Client refusing to pay citing ‘substandard work’ - WWYD?

ARenter

ok thanks, soz I don't use this forum very often so am not aware of the rules here.

Basically what is new is the threat of legal action (against me!) for allegedly losing her a client, after I attempted to enforce the invoice demand discussed in the previous post

lincroft1710

Someone claims I owe them money, but I am not happy with the job they did. They are pressing for payment so I will scare them off by threatening to countersue  

tacpot12

Do you know how the client is, or can you find out? I would try to contact the client to see if they will tell you whether they have left and why. 

As to the law, I doubt that a counter-claim would succeed because your customer had the opportunity to review your work before sharing it with their client. Of course, they could have said to their client "I don't think this is good enough, what do you think?", but if they did this, then they could not have applied any pressure on the client to pay for it if the client rejected it. Only if they passed your work on AND sent a bill AND demanded payment would the client consider withdrawing their business. It seems very unlikely.

Mistral001

I know this might not be of much help, but this situation might be purely payback for you insisting that the client should contact you only by email and nothing to do with the standard of the work.  If you can forgive the lecture, but telling a client directly only to contact you by email, will be seen as a very big snub by many clients. 

There are subtle ways of hinting that you do not want them to phone you as much as they are, such as just listening to them an not responding much when they ring, or getting a staff member to interupt you a few minutes after the time-wasting client rings.  Caller ID could be used to tell another member of staff to answer the phone when the client rings and instruct them to ask who it is and what is the call in connection with etc. In other words let them know that they do not have a direct line to you for you to deal with every minor issue they come across.

If you think that your work was OK, then why give them a reduction in the amount they pay?  Remember clients do speak to each other and giving them a reduction because they complained about the standard of your work could travel as far as prospective clients affecting your reputation and future income.