PaulRyan Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 I contacted a potential client, from a post in the PHP Freelancing section of this site (I won't give any names, it'll be obvious in a sec) I had a little talk with him about what he wanted, he sent me a file which was vague and ill explained. Here's the final part of the conversation: Some people... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 (potential) Clients can be assholes. I once had a client chew me out after I presented a layout that she agreed to the day before. We had spent hours going over the structure, color palette, overall 'look', etc., and the next day, when I showed her the layout in full, she explicitly claimed that I betrayed her. Fun times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Philip Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Just be glad this happened before you signed any paperwork. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 After his message at 5:07, I'd have stopped replying and moved on. The poor grammar and way they speak to potential partners makes it clear they are not professional. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
premiso Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Better to name the names so he comes up in searches... SilverBuyer silver buyer buyer of silver the silver in the buyer buy some silver of the buyer and the silver. That should be enough keywords. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scootstah Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Better to name the names so he comes up in searches... SilverBuyer silver buyer buyer of silver the silver in the buyer buy some silver of the buyer and the silver. That should be enough keywords. rofl I like your style. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xyph Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 He was offering $100 to do it... and the scope of work with testing was probably 10-15 hours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulRyan Posted July 11, 2012 Author Share Posted July 11, 2012 I really don't know what goes through some peoples minds to be honest. Would be a different story if I had acted that way to them, people need to show a little courtesy and politeness. Anyhow, Philip hit the nail on the head Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xyph Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 I had a lengthy conversation with him. He was much more polite to me, but I voice-chatted with him and asked pretty specific questions. Regardless, he had a large scope of work and a very small budget. It kind of worried me, and I totally backed off once I learned he eventually wanted to handle credit card storage. Cheaping out on development costs while dealing with ultra-sensitive information? I don't want my name on this. For the $100, he wanted a custom registration/profile system with administration abilities, and it seemed implied that design/layout was part of that as well. I could easily spend a couple hours on that alone. His mind was slightly blown when I said any professional developer worth hiring would charge minimum $250 for what he wanted... heck I've charged $100 for Joomla install-customizations (pre-made templates, pre-made plugins). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PaulRyan Posted July 11, 2012 Author Share Posted July 11, 2012 Well I'm glad he isn't a complete pr*ck. Also I'm kind of glad that I didn't get that far with him about the work, I got another e-mail shortly after the incident for some follow up work I did a while ago. I could have spent hours talking and then realise what he told you, $100 would never have covered it. Non-developers don't seem to realise the effort involved in this line of work, I had one client complain that I took so long with a project I did for him, until I told him about the cross-browser checking of the layout and effects he wanted, as well as the testing of everything to make sure it was secure as I could make it. I never once heard a complaint from him for the rest of the time we worked together. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xyph Posted July 11, 2012 Share Posted July 11, 2012 Haha, I take that back. After replying and telling him I can't do it, he went all insulting on me. I DON'T NEED YOUR ADVICE BRO. I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT BANKING. I WANT TO DO THIS PROJECT ONE STEP AT A TIME! Yeah, testing, especially when client-side coding is involved, can be a total time-sink. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Little Guy Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I had a lengthy conversation with him. He was much more polite to me, but I voice-chatted with him and asked pretty specific questions. Regardless, he had a large scope of work and a very small budget. It kind of worried me, and I totally backed off once I learned he eventually wanted to handle credit card storage. Cheaping out on development costs while dealing with ultra-sensitive information? I don't want my name on this. For the $100, he wanted a custom registration/profile system with administration abilities, and it seemed implied that design/layout was part of that as well. I could easily spend a couple hours on that alone. His mind was slightly blown when I said any professional developer worth hiring would charge minimum $250 for what he wanted... heck I've charged $100 for Joomla install-customizations (pre-made templates, pre-made plugins). I have charged $100 for a form much like the one on this page: http://www.montway.