Nomad
24 Jul 2006, 05:57pm
I was contacted on the eighth of June by a client I'd done previous work with to do revisions on a project that had been completed back in April of this year (Over my spring break, which has some relevance). I gave a reasonable timeline for the revisions, I said it would be done in about a week and a half. I ended up finishing quicker than expected on July 14th.
Afterwards I was asked to make more revisions, which were completed and sent back the following day, June 15th. This was actually the fourth set of revisions done to the work, two of them were done when the work was initially completed.
Typically, I do not charge for revisions to work because most of them involve color correction, or things that I have done that the client wants slightly modified (IE, their vision and my computer didn't meet and were a little off). However, on these sets of revisions, the client changed major components of the render multiple times, chairs, wall art, color schemes, cabinetry, etc. While the changes were not extensive enough to warrant recharging the initial price of the renders, they were enought to bill them for revisions. My reasoning is that he was adding and changing things that I did not 'goof' on.
Once completed with the revisions on the 15th of June, I began working on a two-story loft given to me by the same client. Within about a week I had it completed. Since I'm out of school (And work) for the summer, I worked on the project about ten hours a day and finished it on the 23rd of June. On June 27th, after not hearing about any revisions to the project, I sent a bill for the total cost of the two-story loft and the revisions done on the older project.
Despite the fact I had charged this client for revisions in a similar fashion over the last two and a half years, I recieved a phone call in which he essentially said he was not going to pay the revisions. He also said I was producing the images too quickly to warrant the total cost of the projects, however when I produced both projects in question I was on spring break and summer break, allowing me to work whenever I wanted (Upwards of ten hours a day) as opposed to working from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM after school for a month. The projects were not any more than he'd been previously charged, and were markedly less than anyone else who does this kind of work in town if he were to go through a firm for the drawings.
Since he was disatisfied with things, I thought it best to lower the price and cut out the price of revisions instead of losing a pretty regular client. Essentially this was a 25% cut in price, which I was unhappy about but had I not done this I doubt I would have recieved any money. The initial bill for the full price was sent on the 27th of June, the revised bill was sent on July 11th. I did not hear from the client for nearly two full weeks. Last night--July 23rd--a reminder was sent with the bill attached again. This morning I recieved a message in which the client wants me to meet with him July 31st, since he is out of town, to discuss my invoice and changes.
My personal stance is I am unwilling to make changes on a project I have yet to be paid for that will, by the time of the meeting, have been completed nearly a month and a half ago and the revisions more than a month and a half ago. I feel pretty jerked around in terms of pricing, which has stayed regular over the past two years and things have always been completed in a timely manner. I feel as if my client realized that the project he gave me was very similar to a project done previously for another location, and is trying to get out of paying for it.
My question with all this is at this point what should I do? This was my summer job, and I have not been paid for it. I very much need the money for college in about a month and there doesn't seem to be any hope of payment.
Afterwards I was asked to make more revisions, which were completed and sent back the following day, June 15th. This was actually the fourth set of revisions done to the work, two of them were done when the work was initially completed.
Typically, I do not charge for revisions to work because most of them involve color correction, or things that I have done that the client wants slightly modified (IE, their vision and my computer didn't meet and were a little off). However, on these sets of revisions, the client changed major components of the render multiple times, chairs, wall art, color schemes, cabinetry, etc. While the changes were not extensive enough to warrant recharging the initial price of the renders, they were enought to bill them for revisions. My reasoning is that he was adding and changing things that I did not 'goof' on.
Once completed with the revisions on the 15th of June, I began working on a two-story loft given to me by the same client. Within about a week I had it completed. Since I'm out of school (And work) for the summer, I worked on the project about ten hours a day and finished it on the 23rd of June. On June 27th, after not hearing about any revisions to the project, I sent a bill for the total cost of the two-story loft and the revisions done on the older project.
Despite the fact I had charged this client for revisions in a similar fashion over the last two and a half years, I recieved a phone call in which he essentially said he was not going to pay the revisions. He also said I was producing the images too quickly to warrant the total cost of the projects, however when I produced both projects in question I was on spring break and summer break, allowing me to work whenever I wanted (Upwards of ten hours a day) as opposed to working from 3:00 PM to 5:00 PM after school for a month. The projects were not any more than he'd been previously charged, and were markedly less than anyone else who does this kind of work in town if he were to go through a firm for the drawings.
Since he was disatisfied with things, I thought it best to lower the price and cut out the price of revisions instead of losing a pretty regular client. Essentially this was a 25% cut in price, which I was unhappy about but had I not done this I doubt I would have recieved any money. The initial bill for the full price was sent on the 27th of June, the revised bill was sent on July 11th. I did not hear from the client for nearly two full weeks. Last night--July 23rd--a reminder was sent with the bill attached again. This morning I recieved a message in which the client wants me to meet with him July 31st, since he is out of town, to discuss my invoice and changes.
My personal stance is I am unwilling to make changes on a project I have yet to be paid for that will, by the time of the meeting, have been completed nearly a month and a half ago and the revisions more than a month and a half ago. I feel pretty jerked around in terms of pricing, which has stayed regular over the past two years and things have always been completed in a timely manner. I feel as if my client realized that the project he gave me was very similar to a project done previously for another location, and is trying to get out of paying for it.
My question with all this is at this point what should I do? This was my summer job, and I have not been paid for it. I very much need the money for college in about a month and there doesn't seem to be any hope of payment.