I'm with you but I think there are exceptions. To be clear, I don't think its ever okay to publicly shame a non-paying client like in this post but there are so

I'm with you but I think there are exceptions. To be clear, I don't think its ever okay to publicly shame a non-paying client like in this post but there are some things that are okay. A specific example is a situation I'm in right now. Over six months ago I was asked to design and develop a Wordpress site for a slate of candidates running for local office. The guy who came to me for it was someone I had worked for before and had a very good experience with. He was fast, friendly, professional, and asked me to send him an invoice before I even planned to. So when he came to me this time asking me to put together a site that he needed up in less than a week I told him the price and got right to work. We had an agreement in writing only so far as emails went and I even spent my own money to let him use my hosting, get an SSL certificate so he could accept online donations and even gave him a few bucks just to test the donation functionality. He was happy with it and again asked for an invoice before I had one drawn up to send. They lost the election but I still did the work. Fast forward over six months, 5 invoices, and a phone call later and I still haven't seen a single penny. To get his attention I changed the passwords to his other website (the one he actually cares about). That got him calling right away. I didn't let him know I changed the password and let him think it was a technical bug. He pretended not to know why I was never paid and promised to send payment immediately. One month and 3 emails later he promises to send the money "this week" and that he's in a "cah crunch". Will I publicly shame him? No. I plan to ask for payment once more and give him a $250 discount if he uses the online payment form I set up for him. If he doesn't do it within a week I'll let him know he was one more week to pay me in full before I lock him out of his business email and suspend his web hosting both of which I provide. You can always try to make the argument that designers need to be more careful in their dealings but you can't forget that there's always a human element, at least on some level, in all business transactions. Sometimes you trust a guy because you've built a good relationship with him and he fucks you over. I've never been stuffed once in three years though some have tried because I always used solid contracts and other safeguards against being ripped off. But sometimes, just sometimes, someone slips through the cracks and in those cases you have to have some recourse available to you.