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ignace Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 I KNOW EVERYTHING ABOUT BANKING. Pretty much like everyone seems to know everything about the law. Until they are in a courtroom... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xyph Posted July 12, 2012 Share Posted July 12, 2012 Oh, and to add to this, his name is Joseph Goldberg out of Montreal, Canada... just in case anyone else happens to run into him. Worst part about it... I was trying to give him development/management/scope advice which had nothing to do with banking (beyond the fact that he is eventually wanting to store CC information). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 $100? pfft...that would barely cost even just preliminary scoping out the project w/ me....on that note...you guys aren't charging for that? Why would you waste hours of your time scoping out a project w/out charging for that time? You said it yourself, you just wasted your time in the end. There's a reason why most professional services charge even to take a look at shit and tell you what's wrong or what needs to happen, etc... kinda like the $50 i paid the air conditioner guy just to come out here and tell me what was wrong w/ my air conditioner...not even to actually fix it, etc.. you guys should be charging for that sort of thing. That was free work you just did. I see clients pulling that shit all the time to freelancers; suckering them into free project scoping so that they can get a better idea of what needs to happen, so that they can minimize the $$ they have to spend on the higher end clients. Seen that shit all too often. And I know a lot of clients aren't necessarily deliberately doing that...esp the "one-man-show" clients...they just don't think about that sort of thing. But you're still getting screwed out of your time. It takes time, knowledge, experience, etc.. to work out what needs to be done, negotiate prices, etc.. If you work that into the quote by padding hours a bit then that's cool, but it's a chance you take when you end up not landing the job. I dunno though.. maybe it's been too long since I've done freelance, maybe times are tougher than they used to be. Maybe it's a necessary evil these days to take that gamble. Yet another reason why I'm glad I'm out of the trenches of freelancing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevinM1 Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 On that note, every freelancer should watch: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Not a freelancer anymore, but watching it, and WAYYYY too much intro. Geez. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scootstah Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 On that note, every freelancer should watch: Thanks for that. The fact that a lawyer was also speaking made it that much better, in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 Not a freelancer anymore, but watching it, and WAYYYY too much intro. Geez. Finished it, thought it was good. I've had trouble with both clients and people I've hired. One time I had a potential client who never did sign the contract, but then threatened to sue me. (No, I never did any work, you didn't sign the contract). My lawyer ended that one quickly. The other funny time was someone who I hired to design a site. They did sign a contract. They did a few drafts, and I decided they were not up to the task after all. Now, during this time they had sent me about 4-5 drafts, and in the emails these drafts were in, said things like "I spent 15 minutes on this, while I was feeding the baby, so if it's not good that's why". I let them know I was going to hire someone else, and would be sending them the termination fee we had agreed upon. They said not to send anything, I sent back another request for where to send the payment, and they never responded. I set aside the money and moved on. A few months later, I get a lawyer calling me saying I'm using someone else's work. She hired a lawyer and said I was using her design for the site. (They were nothing alike). My lawyer sent her a fuck off letter, with copies of her emails that showed how her work was nothing like the design I used, her admission that she did not spend the time on the design she had committed to, and my attempts to pay her and her refusal. They never responded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scootstah Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 One time I had a potential client who never did sign the contract, but then threatened to sue me. (No, I never did any work, you didn't sign the contract). My lawyer ended that one quickly. Ha. I'm curious. On what grounds were they trying to sue you? Was it an NDA issue? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jessica Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 They threatened to sue me for not doing the work. That's why it lasted all of 2 minutes. I also had a time where I contracted with a design firm. They had a client who sent me emails for years after the design company went under, expecting me to support the site for free. Sorry buddy, my contract was with another entity, and they don't exist any more. I tried to be nice and help them a little, and surprise surprise, NEVER GOT PAID. It wasn't worth it to go after them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tarential Posted July 13, 2012 Share Posted July 13, 2012 I used to write tech articles freelance during university and had a company send me a copy of their product for review. As it happens, the same company also ran a website which published tech articles and they hired me at