[ajawebdesign]

Hi Guys,

New here, and new to freelancing... and as fate would have it my treasured 5th client has turned out to be a total idiot, so much so that right at the end just as he was about to pay his invoice I cracked and removed his site from the servers and phoned him to tell him in no uncertain terms that he could go f.... we'll i think you get the gist. I became freelance to build great sites, connect with clients, put a loaf of bread on the table and see the Mrs and Baby more.. not be condescended, manipulated and harassed.

Enough of that, the key to my post is after my telling him to keep his money and just f....orget about it, i see now he has got some poor webdes somewhere to build his site and is using the low res proof logo i sent him, and i am furious.

Where do i stand on this? He has given me no money and i have all the emails as proof of our transaction or lack there of.

Whats my next step? and my layperson realistic rights? How much will it cost to stop him using it?

Righto, looking forward to any advice you have,

Luke

This post has been edited by ajawebdesign: 24 October 2011 - 07:24 PM

[roothost]

What your contract say?

[Gaelen]

as far as the law goes here, you own the rights to said logo. I'd assume this was written into your contract as well.

it is your art, i'd send him a nice letter asking him to remove the logo since he has not paid for your work. Be polite and professional.

[Glowbridge]

Strongly worded letter with lots of big legal copyright words and threats in it.

If that doesn't work, name and shame. Generally I don't think it is worth going through courts etc just to stop someone using a logo. Just shout loud enough so no designer ever touches them again. Then shout a bit louder so Google hears you and nobody buys from the asshole and he goes out of business.

[ajawebdesign]

Thanks for comments, i didn't draw up a contract!! he was so nice and it was only supposed to be a 3 page wordpress site and i agreed to do it for a very cheapo rate... i know i know stupid....But i do have all the emails about what he wanted and my ideas so i can prove the artwork is mine.

this guy is my new project and I will go to a solicitor if i have too.

Can i use a regular solicitor like the one doing my conveyancy on the house at the moment? WHat sort of costs will i incur?

Thanks,

Luke

[smoothonline]

Even if you don't like a client you should never tell a client to f** off.

I've had clients swear at me, have bad attitudes and total ungrateful children but being rude to a client even one you are severing a contract with, is unprofessional and bring you to their level.

You can write a letter OR you can go straight to the 'hosts' of this website and say their is a copyright infridgement and ask for it to be taken down until 'said' logo is removed.

If you do not accept a deposit etc why are you sending out unwatermarked artwork?

Because I accept a deposit, I do not water mark my images but send them low resolution like you BUT you haven't had any form of payment and now your pain in the butt client is using your work.

Charlotte

[ajawebdesign]

Charlotte,

You right on all counts, and I know that... but this guy was unbelievable, like a caustic david brent you don't warm to, even though it wasn't my intention it just sort of happened, no excuse I know and that part I regret..

They were lo res images, but they are still using them.

I am aware that my preparation or lack there of, lead me to a nightmare client , but each and every client i have had since going freelance 3 months ago have been a real and genuine pleasure to deal with and i think it lulled me into a false sense of security and i neglected to qualify the client.

I will approach the host ( 1and1 ) after I have send a letter to his address. I will send this registered post, as I am sure that the host will want to see it. And hopefully that will be it.

I really appreciate your help.

Thanks,

Luke

[Sogo7]

Many moons ago I had the priveliege of working for an elderly lady who at 86 years of age was actively still running her family business and doing the accounts herself. Sharp as a tack and probably knew where the bodies were buried as she had her actual bank manager on speed dial and he came out to see her when she called.

Shall always remember her telling me that "There are no friends in business and if somebody shakes your hand count your fingers afterwards"

How to deal with difficult clients and contracts should be made a mandatory part of any Web Design course and for those of us who are self taught it's well worth getting to grips with. It helps to think of the legal side of things such as contracts as the programming language for manipulating clients lol!

[Gibson]

ajawebdesign, on 24 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

this guy was unbelievable, like a caustic david brent you don't warm to

Did he do the dance?

[ajawebdesign]

No! The dance would have swung it for me! Going to email him, my solicitor, his hosting company and his industry governing body saying on the interest of conflict resolution if he want to use the logo he can if he sends my fee to one of three charities I choose and provides proof. Wipe my mouth and move on.

I don't want the money just hate the idea of him benefiting personally.

Your thoughts?

L

[MikeChipshop]

Obviously you know the deposit, contract and watermark were the worst possible things to forget but as they say, you learn from your mistakes and hopefully after this you can move on with more experience as to how the industry works.

