A long time ago I did some work for a startup in China (I'm in the US). They paid my first invoice, but stalled and promised and didn't pay the second. After 3

A long time ago I did some work for a startup in China (I'm in the US). They paid my first invoice, but stalled and promised and didn't pay the second. After 3 months of listening to their lines ("the check was mailed yesterday", "the check will go out today!", "the person who signs the checks was in an car accident") I saw in the news that they had gotten another round of funding, and who the backers were. So I sent an email to the CEO and said that I'd let their backers know that they weren't paying their bills if they didn't pay today. Guess what? They paid. I guess you could call it a threat of 'focused shaming'. The amount due was a relatively small amount. A collection agency might work better for larger amounts.