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Ok, I work in the technology industry, and I was looking to make a little money doing a website for a guy on the side.
A friend of mine had told me that he knew someone (let's call the guy Bob) who wanted a concert-based website done for our area.
So anyway, I meet with Bob to discuss things. He shows me what he wants to start with. Website with a DB backend. No problem. Done those kinds of things before.
Well, he starts hemming and hawing about the money (because he wants to run this as part of an online magazine/business that basically has zero start-up money). This should have been red flag #1. Though, in fairness I never told him up front how much I wanted.
So Bob starts talking about giving me "a percentage" of the money that the website/online magazine makes. He hems and haws again about what "a percentage" actually means.
Then, he tries to tell me right before Thanksgiving that he is going to send me a " basic contract" (which there is no such thing) right after Thanksgiving. Up to that point, I really hadn't done much for him. So I decided to stop work and wait until I actually had said contract in hand.
A week goes by. Two weeks. Three weeks. Still no contract.
So I basically fire off an email to him saying, "I don't work for free", telling him that my time is valuable, and so on. I told him in no uncertain terms that all the work I had done up to that point was my property, and if he wanted the files that I had completed, that I would gladly sell them to him for a price that we would both negotiate. I gave him 30 days for this offer.
He responds to the email, telling me that he didn't understand why I felt the way I did, he just got busy and "forgot" to send it, etc.
So I responded that there must have been some kind of communication disconnect, and told him that it did not make sense to me to work on a project that wouldn't produce immediate income. Especially since I was heading back to school, working a full-time job, and being a husband and father.
That was the last I heard from him.
A friend of mine had told me that he knew someone (let's call the guy Bob) who wanted a concert-based website done for our area.
So anyway, I meet with Bob to discuss things. He shows me what he wants to start with. Website with a DB backend. No problem. Done those kinds of things before.
Well, he starts hemming and hawing about the money (because he wants to run this as part of an online magazine/business that basically has zero start-up money). This should have been red flag #1. Though, in fairness I never told him up front how much I wanted.
So Bob starts talking about giving me "a percentage" of the money that the website/online magazine makes. He hems and haws again about what "a percentage" actually means.
Then, he tries to tell me right before Thanksgiving that he is going to send me a " basic contract" (which there is no such thing) right after Thanksgiving. Up to that point, I really hadn't done much for him. So I decided to stop work and wait until I actually had said contract in hand.
A week goes by. Two weeks. Three weeks. Still no contract.
So I basically fire off an email to him saying, "I don't work for free", telling him that my time is valuable, and so on. I told him in no uncertain terms that all the work I had done up to that point was my property, and if he wanted the files that I had completed, that I would gladly sell them to him for a price that we would both negotiate. I gave him 30 days for this offer.
He responds to the email, telling me that he didn't understand why I felt the way I did, he just got busy and "forgot" to send it, etc.
So I responded that there must have been some kind of communication disconnect, and told him that it did not make sense to me to work on a project that wouldn't produce immediate income. Especially since I was heading back to school, working a full-time job, and being a husband and father.
That was the last I heard from him.
to 
! You're not alone in dealing with "customers" like this. Believe me. 
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