How Long to Wait?

[cassandra]

Thanks for letting me know, your email ended up in my spam folder, LOL.

[ebookwriter1]

Originally Posted by rpriest

Yeah, I'm kind of in the same situation as your friend, ebookwriter1. I counted on that money to pay bills and ended up having to eat overdraft fees because the payment didn't come when promised. 4 months ago it wouldn't have been as big of a deal to have to wait--I had a security net in place. But since my husband lost his job, we depend almost entirely on my income to make ends meet. His unemployment may as well be non-existent no more than it is. Then we've had all kinds of health trouble over the past few weeks and have doctor's bills and prescription bills racking up. So this was the worst possible time to have to deal with a non-paying issue.

I sent 2 emails in the last week asking for updates and got no response, so I sent a longer email last night asking for immediate payment within 24 hours. I still haven't heard anything. I really don't like having to get confrontational with people, especially fellow wahm's, and I do try to be understanding and sympathetic to situations that may come up. But promises don't pay bills. As it stands, it looks like I'm going to end up paying almost as much in overdraft fees because of this payment not coming in as I "made" doing the project. I would have been better off to spend that time working on something that I knew without a shadow of a doubt would pay, even if the pay was a few days later. I still would have had a couple of bank fees because of payment timing, but at least I would have had the cash in hand to cover it within a few days. Very frustrating.

My question is, at what point do you come out publicly with a name? The last thing in the world I want to do is ruin someone's name and reputation, but like Cassandra, I took this work because of her reputation on the board and because I'd done a smaller project for her a few weeks ago with no issues. But I know there are several of us who are in the same boat and she's not communicating at all. So how long do we continue to give the benefit of the doubt? I don't want to call anyone out, but if this has become a real issue as it seems, then others need to know to proceed with caution. Conflicted, frustrated, and a bit upset, if I were completely honest. *sigh*

I'd have no hesitation about posting her name here. A delay of a few days might be okay -- sick kids, ER visits, long work days, etc. all happen to the best of us. But I know my friend has been waiting for this payment for about a month, if not more. There's no excuse for that. Also, if it is the same person, then she's telling everyone a different story and the ONLY reason for her to do that would be if she's lying. I am not sure what the work entailed, but if it was subcontracted for her clients, then she probably got paid for it all and left the rest of you hanging.

[rpriest]

I completed the work on Jan 5th and was supposed to get paid on the 11th, so not quite a month but almost. She ignored my 24 hour request, so I have contacted the site owner and informed her that the content is stolen. Really wish it hadn't come down to this but what can you do? I'm going to send you a PM real quick, too.

[amharrell12]

I had a similar experience with a company. I will not name them, but I will say that it was a furniture company and a male that I dealt with. He asked me to do a "test" of 20 product descriptions for him that he promised to pay me for. I submitted the work by the deadline and he took days to get back to me. I sent him a few emails and he told me that I was very talented adn that he liked my work but was busy and would take a few more days to send me all of his feedback. Needless to say, over a week went by and I reminded him that he still needed to pay me and that I needed to know if he was going to hire me because I had other prospects. He basically never told me if he was going ot hire me, but told me that the company was going through major changes and that he was taking so long due to training new people in other departments, etc. Finally, the other day,after over two weeks had gone by I asked him about paying me since he promised to handle it the week before and never did. He then asked me to submit an invoice and tried to credit me with less work than I actually did. I then sent him an invoice for the proper amount of work and proper price, along with the document I submitted to him with the product descriptions to remind him how muh work I did. I am happy to get paid after having to bug this guy over and over. Needless to say ,after this, I have changed my mind about wanting to work for this company. Good luck to you all on getting paid. Be persistant and as annoying as possible

[rpriest]

Persistence definitely pays off! I'm glad you got your situation resolved. As of this moment, I have received 1/3 of what I'm owed. According to the message I received, a family member is managing her accounts due to an illness. Also, I was told that because of the new PayPal account, there were spending limits and I would receive the remainder of the payment once that was resolved. I'll give it a day or two and see what happens. Will post updates when they occur. Don't give up, ladies!