the same time to write for them. Well, their software was basically a combination of various open source projects with their own logo branded overtop and no credit given to the underlying projects. In addition, when I submitted my article to them in open document format they requested that I re-submit in Microsoft Word format. They paid me for the first article right away, but during the time my review of their software sat in the queue for a different site I wrote another article for them. Before they paid me for the second article my review of their software was published and they instead threatened to sue. Not having a lawyer myself, I simply explained that writing reviews was part of my current profession and that I had been completely honest during the review. That didn't work. Their next e-mail was even more angry. So, I chose another method. I replied that if they so much as e-mailed me one more time I would contact every open source news site I'd ever heard of and offer them even more details about both the software and their use of MS Word. They paid me for my article and I never heard from them again. I checked back about six months later and their site was offline. I'd like to think my review had something to do with it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xyph Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 $100? pfft...that would barely cost even just preliminary scoping out the project w/ me....on that note...you guys aren't charging for that? Why would you waste hours of your time scoping out a project w/out charging for that time? You said it yourself, you just wasted your time in the end. There's a reason why most professional services charge even to take a look at shit and tell you what's wrong or what needs to happen, etc... kinda like the $50 i paid the air conditioner guy just to come out here and tell me what was wrong w/ my air conditioner...not even to actually fix it, etc.. you guys should be charging for that sort of thing. That was free work you just did. I see clients pulling that shit all the time to freelancers; suckering them into free project scoping so that they can get a better idea of what needs to happen, so that they can minimize the $$ they have to spend on the higher end clients. Seen that shit all too often. And I know a lot of clients aren't necessarily deliberately doing that...esp the "one-man-show" clients...they just don't think about that sort of thing. But you're still getting screwed out of your time. It takes time, knowledge, experience, etc.. to work out what needs to be done, negotiate prices, etc.. If you work that into the quote by padding hours a bit then that's cool, but it's a chance you take when you end up not landing the job. I dunno though.. maybe it's been too long since I've done freelance, maybe times are tougher than they used to be. Maybe it's a necessary evil these days to take that gamble. Yet another reason why I'm glad I'm out of the trenches of freelancing. If it takes me less than 15 minutes, I usually don't bother. I generally don't bother with large freelance projects, where determining scope can be a timely endeavour. I just don't have the time, and the majority of the clients don't realize how costly custom software can be. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.josh Posted July 14, 2012 Share Posted July 14, 2012 $100? pfft...that would barely cost even just preliminary scoping out the project w/ me....on that note...you guys aren't charging for that? Why would you waste hours of your time scoping out a project w/out charging for that time? You said it yourself, you just wasted your time in the end. There's a reason why most professional services charge even to take a look at shit and tell you what's wrong or what needs to happen, etc... kinda like the $50 i paid the air conditioner guy just to come out here and tell me what was wrong w/ my air conditioner...not even to actually fix it, etc.. you guys should be charging for that sort of thing. That was free work you just did. I see clients pulling that shit all the time to freelancers; suckering them into free project scoping so that they can get a better idea of what needs to happen, so that they can minimize the $$ they have to spend on the higher end clients. Seen that shit all too often. And I know a lot of clients aren't necessarily deliberately doing that...esp the "one-man-show" clients...they just don't think about that sort of thing. But you're still getting screwed out of your time. It takes time, knowledge, experience, etc.. to work out what needs to be done, negotiate prices, etc.. If you work that into the quote by padding hours a bit then that's cool, but it's a chance you take when you end up not landing the job. I dunno though.. maybe it's been too long since I've done freelance, maybe times are tougher than they used to be. Maybe it's a necessary evil these days to take that gamble. Yet another reason why I'm glad I'm out of the trenches of freelancing. If it takes me less than 15 minutes, I usually don't bother. I generally don't bother with large freelance projects, where determining scope can be a timely endeavour. I just don't have the time, and the majority of the clients don't realize how costly custom software can be. The only "free" time I hand out is the time it takes to explain my pricing, philosophies and practices. I'll give the general statements and I'll answer any questions related to that. But once it becomes project-specific in any way, they have to start paying. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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