7)The small claims process in not a difficult process but rather a drawn out process that will suck up alot of your time but you must be willing to go the full course.

8) Do not take a company,personal or certified check from this scumbag.
FYI certified check can have stop payment issued after they have been delivered. Cash or the following methods are advised.

A) Go to the bank where the client banks at and receive the cash in person.

B)Demand that the client pays with a bank check along with a letter on bank letterhead signed by the bank manager verifying the funds will be available for withdrawal by you when you present the check. In otherwords the bank is assuming responsibility for the check funds.

If the client will not do the two above items and will only pay with a company,personal or certified check then specify the tapes will only be released upon cashing the checks at their bank.
He can meet you at the bank to receive the tapes after you have received the checks.

Use caution during this meeting and bring along other person with you to 1)guard the tapes while you are in the bank 2)watch your back in the event things get out of control.

You have already lost this scumbag as a client so pull out all the stops to get what is rightfully due to you.

9) Don’t give up easily.

I sincerely wish you the best of luck. Please keep us informed on how the progress goes.

Tony Salgado

PS- If the small claims course of action is too time consuming for you then consider settling the matter but this may involve giving in to the scumbag for a lower amount.

[David Roth weiss]

[tony salgado] “Forget about hiring a lawyer and go straight to small claims court immediately.”

No, don’t go immediately to small claims court. First step is to write a nice demand note to the former client that will put you in the driver’s seat. Be nice, be contrite, give him one week to pay. Show the judge just how reasonable you are, that you are willing to give the client his work product, that your intention is not to hold him up. Let him be the dick. He will hang himself if you let him. Judges love this… Now, as soon as you mail that letter, by registered mail of course, go file in small claims court.

BTW, be certain to bring witnesses to court — even your mother and your best friend will do. And, bring lots of evidence. Receipts, your camera, computer logs — anything you can pile on will show the judge that you are a professional. Judges don’t even look at this stuff, but they do note it, and they always rule in favor of the guy that supports his case with something other than his mouth.

Good luck,
DRW

[Tony]

Yes David is right try to settle before going to court. Offering the client a chance to pay in full is the first step. Verbal request do not carry much weight compared to written demands.

Mail(2) certified letters requesting payment in full along with a deadline for receiving the payment.
After that date instruct the client you will have to seek legal recourse to obtain full payment.

A demand for payment is required and offers the client a chance to settle up and if not then small courts is the next step.

In anycase a paper trial of all emails, demand letters, invoices etc is necessary to prove your case.

Good luck,

Tony Salgado

[Greg Ball]

I think we should all join forces and contribute some money to buy this client and the client I fired below, a nice room to share somewhere away from all video professionals. They can spend the evening laying in bed, telling each other how inadequate each of them is to the othe, and they should have hired a professional.

Greg

[Mark Suszko]

The fact the client is now proposing a “first payment” is a good sign you have him by the short hairs as long as you hold on to the tapes and elements. He’s now trying to gauge just how smart you are. If you take the “first payment” and give him the goods, it is really the “last payment” you will get. Not smart!

Hold out for payment in full, in advance, and you don’t hand over the goods until the check clears. Time is on your side; past a certain point, this guy’s footage will be worthless if he misses his deadlines. You are under no such pressure. Some bank to this day, must be 40 years later, is holding the master reels for Jerry Lewis’s “the Day The Clown Cried” because of non-payment issues and related stuff.

I would file the mechanic’s lein right away, it’s probably cheaper and less hassle to file, and only start organizing for small claims but not dropping any money on filing or the process server yet.

I won a case in small claims once against a guy much like this. I was unemployed at the time, and could afford to make it my career for a couple weeks to pursue this. (You might want to keep working for someone else depending on your financial situation) At some point you have to decide if the diminishing returns are worth the effort on your part, doing it just for spite is not enough, nor is it businesslike.

After we won, we got the sheriff’s office to help us collect by garnishing his bank accounts, but he didn’t have enough in there to cover the full amount the judge awarded. We got about 80 percent of what he owed us and decided the effort of getting the rest was not worth it, though we let him know the next step would be to have the sherriff auction off some of his personal property for the remainder. It’s unchristian, I know, but we did get some pleasure out of monkeywrenching his finances thru the garnishing: after weeks of not talking to us or the court, he called the very night we tapped his accounts to complain he was out of money for food, rent, utilities, gas, etc. and in danger of being thrown in the street. We said he should have taken us up on the offer to pay 10-20 bucks a week, no interest, to cover his debts back when we were playing nice. “Sorry, bud, it’s nothing personal, it’s just business”.

You should thank your weasel for giving you all this business education in one easy, unforgettable lesson! 🙂

[Nick Griffin]

Two things come to mind.

1) You will sleep better and respect yourself if you stand up for what’s right and what’s fair.

2) You can easily prevent the draining away of thousands if not tens of thousands of dollars from you and your business by not spending enormous amounts of time in a negative activity. When you’re doing negative stuff it’s just robbing you of the time you could be spending doing real work.

Pick one, ’cause you can’t have both. Think about this before you launch your missles. If it were me (as I’m sad to report it has been on more than one ocassion in the past) I’d make all the moves that I was going to the edge but be ready to walk away before spending a lot of time researching corporate officers, etc.

THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, as said a few times earlier in this thread by others, write a detailed, factual (and UN-emotional) demand letter outlining everything that has gone down, what your position is and what the contract states. This will not only help you should you have to move forward, it could be invaluable if he sues you. And by the way, if he sues you it probably won’t be in small claims court so best have all your ducks in a row.

Best of luck. My sympathies (and stomach acid) are with you.

[Shvr]

Thanks for all the great advice in this thread. I’m cutting and pasting some of the tips for future reference.

The producer came over and dropped off a money order for the complete invoice amount and I kindly handed over the tapes. I explained how the Premiere project files would be useless unless he had a duplicate file system set up on the next editing computer, but, not surprisingly, he didn’t understand that.

He was not courteous and had to get some final digs in about how “unprofessional” I behaved and so on. I bit my tongue, only saying that I did my job at an agreed at price – and that’s that.

Has he left, he warned me to “report my earnings” because he sure was going to. I said “don’t forget to send me a 1099.” And that was that.

Thanks again everyone for chiming in and lending moral support.

Sean

[Tony]

Looks like you got the last punch in afterall.

It’s great you did were able to resolve this without having to go to small claims court.

That scumbug client realized you were holding all the cards with his tapes.

Thanks for the update.

Tony Salgado

[Mike Harper]

[tony salgado] “That scumbug client realized you were holding all the cards with his tapes”

A moron with no judgement! you have more leverage indeed. Either he
reshoots or pays you! Send him a calculator to do the math.