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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

My business partnered with a client in the same industry to promote our events operating in different territories. The joint branding and asset mock-ups looked amazing, so you can imagine my surprise when the campaign launched and the other business was using the assets we made, but not promoting our event.

Me: Everything’s going well so far - just wondering why you aren’t promoting our event on the assets you’re using?

Client: Oh yeah - well, you should have made us sign a contract saying we would do that. Sorry to be harsh, but you are our competition, you know!

Me: You did sign a contract.

Client: Yeah, but it never said we would promote our events together.

Me: It did. It was the second last section of the contract, detailing our exact activities and how we would promote each other’s events.

Client: Yeah, well you violated the contract, so it is null and void!

Me: How did we violate the contract? Name one thing we didn’t do as promised.

Client: Well, ummmm… ahhh… sh*t. How much is this f**k-up going to cost us?

Moral of the story: Always have a good contract.

During my education, I was put in charge of a group of fellow students in order to produce a website for one of the faculty staff. We’d be graded on this project.

Client: This is the website that I want you to revamp and redesign.

Me: Sure. We’ll send through some mock designs and get your feedback. In the meantime, can you provide us the files for this website?

The client agrees to, and a polite two weeks pass before I start getting anxious. It is week six when I knuckle down and find out what the hold-up is.

Me: We really need access to the back-end of this website. Yes, we can access the website from the URL you gave us, but I assume there is some server or hard drive where these files are?

Client: I’m not sure.

Me: Ok let me rephrase myself, these files must exist somewhere. I need you to tell us where. When was the last time you worked on this website?

Client: …

Then the penny dropped.

Me: … You don’t own this website, do you? Wow, I didn’t think I had to ask that. Thanks, professor, you’ve taught me a valuable lesson.

The project was graded a conceded pass, “for trying”.

Client: I need a logo.

Me: Sure! What are you looking for.

Client: I could have my son do this, but I don’t want to bother him.

Me: That’s… nice. What business do you need the logo for?

Client: A sewing business. I plan on selling fabric, needle and thread, and an embroidery loop. I’m also going to teach a sewing class.

Me: What do you want in a logo and what colors would you want?

Client: Besides the name to be stitch like, I don’t know.

We signed a contract and I put together some proofs.

Me: Okay, here are some really basic designs. Do you see anything you like?

Client: I don’t like the colors.

Me: What colors would you want?

Client: I don’t know.

Me: What colors do you not want besides these?

Client: Well, you can use those, but add other colors. And I don’t want the name to be in color, I want it black, “fat”, and it to “pop.”

Me: Black is a neutral color and a colorful background would stand out more since people are drawn to that. It should be the other way.

Client: I know what i’m talking about because black stands out on white paper.

Me: …I’ll come up with more ideas and go from there.

Client: You can use clipart. I use it all the time for the company I used to work for. Or you could just use Google!

Me: You can’t just Google something and use that as your logo. That’s copyrighted content and you could get sued.  

Client: It’s legal. If it’s on google it’s free.

Me: …

Client: Oh! Here! I found this logo on Google. I’m going to use it.

Me: …Are you going to pay me for the work I’ve already done?

Client: I don’t think so. I only pay for the final product and I don’t see the amount of work you claim you did.

Me: I showed you all of them and I have a document here stating that you would pay.

Client: (No response)