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

[Andrew Latham]

This is interesting reading guys. I am a consultant and find that I
actively check out clients before I will do work for them. This is
becoming an issue. I liked the mention of using the escrow service but
think that it would add problems. I ask for 50% of labor and 100% of
hardware costs and with a few bad jobs think that this is a safe way
of weeding them out.

What other than money can create problems with clients? I fired a
client because they were priating software. They learned quickly and
are getting back on track. What could cause stress to the consulting
relationship?
 

On 5/23/05, Michael Giagnocavo <mgg-digium at atrevido.net> wrote:
> 
> >> 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
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Asterisk-Biz mailing list
> Asterisk-Biz at lists.digium.com
> http://lists.digium.com/mailman/listinfo/asterisk-biz
> 


-- 
<sig>
Andrew Latham - AKA: LATHAMA (lay-th-ham-eh)
WWW: http://lathama.com
Email: lathama at lathama.com - lathama at yahoo.com - lathama at gmail.com
If any of the above are down we have bigger problems than my email!
</sig>