As far as a resolution, i think you've pretty much got it in the bag by writing to him, your solicitor, hosting company and trade body BUT send him a writen letter by post confirming what you put in the email. You'd be surprised how easily people can ignore an email but give up when a nicely printed and signed special delivery falls through their door.

[smoothonline]

Yes send it via post recorded delivery.

Personally, I would write to the others after writing to him first to give him time to remove it, informing him of my plans.


I understand what you're saying about him being a nightmare; I posted a story here the other week about a nightmare client. This man I thought was 'nice' turned out to be an abusive, idiot who even posted tweets about me on twitter. What did I do to him? Well I made him a lovely website, took his images for free (dah to me) and did some other additional bits and he basically asked me to change the domain name WHOIS into his e-mail even though I am the person billed. When I refused, his bully boy attitude came out, and he tried in every which way to run my business for me even taking with me another valued customer.

The answer is as posted above, no one is your friend even if they are nice to you.

I certainly learned the hard way.

[CSN-UK]

I thought I might add a different spin on this as I can see the typical DMCA/take down notice has been mentioned a few times already. The DMCA is somewhat of a limited tool in that it only applies to US based hosts/companies and not those of us in the UK for example where you would require a court issued notice for example.

As such it isn't an easy process, although many hosts are sympathetic to some notices such as the DMCA despite it not being legally applicable, the difficulty in such cases is that it is hard to verify ownership of the content, specifically when the hosts client claims they own the content.

Hosts aren't as such setup for such disputes which I must say can arise from such issues (as I have experienced in the past) and in this case it could be difficult unlike others for example where you chose to use Amazon's layout which we could easy identify..

The reason for this is that the logo isn't used elsewhere (prior) and if they where to "produce an invoice" for the logo creation for example it puts the host in a difficult position because as said hosts aren't setup for such disputes and don't have the legal proviso of the courts to make such decisions.

I understand this may not be particularly useful as I certainly understand the annoyance, but it may hopefully set you up for what you might come up against.

[ajawebdesign]

I'm with you on that i rhought he was a good egg and he ended up acting like he was alan sugar and worse the site for this dodgy client was really good if I do say so myself and I even laid out £85 on stock images, so in terms of lessons learnt it a good one.

I shall write the letter to him first. To see how i get on And importantly will qualify and protect myself for the future.

[smoothonline]

If you have a contract you should state stock images will be charged at .... rate.

Then let the client know if you need to purchase them before you do so as you'll end up out of pocket.

End of the day, you're trying to make money.

This is all stuff I learnt the hard way.

The only thing I can state any client who has ripped me off, or gone to someone else has ended up with the worst sites in the world, badly coded, poorly designed, or they have ruined any leg work I did with the SEO.

The lesson is good clients don't mind paying you as they value you're services, these are the only clients we should work with.

[ajawebdesign]

Hi again,

Your right, I have been watching his new site being built online, and it's poor in terms of structure. Although annoyingly its a attempted virtual carbon copy of mine. He is using my strap lines and stock images I chose.

my heart goes out to the web designer who is now working with him.

Again, I have to say I have been blessed with clients who have been a pleasure to work with and i hope to continue.

I would be interested in your opinion in looking for clients through people per hour and freelancer.com etc..

I acknowledge now that doing cheap sites may bring in cheap clients , but mr mortgage soon rears his ugly head.

[smoothonline]

90% of my work is word of mouth so no experience of them

[rallport]

ajawebdesign, on 24 October 2011 - 09:49 PM, said:

I will approach the host ( 1and1 ) after I have send a letter to his address. I will send this registered post, as I am sure that the host will want to see it. And hopefully that will be it.

Ouch. I'd say good luck with that as the said host has some shocking customer support. I've literally just come off a telephone with them and are all annoyed, as it took 15 of a 30 minute telephone confirmation for them to find a domain name they host - I had to confirm and spell out the domain 14 times (yes, I kept count )

[MikeChipshop]

rallport, on 26 October 2011 - 11:22 AM, said:

Ouch. I'd say good luck with that as the said host has some shocking customer support. I've literally just come off a telephone with them and are all annoyed, as it took 15 of a 30 minute telephone confirmation for them to find a domain name they host - I had to confirm and spell out the domain 14 times (yes, I kept count )

Ooo careful, you know what happens when you dare to breathe an opinion on the internet

[rallport]

MikeChipshop, on 26 October 2011 - 11:26 AM, said:

Ooo careful, you know what happens when you dare to breathe an opinion on the internet

lol, I despair

[ajawebdesign]

Thanks for the responses and help.

