How do you guys make sure you get paid?

[Andre Garzia]

On Feb 18, 2005, at 12:58 PM, Lynch, Jonathan wrote:

> If you create an application for someone, and periodically e-mail an
> updated version of the incomplete app to them, to make sure you are
> creating exactly what they want, then how do you prevent them from just
> keeping the last incomplete version, using that, and not giving final
> payment?
>
> Yes, you could always sue them, but that is such a mess.
>
> Also, how do you ensure that they do not change their mind and decide
> they don't want it at the last minute, after you have put great work
> into it?
>
Jonathan,

I know that in more civilized societies you'd have contracts and a 
legal system that would actually make contracts work but here in Brazil 
is not so simple.
Although we have a legal system and contracts, no one really knows or 
care how the thing works, we know that at some level it does works for 
we're the
only nation ever to impeach an ellected president on the basis that he 
was a moron as well as a thief, but for freelancers working on their 
own, our system
is to slow and to expensive. Also brazilians prefer to work out of 
contracts, contracts here are synnonyms for traps, so people make 
"verbal agreements"
and since every brazilian thinks that he is smarter than the brazilian 
next to him, every now and them, someone break this contract in the 
exact manner
that you said.

Once I was a "partner" (someone that owns a piece of a company, can't 
translate that to english) on a company here, we were 5 partners, and 
11 employees.
We did websites and websites tech for lot's of places here, we won a 
big big big contract to connect all protestant churches of the 
Brazilian bigest protestant church,
called Universal Church of the Kingdom of God, they are so rich that 
they own 3 TV channels nationwide. Well, as tradition goes, we had a 
loose agreement with them.
I said to the rest of the team, never give them anything, wait the 
money, for I never trusted those guys. One of our inocent partners took 
a DVD with all the system to demo
so that they would be hushed to pay us... the rest is our bankrupcy 
history. Lesson learned.

Now what I do is the following, first, all demos expire. Yes, they have 
very limited time windows to work. if someone break a contract, soon 
the software will stop, also, rewinding the computer will not reverse 
the proccess. Second, knowing where your employer lives and carrying a 
big baseball bat works... :-D

Conclusion, make your software expirable, or make it contact mothership 
and request a permission to run (that you can revoke anytime), always 
sign contracts! written in paper in your contry legal speech, record 
everything if you need to sue someone.

Andre



> Or - are these things not really problems because they happen too 
> rarely
> to be a concern?
-- 
Andre Alves Garzia ð 2004
Soap Dog Studios - BRAZIL
http://studio.soapdog.org