4 ms·

Is there any type of insurance to hedge against these types of occurrences?

• dspillett 16y ago
  The only really affordable insurance against that, is simply not to pay a significant amount up front. Lawyering up isn't going to help all that much (cross border contract law and other legal matters is at best difficult, and it is very easy for the people involved to just vanish and the new people (if the whole company doesn't vanish) will refuse any responsibility to you), trust simply doesn't cut it (this is business, not a friendship, while trust is worth something you still need to protect your arse from every angle), and you are not going to find any insurance company that will give a good rate against that sort of risk so hedging that was would be impractical. No matter how safe you feel, how much you might think you can trust the other party, and how much legal protection you think you have: be very very very careful about what you hand over up front.
  • mistermann 16y ago
    Good advice. There are companies that will hold money in trust for you until an agreement is reached on completion of work, which is the arrangement I should have been using.
    • dspillett 16y ago
      If you use an escrow service make sure you pick it, not the other side. If you go with a suggestion made by them (or anyone else) do plenty of background research before making any arrangements - there are some bad escrow companies out there and dodgy businesses (and individual scammers) are certainly not above creating a fake but official looking services.
• jayzee 16y ago
  Escrow? Elance does that.