Tough Blow, Dale.  I ate a $2000 moonlight  job a coupla years ago, and
decided not to sue.  The blighters have the gall to come back around to my
daylight employer looking for work in their "newly formed" company
consisting of all the same guys just a few months later.  Sheesh.

Since then I have demanded retainers, and I have a clause in my contract (I
now HAVE a contract) that says that I am working on time and materials basis
and any change in scope means a change in fees.  Low and behold, nobody has
squawked about it.  I figure this is how my lawyer works, so can I.

I would NOT try to solve this problem via email.  Call them, write letters,
and have a lawyer wirte a letter.  A $100 letter from my lawyer has scared
the pants off several BIG companies that were about to roll over me with
thier corporate steamrollers, after months of no response I got very
apologetic calls from the boss saying we could easily work something out
etc. etc.  Lawyers don't have to sue to get results, and in fact you are
always bettter off if they don't.

--Lawrence






----- Original Message -----
From: "Dale Botkin" <dale@BOTKIN.ORG>
To: <PICLIST@MITVMA.MIT.EDU>
Sent: Sunday, February 03, 2002 11:42 PM
Subject: [PIC]: Contracting job gone wrong


> Well, it finally happened.  What started out as a promising paying
> code-for-hire job went bad, the customer has stopped responding to emails
> and has apparently decided not to pay for the work done as agreed.  Since
> we're several states apart and the amount isn't enough to get lawyers
> involved, I guess he gets away with it for the time being.  I'm really
> disappointed; it's not like my kids are going to go without shoes this
> winter, but there are a few hundred hours of my time I would have spent
> doing other things if I'd known I wasn't going to get paid for them.  I
> even offered to be flexible on the amount if he was in financial straits,
> but there has been no response to my last four or five emails since
> December.

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