Luckily, I had very few clients like that. Most were and are still viable and going on seven years, still working with them happily.

I wonder how "happily" they would be working with you if you admitted to them that you see no ethical problem writing software with logic bombs, malware, and who knows whatever else in order to extort prompt payment from your "customers".

I would not knowingly buy a car with brakes that are intentionally designed to fail if the bank should happen to make a mistake and fail to submit my car payment on time.

I would not knowingly buy a meal with poison in it if I knew that getting the antedote was contingent upon my waiter being happy with the size of the tip.

My bet is you would not like those things either, but the tactics you boast about here don't seem much better.

If someone is late paying you money, there is *always* a remedy: more money. If someone pays late, along with interest and whatever penalties for the lateness, then you have gotten the full benefit of what you bargained for, perhaps even more.

If, however, someone delivers a unique good or service, and intentionally misrepresents a concealed defect for the purpose of 'future leverage', that represents a risk to someone's *business, reputation, and livelihood* with potential damages that can never be restored with mere money.

Sure, perhaps no lives were at stake in your particular scenario, and perhaps they were "deadbeats" ... but it is also possible that your opinion might be wrong, and you could be opening yourself up to all kinds of liability with your 'vigilante' justice, breach of contract, and misrepresentation.

Did you even read the post? Contractually, they had no right to use the software the day I didn't get paid. Their use was contingent on paying me on time. That's the deal, in writing.

So making the software refuse to publish 3 weeks after the payment date is far from malware. It's no different then having a trial evaluation of software expire after the period is up. And yes, they were deadbeats. They were obligated to pay me and they didn't. They didn't answer any communications for weeks. The day they couldn't use it, was the day they paid.

They didn't call and make arrangements. I certainly would have worked with them, but they didn't. But magically they have the money in the mail an hour after we "talked" when they had to.

This isn't something I always did. It's something I did once. I wish I did it to a few more. I ended up losing at least $30K that year to people doing things like that. Even before I knew better, I didn't trust the gimmicky companies who were sprouting up in that time. Didn't see how you could blow through $70,000,000 a year and think you could survive selling t-shirts on commision.

The point about "my other clients" was that he should try and build better relationships so you don't have to deal with crap like this.

When my mother and brother got cancer, basically everyone I worked for (some big companies too), put all their plans on hold for six months while I took care of my family. The VP of one of them came to the funerals. That's the point. You can build good working relationships and ultimately, that's what you should try to be doing. Because unless you have to, dealing with people you're worried about screwing you isn't worth it.

So how would my other clients feel if I told them that story?, they'd laugh about it because they know it's not something I'd do to them.




-Lee
perl digital dash (in progress)