HOMEPODCAST
SUBMIT STORY

Client: I want you to get increase our customer base and get our existing customer to register for charity competitions.

Me: We can construct a content marketing plan to build authority and engage the audience, driving them to your website. We can try marketing to your existing audience to encourage sign-ups for your charity competitions and use the Charity fundraiser story to tell the story of the brand.

Client: Sounds great.

Me: Oh, I'll need access to your website to redesign it so that there are clear calls to action, sign up forms with eCommerce and design landing pages for various campaigns.

Client: You can't have access to the site until the developer has finished with it, at the end of the month.

Me: OK, why not direct them to add these changes while they are still under contract to complete the site.

Client: Will do.

Two months later:

Me: I haven't seen any updates on your site. Can I at least have access to your client database so we know who we're marketing the charity competition towards? 

Client: You will at the end of this month.

Me: Fine, but your first charity competition is now only several weeks away. We don't have much time to generate registrations AND the site still has no call to action or e-commerce registration forms so we can't grow the database.

Client: The web company owns the website. We will never have access and we can't afford to ask them for updates. There is no client database. We need charity registrations now or the company won't survive!

Me: What? why are you only telling me this now? No database? What have you been doing for the past year? Oh, and your third invoice payment is late again, will you be paying this now?

At this point, the client "lost my number" and stopped responding. Eventually:

Client: We don't want to work with you anymore and won't be paying you. We expect results immediately.

Me: But you signed a contract stating you understood content marketing results would be at least six months. If you are canceling fine, but there is a 30-day notice period. I need this in writing.

However, I'd noticed something else weird about his business at this point: he'd run his first charity event, and was funneling the charity money back into his business. I decided to bring this up: 

Me: I don't understand why you needed the charity event grossing 5,000 to keep the company afloat, are you not giving the money to the charity?

Client: We want to sue you for loss of earnings as the charity cost 10,000 to run and your content marketing isn't working fast enough.

Me: So you spent 10,000 with target earnings of 5,000 for yourself and passing it off as a charity event? You think something that will take six months to work should happen immediately and I'm to blame?

Client: Yes.

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I worked at a hospital but did tech support on the side for many of the people that I worked with. One of these clients was a doctor that would still randomly bring up his high school football days in the most annoying braggadocious ways. As unpleasant as he was, he paid well, so I helped him numerous times.

One night I get a frantic text from him saying he needs immediate tech support:

Client: Can you fix a piece of paper if I give you a copy?

Me: Yeah, I can scan it in and photoshop it.  Is this for work?

Client: Not exactly.  Can you add text in?

Me: It depends...

Client: My wife asked me for a copy of the phone bill and I need a couple of numbers removed. *sends file*

It turns out that he had been having an affair and had been calling her on his cell phone a dozen or so times a day.  His phone bill was three pages long of small text and over half of it was phone calls to her. 

I was tempted to alter the file, charge him a hefty fee, and put in some watermarks stating this was an altered bill.  Instead, I took the high ground and ghosted him.

I ran into him recently and you'll be happy to know that his kid (from his ex) is "GREAT AT FOOTBALL."

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I was helping an elderly business owner with marketing.

He seemed nice at first.

Client: I hear so many complaints from customers, I am immune to it by now. I feel like a surgeon, and after a while, it just feels like business as usual.

Me: I’m sorry to hear that. It’s important to get their complaints resolved as soon as possible these days, as customers provide feedback online.

Client: I don’t have time to figure out their concerns. I am providing useful products and services. This is how I run my business.

Soon after, I walked away after seeing countless complaints come in daily that weren’t even close to resolved.

A year later, I read in the newspaper that shortly after I left, there was a class action lawsuit against him for failing to provide basic levels of safety in his products and services. I am glad I was not involved.

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I'm a designer for a large company. One day, a freelancer we often worked with sent me a heads up that they had found a suspicious project brief on one of those "design contest" websites (red flag #1).

I went to the contest website, and saw that this client wanted a label designed for a product that was similar to my company's Product A (red flag #2). No big deal, though. We have plenty of competitors in that space.

I looked at the assets the client had provided, and discovered that their logo looked very "inspired by" my company's logo (red flag #3). Same colors and lockup.

Then, I opened the client's creative brief, and beheld a word document with just two photos:

  1. My company's Product A, with arrows directing designers to text they should replace with the client's company info.
  2. My company's Product B, with a "change color scheme to this label" next to it.

Shaking my head at the cluelessness of some people, I couldn't help but peek at the designs that had already been submitted. There were eleven, and every single one of them looked like a bootleg version of Product A. I had a good laugh and then called the legal team.

I can't help but feel bad for the designers who took the time to work on this, since none of them are going to be paid. Last I checked, the contest page was blank except for "This contest is locked because [client] has asked for a refund."

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I was designing a local newspaper advertisement for a restaurant. The client wanted a large photo of their restaurant so it would be easier to find.

Client: On the window it shows our Food Hygiene Rating of 2 stars. That doesn't look good for the advert so can you Photoshop 5 stars instead?

Me: That's not only dishonest, but illegal.

Client: So what? We deserve 5 stars.

