Hey there, @KumaKick. Sorry to hear that. Sometimes, people can be the worst and those of us that deal with the public on a regular basis experience it too much, I’m afraid. Before I get to your questions, I assume you are aware of the small claims court avenue to try recoup your losses. Hopefully you have a contract, as well as text/email history that you can use to back up your claim. If you do, you have a decent chance of getting something for your efforts, at least. The only thing to keep in mind is that if you are a registered company (LLC, etc), some states require you to have an attorney even for small claims, so there would be that cost to consider. Otherwise, if you are a sole-proprietorship then you can do it yourself. In either case, good luck.
To your questions…..
- Always have a written contract.
- Insist on all communications being by email, and archive those somehow (even if you have to print each one) forever.
- If you do allow text communications, also archive those, somehow.
- If you have to resort to voice communications, when you are done summarize the results in an email and send it to both of you.
- Start requiring a nominal deposit for your services. Something up front, with the balance due on job completion. State in your contract that this is non-refundable. When you have a dispute, at least you have this fact on your side.
None of this is going to guarantee that the client won’t dispute the charge, anyway. But if you have all of this, and especially if the client didn’t dispute the deposit soon after it was charged to their card, you’ll stand a better chance of winning the dispute. But, of course, people are people, and some are pretty good crooks who get away with it for a long time before finally getting caught. In the end, it is a cost of doing business and there is no perfect way to protect yourself.
I wish you well.
Chip A.
Square Expert & Innovator and member of the Square Champions group. (But NOT a Square employee, just a seller like you)
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