I'm more philosophical now and can't really be bothered to pursue this cheap little man.

After all it's my fault really for being so naive and trusting to be honest.

[MikeChipshop]

Name and shame so that others don't fall for it.

[ajawebdesign]

Www.food-Britannia.co.uk

[ajawebdesign]

I doubt he has the rights to any of the images he is using. And whom ever is building this new site for him should really pull him up on it.

[Gibson]

It's "Potatoes" not "Potato's" and "hot pots" not "hot pot's".

Christ who did the proof reading on this - is that content he put in himself, or the new developer has put in?

[smoothonline]

Honestly, I don't think we should judge the work or the professionalism of the other developer, for all we know he may have been told by the client he can use the images.

Further more, its not a developers job to spell check copy; unless they are being paid to do so.

I actually think the site looks really good.

Shame client felt they had to 'steal work' but end of day they have got quite a nice site out of it

[Gibson]

smoothonline, on 26 October 2011 - 02:14 PM, said:

Further more, its not a developers job to spell check copy; unless they are being paid to do so.

Ah yes. I wasn't implying it was the dev's job. I was just suprised that no one had spotted that glaring mistake in the title. Should be up to the site owner to either spell check it themselves or pay someone else to do it.

[Gaelen]

ajawebdesign, on 26 October 2011 - 01:50 PM, said:

Thanks for the responses and help.

I'm more philosophical now and can't really be bothered to pursue this cheap little man.

After all it's my fault really for being so naive and trusting to be honest.

if it was me i'd still send him a registered letter reminding him that he did not pay for your work and does not have permission to use your logo. at least then you have something proving that he knows if you ever change your mind.

[brightonmike]

The second he tries to use that logo anywhere else other than his site it's going to look ****e. It's no good for print, no good for graphics, won't scale, won't saturate.

Let him get on with it, it's his business that is going to be damaged as a result of this. More fool them.

Also, lol at the stock images still with the watermarks.

[Gibson]

brightonmike, on 27 October 2011 - 11:14 AM, said:

Let him get on with it, it's his business that is going to be damaged as a result of this. More fool them.

Yeah I agree with this. Let him have his sh1te site and move on.

[oakleaves]

Sogo7, on 24 October 2011 - 11:16 PM, said:

Shall always remember her telling me that "There are no friends in business and if somebody shakes your hand count your fingers afterwards"

She sounds like a shrewd lady, but did she have many friends?

Sogo7, on 24 October 2011 - 11:16 PM, said:

How to deal with difficult clients and contracts should be made a mandatory part of any Web Design course and for those of us who are self taught it's well worth getting to grips with. It helps to think of the legal side of things such as contracts as the programming language for manipulating clients lol!

I'd never looked at it that way before but it's a good point.. I confess I have been lax in the past about contracts and it can definitely bite you on the ass

This post has been edited by oakleaves: 27 October 2011 - 02:55 PM

[MikeChipshop]

Sogo7, on 24 October 2011 - 11:16 PM, said:

How to deal with difficult clients and contracts should be made a mandatory part of any Web Design course and for those of us who are self taught it's well worth getting to grips with. It helps to think of the legal side of things such as contracts as the programming language for manipulating clients lol!

This ^^^
We get asked all the time on here what the best course to take is if someone wants to be a freelance web designer and i ALWAYS say "A business management course". It makes a lot of sense to learn how to run a business, bookkeeping, people skills etc etc as well as the normal coding/designing skills.

[Gibson]

oakleaves, on 27 October 2011 - 02:54 PM, said:

She sounds like a shrewd lady, but did she have many friends?

Or fingers?

[rallport]

ajawebdesign, on 26 October 2011 - 01:59 PM, said:

Www.food-Britannia.co.uk

So, I went to http://www.food-britannia.co.uk/

I viewed the source.

I found the following:

<meta name="Generator" content="Serif WebPlus X5 (13.0.1.020)">

Don't think you have anything to worry about mate. Looks like whoever is doing it has only a passing interest and will no doubt disappear at some point. The homepage title tag made me lol aswell - "Home"

Site is also a mess within the search engines - lot of old URLs that have not been deat with. http://www.google.co...britannia.co.uk

This post has been edited by rallport: 30 October 2011 - 12:39 PM