I think its blackmail

OK. here is an email from a client this morning and it just shows how dumb some of them think I am.

Craig,

I think we owe you €845 and whenever another supplier has an overdue invoice, he asks, and we pay.

This is not acceptable that our clients cannot see our site if we owe you a bit of money. It is blackmail and i don’t like it!

Of course my immediate reaction was “how bizarre and confusing” and you will understand if you read on.

Well, we sent 5 reminders to this client plus the original request for payment over the period of 21 days requesting payment for the web design work we had done and delivered.

I need to point out that :

• they had signed off on the project agreeing to all the terms.
• on sign off they agreed to pay as soon as the site was live (but we gave them an extra 7 days anyway)
• we put their completed site up in good faith despite not being paid the final amount as agreed in sign off

So 3 days before payment was due, a friendly reminder went out saying the invoice was due in 3 days.

On the day payment was due, an email went out reminding them that the invoice was due and needed to be paid.

7 Days after that we sent another reminder.

No response. No payment. Site is still live on the internet.

After a few more days, a second reminder goes out.

Again. No response. No payment. Site is STILL live on the internet.

On day 21, we send another third reminder.

No response. no payment site is still out there.

So on day 22, I turned the web site off.

Guess what! on day 24, I get an email saying:

For the last couple of days our website is not functioning, Is there any problem ? Could you please sort it out and send me and email when our website is working again ??

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best regards,

Ah, now a little action, some response, you are all alive then. It only took 5 emails and turning your web site off to get a reaction.

I sent the following back to the client.

The web site was automatically deactivated once the invoice was 21 days overdue.

The following invoice needs to be settled before we can reactivate the web site.

[link to invoice was here]

As agreed, once the invoice is paid, we will reactivate the site and make any final changes to the site once you are ready.

We do accept credit cards if you are in a hurry to get the site live again.

I then got back the original email saying we are blacklisting them etc.

I mean, what are people thinking?

If I went to pick up my moped after it was in for a service and tried to collect it without paying, then I would be told to f*ck off I think.