ANOTHER UPDATE - Not getting paid by a reporter -- any suggestions?

[Carleigh Pearce]

6/18/13 Update:

I finally got paid!!! Thanks so much for your help, everyone! Without your encouragement and being on my side I wouldn't have had the courage to keep pursuing her until she paid me.  

I finally threatened to call the attorneys who she had taken the jobs for and ask them about "all the errors."  At first she wrote me back a nasty email saying she would have paid me but now she wasn't going to since I "threatened" her.  Then she capitulated and said fine, she would pay me. She made some excuses about how she didn't "mean" to ignore me and she was so busy and blah blah blah.  I had her pay me through paypal so the check couldn't bounce.

Thanks again, CSRNation community!  I really needed your help and you came through!

Carleigh

_______________________________

I'm a proofer of many years and I've worked with dozens of wonderful reporters.  I've had a great experience with my CSRNation reporters, but now I need to ask for your help.  

One of my reporters isn't paying me and isn't responding to emails.  It's been a couple of months since I've had work from her, and I imagine she isn't sending me any work since she hasn't paid me.  I'm not particularly distressed that she's not sending me work, but I would like to be paid for what I've done.  

Do you have any tips for getting her to pay me? The amount is relatively small, about $100, but I'd still like to be paid!  The biggest bummer is that she found me through CSRNation. :(

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[Carleigh Pearce]

Thanks, Tami! You're the best. :)

[Michele Bennetti]

Carleigh, so sorry you're going through this.  I know how it feels to be in your situation, as I was working with a reporter for 3 years, and we did have a good relationship for a while, until she began to do less and less writing at jobs and more and more instant messaging.  After repeatedly asking her to have someone else handle her roughs (which she had almost every day) because I was getting overwhelmed between doing roughs and then turning the jobs around either daily or expedited, she became what I'll call witchy.  Our relationship went bust, and she owed me over $3000.  Meanwhile, while we worked together my work was always super, great, fantastic, then once I was demanding payment, she tried the same old got complaints line with me and she went as far as saying she was fired from an agency (a simple call from me to the agency found out that was a lie).  Anyway, it took me over a year to be paid.  I am a former reporter turned scopist/proofer for the past 21 years.  I have worked with two agencies steadily, along with a few freelance reporters, and I've never received any complaints.  Keep your head up and believe in your craft.  Don't let anyone who is so shady get you down.  There is always the "what comes around goes around" saying, which I truly believe in. 

Actually, now I am going through a situation where another reporter is pushing back paying me weekly.  The last job I did for her was April 30th... it's now June 14th, but she has now promised that payment will be sent out today.  Hopefully, that will be the end of it.

I wish you luck!

Michele 

[Carleigh Pearce]

Do you think I should contact the attorneys' offices that she took the depositions for and ask if they complained about the transcript and mention that I'm asking because she didn't pay me because of all the complaints she got?  Or should I just let it go and move on...

[Amanda Leigh]

If you still have communication with her, then you could email her asking for her to produce the emails of complaints--surely this was not verbal (at least not all of it)--and to also produce the errata sheets.  If you find there were errors on your part, then negotiate the price.  I WOULD NOT call the law firms--they don't want to hear about it.

[mary nelson]

Why don't you send her an email demanding payment or you will file a claim in small claims court.  When I had my own atty clients years ago I sued a bunch of them and it's an automatic win.  Yes, it's a hassle, but not that much of a hassle, and you will feel good about it afterwards.