I was once contacted via e-mail to work for a gallery and provide them paintings. I liked the price, but I had never produced work for a gallery before, nor do I paint. I do draw, and after telling him this, they said that was fine, as long as it was drawn on a canvas meant for painting. Weird, right? The store I bought the canvas thought so too.

Now, I knew next week I was going to be busy with commissions but I had nothing but this project in the meantime. I was still waiting for the check in the mail so that I could get paid some up front, but I decided to start work on the illustration anyway. I wasn’t too worried as they needed me to mail a physical canvas back and that could be done after I was paid. Then I got the check.

It was ten times what I quoted. My client informed me that I was to deposit the check and then send him a check back for the difference. There was a reason my client gave for this, but it was ultimately bull crap, like the whole project.

I went to a bank teller and showed them what proved to be a fake check. If I had just deposited it, it would have taken weeks for the bank realize this and deduct my account for the money. By that time, I would have sent my “client” the difference of nine times what I wanted to get on this project. I was lucky that all I lost was the hours spent drawing and the cost of that canvas.

I create custom themes for people on Tumblr for quite a good price. It’s a side-gig for me,  as I have a main freelance website business that brings in a lot of money, so I just do simple themes for nice people for anywhere from $30-$60.

 Recently a very good customer of mine recommended me and got me a lot of traffic. 

One member he sent my way was a woman who wanted a theme for her craft website. She sent me a theme that she liked:

Client: I like the look of this – can you do something like this, but with adjustments?

Me: I can do something similar, sure, but it will have to be my own design to avoid plagiarism.

I begin work and send her some proof of concept shots (bear in mind, the theme she wants and the theme I’m creating have some different elements but the concept of it is still there). 

She tells me that I don’t understand her brief and that it’s not the theme she asked for. 

Client: I want something exactly like the first link I sent you but with the changes I mentioned. 

Me: I’m very sorry then but I don’t think I’ll be able to complete your offer. That’s considered plagiarism. 

I proceed to do some digging while I’m waiting for a response and discover the original theme she wants me to copy - all it took was a look inside of the source code. 

I was going to charge her $30 for the edits. The theme turned out to be Boutique by PixelUnion, a $49 theme.

These are all lines in an email I received from a client::

Client: How about you just put 400 €  in the contract and we can pay you the rest by cash?

We are talking about 3000€ in total.

Client: WHO LIKES TO PAY TAXES ANYWAYS?

Yes, this part was in caps. But of course, why would I pay taxes for a country with free healthcare and for a country which enabled me to have a free education all the way to my master’s degree?

Client: We are highly respected people and would never fraud anyone.

…Except the country you’re depriving of taxes.

Client: All we want to do is a fair business transaction.

I sure hope I will not lose a client because I am actually willing to pay taxes.

Client: So, for my website, I want it to be like this example but with elements of this other site.

Me: Okay, I can see that. I’ll draft something up.

I then made an original site that stylistically matched the example sites while being an original work. 

Client: What are you doing? This is nothing like those sites! I meant like this!

The client then brings up a PowerPoint where he mashed screengrabs of the two sites up against each other.

Client: Just upload that. Also, I have a question. I saved a web form from [example site], and even though I saved it to my computer, it still sends to them. Why is that?

I just found out a client is reselling my designs as their own. At a mark-up. 

I only found out because somebody accused ME of stealing from THEM. 

A lot of people talk about dodging bullets when it doesn’t work out with a bad client. This is the first time I dodged a missile. 

I’m a ghostwriter. A client approached me to write a story he’d envisioned. He had characters, a universe, and a storyline he wanted me to actually write. I did some work for him, but had to drop the client when some familial issues came up. 

Months later, I decided to check up on him and searched for him and his book. I found out that a) he found someone else to ghost write the novel for him and had actually published it and b) he was being sued for copyright infringment. Turns out all his “ideas” were stolen from an existing property that I wasn’t familiar with. Turns out, everything I wrote for him was fanfiction.

And that’s why you do research on your client’s ideas.

Client: we’ve got a problem with your invoice.

Me: Really? It’s £500 + VAT [sales tax in the UK, currently 20%]. We agreed on all that, look, here’s the order…

Client: Yes, we’re fine with the £500. We’d rather not pay the VAT.

Me: But… We have to. You contracted for a service, I provided it, you pay my bill plus the government’s tax, I pay the government that tax that you give to me.

Client: Yes, but we were wondering if you could simply claim it as an expense. We’d save the 20% and you’d save your tax as well. It’s a win for everyone!

Me: Uh, that’s illegal. 

Client: A win for everyone!

I recently started work as a junior designer for a medium sized company that’s been running educational training courses around the country for over 10 years.

They release a quarterly magazine, and I was adding some of the articles to their website. The magazine prints in B+W, so I contacted them to get original images;

Me: Hey, do you have color versions of the images from the last issue? If you let me know what site you got them from and our account details with them I can just re-download them myself.

Client: Oh I don’t have the color versions, i just change them to black and white and save over the file. And I just got them from google images, so i’m not sure about the copyright and stuff, sorry! 

If they’d been stealing the images for years, I wonder why they were always so awful.

A client was upset with the website I created for them. 

Me: I did everything you asked me to, what is the problem?

Client: Our competitor has a slide show of all their products! I want that!

Me: I can put in a slideshow for you, just supply me with the…

Client: No! I want THAT slideshow!

Me: You want me to take the photos off of your competitor’s website and put them on yours?

Client: Yes.

Client: I want this product to have a quality assurance badge.

Me: Do you have approval from a quality control agency?

Client: No. We want you to make a fictional one.

Me: Okay… do you have an idea of what you want it to look like?

They send me their existing website. There is already a made-up “SEAL OF QUALITY” on their products.

Client: Basically I just want you to change the color on what we already have.

Me: Look, I’m not totally sure this is legal.

Client: THIS BADGE IS THE CORNERSTONE OF OUR BUSINESS. IT WILL MAKE EVERYONE ZERO IN ON OUR PRODUCT AND BUY IT.