Open letter to Mike Tran, dollarmachine.com
 

Mike, since you did not respond to my emails, I think you might've missed them with your spam filter, I'd like to address you with this open letter. This is regarding a payment that is due for almost 3 weeks now for a small project we did in April. Because of the rush delivery I had to put some work aside, 2 people to work on this, and had to make them work overtime. I did not charge you anything extra. And I delivered this project on time. Maybe it would be polite if your representatives told about the "60 days payment" rule to everyone they hire, just so its understood from the beginning, and not after 3 weeks of waiting, and a few unanswered emails. And yes, I tried calling you too. Thank you for your cooperation. I hope this message will get through.

Best regards,
Alyx Mansfield
Sales director
www.cardinalvices.com
www.trashstars.com


Our Story:

On 29th of April, Wednesday evening I am contacted by a representative of dollarmachine.com, a company is needing a few flash banners made urgent. Job needs to be done fast, like in 24 hours. There are 2 flash banners and 1 flash peel ad. Its easily deliverable if you don't have any other work, but since we are design studio we always work on a few things at time. Also there is a time difference, so in order to deliver we must finish everything in 12 hours, that means working overtime.

Jobs like that are a typically subject to extra fees, but in this case I think like most of you would think: "Dollarmachine has been around for ages, they cannot screw people". And I provide them with a regular price. A prepayment? No, they say they cannot do that, because they are so big and shiny, that accounting is done by somebody else, and I figure I'll make an exception. On the other hand a company representative promises to organize payment right after we finish. Sounds acceptable. Next day we deliver everything that was ordered. Company representative is accepting the job, all is fine. Invoice is submitted to accounting. Now the fun part starts.

One and a half week later I check if the payment was made. It was not.

I contact that company representative asking if there was a problem. I am told that invoice was sent to a responsible person and we should wait for a payment. Question is how long. Its not a $25000 project, more like $300. So how long does it take for a company to pay a $300 bill? I tried to contact a guy who is in charge of payments. After 4 emails I received 0 response to my questions.

Now look at todays date. Its almost 3 weeks have passed since the project was delivered. I find out that my invoice is in queue for payment, and we are going to be *probably* paid in 60 days! How long does it take to process one Epassporte payment? Because of practices like this we require a full prepayment for all work under $500 in value. This is why guys, not because we are all so greedy. When we make exceptions - it hurts..

They've been around for a long time, i'm sure you'll be taken care of. (keep in mind though that webmaster access la is on right now until the 19th)

parking spot and bump

I consider it "on time" if it's paid within 1 month. I'm reasonably happy if it's paid within 2 weeks. But in my dreams I'd like it paid upon receiving the product.

In my content business it takes money to make money, so receiving the money quicker means a quicker turn-around for content back to the client in the future. A lot of clients don't seem to fully understand that.

i am waiting more than 3 weeks :)

payments should be paid

indeed :thumbsup

you dont think 60 days is a little long for 300$

gesh if any designers wanna design and deliver the product now and accept payment in 60 days pleaseee icq me :P

Still...the payment is late and no response..

I hardly call that "Taken care of" :(

BTW, it is not considered good practice to post threads like these on a public forum. One email to the client regarding the status on the payment is usually enough. Sending 4 just makes you look bad, and will make them not want to deal with you in the future.

Also, there are a lot of people who will see this who pay within 30 days and will not want to deal with someone who is not accommodating to their process.

Just an FYI.

Waiting for the..

"I had drinks with ________ at _______ convention, so they are stand up guys and everything will be fine"

agreed:thumbsup

Its a little different for design business. Here we normally have prepayments, especially for small projects, and specifically for rush jobs. I can understand the fact that big companies go through a lot of accounting before payments are sent, but it doesn't take 60 days to pay a bill. 1-2 weeks at most. I won't say for everyone, but I don't suppose there are many designers willing to work overtime without a double charge for a promise to be paid in 60 days.

pay the man/woman

Just saw this now. I will speak with Mike directly tomorrow and hopefully have this sorted out. I have no knowledge of this deal personally but I will do my best to fix it. My ICQ is below and I will be in touch tomorrow when I get in the office.

i concur

Was it worth it for you to bring it up on GFY?

Honest question here...

Freaking out over $300 might have just cost you more work from them in the future. :2 cents:

The issue is resolved, so yes, it was worth it.

Same here. ICQ in sig.

But they'll never work with you again. So was it worth it?

that's a good deeds...

You don't know that for a fact.

:) :)


I love it.

My exact thoughts :upsidedow

I was thinking the same thing

And not just them, but also other people.

In the future, I would suggest not taking on projects that put you out financially so you don't run into "dire" issues like this again.

shady is as shady does. glad you got your money. and don't regret a thing, other than not getting paid a deposit up front.

For the record he did a great job for us. I would have preferred had he messaged/emailed me (as I was the one who referred him to our marketing person a couple weeks back) before posting here but what can you do. The work was good and he was paid. There was a miscommunication of the timing of the payments and it is all resolved now. Thanks for all of the kind words from everyone.

I'm astounded at the replies of a lot of people here...

This guy/girl went out of their way, to put off other clients work, and have his/her employees work over time, to meet the rush deadline that DollarMachine wanted, and they decide "Well, we need the stuff NOW!, but we're gonna pay you in 60 days".. Uh... fuck that... I would bitch too...

You can't seriously expect to have a company rush because you weren't timely enough to give the company enough time to do it normally, NOT TO MENTION, because of your rep in the industry, they don't do extra fees, like they normally would... you got special treatment, and then expect them to say ok when you spit in their faces and make them wait an ungodly 60 days for a measly $300 payment, especially when most companies normally go out of their way to pay whales insane amounts WEEKLY due to the volume of sales sent, yet can't pay a designer in a timely fashion?

Whether they want to do business with them again or not, I would have cut off any business dealings with any company owned by them ever again after that...

And personally, if someone decided to not do business with me because of this thread, I would just chalk it up to being more people who expect their shit done in less then 24 hours but feel it's appropriate to take 60 days to pay me... I wouldn't want their business anyway.

My :2 cents:

But if they don't pay then why give a shit about working for them again?

Don't want to blow your chance to work for free again? :1orglaugh

I think the misunderstanding came from the timeline of payment. He was always going to be paid. I am not sure what the 60 wait was about because we normally do not use a 60 day wait time for design. We hire many many designers and if there is ONE who has unresolved issues please email me directly.

Pure speculation, plus do you really think he's gonna wanna do rush jobs for a client that pays min 60 days out? I love those that whine when a complaint is made public on gfy. He could get no email or phone response from the client, was he just supposed to sit and hope he got paid one day? GFY, if used professionally, can be a great tool in getting people to act when they otherwise wouldn't.