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I work as an in-house designer for a finance firm, which, of course, involves a lot of PowerPoint presentations. One of my bosses thought I’d be interested to see a competitor’s latest presentation he’d gotten hold of, mostly to let me know the work I was doing was much better, bless him.

The presentation wasn’t anything special and didn’t really contain anything terribly cringe-worthy, except for the images (and there were at least two on every slide, in a 26 slide deck).

There was the usual selection of low-resolution ‘stretched-to-fit’ clipart, but the author had also pasted in cartoons, including one of Snoopy, complete with the CartoonStock watermark. But they’d made sure to attribute the cartoons so they couldn’t be accused of copyright infringement - in the footer of every slide, they’d dutifully typed “Source: Google Images.”

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A client asked me to replicate one of their competitor’s logos with “just a few tweaks” for “copyright’s sake.”

Me: I can look into designing something along those lines, but I can not make it identical to that existing logo for the other company.

Client: No, no, no… I want to it look the same, just in different colors.

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I run an embroidery business and my first really REALLY big order came in a few weeks ago. It’s still not done. Why? Well…

Client constantly changed their mind about what color they wanted, kept adding images and text to the hats, and argued with me for a full day about copyright laws. This whole deal took two weeks, and now he wants them by Friday because suddenly he doesn’t need them for work, he needs them for his nephew’s boxing club.

Some snippets from our texts:

Client: My nephew really like the gloves image that I send you because it is the classic olld [sic] school shape of old-school gloves.

Me: If you would like, you can purchase the image and then email it to me. To not purchase it before using it is theft.

Client: If you copy an image from Google is theft?

Me: Yes. It is stock imagery that is to be paid for. To use an image without permission with the intent to profit from it is theft.

Client: I understand but it is not for any kind of business. It’s for kids. No profit.

Me: I am the one making a profit, and would be the one in legal trouble.

Client: Wow!! Pretty passionate! You know a lot about this stuff. I am not a thief either, and I don’t like things for free either. I will purchase the image when I get home and send to you.

After this day-long conversation, he must have been searching around on the site because he sent me five or six images that were all significantly more expensive and would not have made for good embroidery. I will be taking note of this whole thing and adding things to my order forms to ensure that this kind of runaround doesn’t happen again.

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I’m a freelance event photographer, and a potential client contacted me through a freelancing website with a request to photograph a “surprise family reunion” for him. I quoted him a price, then he asked for my email and phone number (which I’d already given him) to talk further, so I sent it along. He texted me.

Client: What is your best quote?

Me: My best quote for 8 hours is $$$ (the same number I’d already given him)

Client: I am willing to offer you 100 less than that.

Me: The price I gave you was already heavily discounted, but, sure, I can do that price for 6 hours instead of 8.

Client: Ok! We are good to go. I hope you won’t disappoint me.

Me: …

Me: Please email me more information about the event and I’ll send you a contract.

He sent me the event information, everything except the address, saying he wants family photos, prints, the works. Then he asksed for my “best quote” again. I repeat the number we had just agreed upon. He offers me $50 less than that.

Ok…sure, whatever. I’m just trying to get work right now so I agree.

Then he asked for my address to send me a deposit so he can “lock me in”. I never asked for this, but I gave him my address anyway.

A week later I received a check, in a priority mail envelope, for more than double the amount we agreed upon.

Me: I received your check, but it’s for much more than my fee. Are you pre-paying for prints or something?

Client: Some is for the coverage and $850 is for the DJ and the rest will be for the printing, hope you can help me transfer $850 to the DJ as well.

At this point, things were completely weird – but, while I didn’t know where this client was from, his English was spotty – maybe this was a cultural difference? Whatever, I thought – I’ll do what he asks. ,

Me: Ok, I can bring cash to the event to pay the DJ.

Client: The DJ needs initial deposit before the event.

What.

Me: So you want me to pay the DJ their deposit before the event for you? Well, it’s not very conventional but if you send me the DJ’s information, sure, I’ll send it.

He texted me the DJ’s name and address. I’m in Michigan. The DJ is in Virginia. The check came from California. I google the DJ and find nothing. At this point, I was becoming more and more certain that this DJ and the event don’t actually exist. As well, the client’s communications became even LESS understandable.

Client: When is done, let me know so I will be in touch with him. Thanks.

Me: I need his phone or email so I can talk to him before I send it.

Client: I too be the one to do that ok.

Me: …Why exactly am I sending this DJ a deposit instead of you?

I never get an answer to that question, but I do get an email address for this DJ which I’m 90% sure is fake.

At this point, I looked at the cheque more clearly. It came with very strict instructions that I was to call a certain phone number before cashing it for “SECURITY PURPOSES.”

Nopenopenopenopenopenope.

I destroyed the check, called the police, filed a report, told him to find another event photographer, and blocked his number.

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I’m an editor, working for a publishing company that writes literature for the pharmaceutical industry. We work with doctors, fact-checking every single text we work with. It’s very important because people’s health is involved.

I got an email from the marketing director of a huge multinational company about a paper a doctor submitted. He had some concerns, so we talked it over with him and made a few edits for both grammar and medical content. At a certain point he said we should move forward, saying:

Client:  It does not look coherent but it does not have to be. The important thing is that it is clear.

…I think it might have to be coherent, too.

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