[Asterisk-biz] A question about ethics, I suppose

[Michael Giagnocavo]

>> You might be perfectly right in naming him but what if he files a
>> lawsuit over that? You will spend time and money getting the frivilous
>> lawsuit dismissed and even get a judgement against him. If you can't
>> collect for the last invoice, why add to the total uncollectible amount?
>
>The only thing wrong with that is that if he cannot pay his invoices he
>can't 
>pay for a lawsuit. Which he has little chance of winning anyway. Chances
>are 
>rather that he does not want a light shone on this situation.

Well, I have had with clients with lots of money (a Casino, a National
Association, for instance), and I've found that some people would prefer to
steal the source code, lie about things, and yes, file lawsuits, instead of
giving in and paying. Once, I even had one client threaten to sue and demand
money because they didn't understand the difference between changing DNS
servers and a Registrar Transfer.

Bottom line, some people are jerks who will do anything to feel like they've
beaten you or won something, even if it costs them more. I worked with
someone who wanted to file suit for $200, when it was quite clear our costs
would be in the $$$$s. Some people are just trying to keep their job by
appeasing idiot bosses, or perhaps to look good (hey, we saved 40% of our
dev budget by not paying anyone!).

As someone else mentioned, you _can_ consider the money as an investment in
education :\.

That said, so long you have a solid case, you shouldn't worry about posting
things in public. The Asterisk community surely would like to know about
this, as it'll only be a bit of time before someone else gets screwed by
them too.

Have you thought about replying to one of his messages with a simple email
(not a warning), something along the lines of "Hey XXX, I see you're looking
for consultants to do this. I thought we were working together on this? All
you have to do is clear out your pending invoice with me and we can move
forward.". That could be less problematic than "Careful list, this guy's a
scammer!"

-Michael