When Is Your Money Not Your Money?

We’ve all been there. You get a job, work for the money and wait to get paid. And wait … and wait … and wait. Even if you have done the sensible thing and got a portion of your money up front, there’s often no guarantee of when the last part will be coming. A couple of recent incidents brought that home to me.

The first one was entirely my fault. Remember when I reviewed GetAFreelancer? I said at the time that the only flaw was the strange extended process for your first withdrawal. What I should also have realised is that my gold membership was set up to automatically renew. So what happened? GAF took my membership renewal and when the time came for the funds to be transferred to Paypal, there wasn’t enough money in the account. So I’ve just had to start the process all over again. Lesson learned.

E-Checks Can Bounce Too

The second incident came when I had to chase a client for payment. This is a client who guarantees to pay within ten days of receiving the work. When I first chased, it had been 40 days or more. I heard nothing for a while, then a few days later I got notification of an e-check for the full amount. I relaxed, prematurely. As I’ve discovered, e-checks can bounce too. And they take a heck of a long time to do it. It took about 10 days for me to get the notification that the client hadn’t had enough funds to cover the e-check. So although I thought I had money, I didn’t — the client still had it and I had diddly.

I fired off an email and the client has just responded with a new payment, and this time it’s not a rubber check. However, he’s still interested in having me write for him. I’m wondering if it’s worth the hassle of having to chase for every payment. It’s not the first time a payment has been late, but it’s the first time a payment has bounced. I’m considering my options. The question is, how many chances do you give before it’s time to fire the client? I’d love to hear your thoughts.