What being ripped off taught me

4/6/2026 at 1:41:19 PM

We’ve also learned this lesson the hard way. These are now the clauses we require in every project we do:

- Payment is due X days after receipt of invoice, or immediately after the consultant has addressed any quality issues, whichever is sooner

- Late payment shall incur interest at 8% above the BoE base rate and a late fee of 100 GBP as per the UK Late Payment Legislation. Partial payments on invoices shall apply to late fees, interest, and then principal, in that order.

- In the event of a late payment the invoice for the next deliverable shall immediately fall due.

- The consultant shall be entitled to shift deadlines on deliverables in the event of a late payment as a result of any work disruption, without incurring any liability.

- Payment shall be made in X currency, or an exchange rate at X date on Oanda.com shall apply.

- The client is responsible for any bank fees incurred by their, or any intermediary bank. In the event of a SWIFT transaction it shall be made with the OUR payment code.

- The jurisdiction in the event of a conflict shall be England and Wales. Neither party shall be bound by arbitration.

- The client and consultant shall both indemnify the other up to the total value of the contract and shall not under any circumstance be liable beyond X GBP.

We also no longer share downloadable links of our deliverables until they are paid up. They get a view/comment only link for reports/data etc.

We’ve found that clients that aren’t willing to accept these terms won’t pay you either way.

We determine the net days on the invoice based on the credit rating of the client. Ironically, the good clients pay within 2-3 days normally, and the difficult ones are very “long tail”. About 1% of contracts tend to fully or partially default on their payments.

We’re in a particularly credit poor industry but our average delay due to late payment is 23 days. Those clients where we stop delivery pay on average 11 days sooner than those contracts where we don’t stop delivery.

This is based on around 2,000 invoices sent over the last 5 years.

by eckesicle

4/6/2026 at 1:45:14 PM

Oh and another lesson! Ensuring that each deliverable invoice is small enough that it falls under the simplified claims procedure (in the UK it’s 10,000 pounds) greatly simplifies collection.

It costs something like 80 quid to file for recovery in court and in our experience invoices are immediately paid up when a “Letter before action” is sent.

You burn the relationship, but arguably you probably don’t want it anyway.

by eckesicle

4/6/2026 at 2:40:25 PM

> simplified claims procedure

I believe this is what we call small claims court in the United States. The threshold varies by state, but it is a very effective way to deal with recalcitrant companies both large and small.

by ilamont

4/6/2026 at 11:39:34 PM

We call it "small claims" in the UK too. In England & Wales it's officially a "court claim". In Scotland I think it's "simple procedure".

https://www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money

by pbhjpbhj

4/6/2026 at 10:59:10 PM

recalcitrant companies with a presence within the court's jurisdiction, which in the OP's case doesn't sound likely.

by zem

4/7/2026 at 10:36:32 AM

Does small claims work for b2b? I thought it was only for people. I've had a small (~£400) business invoice that I've chased a few times and now I'm waiting for the yearly interest to mount up to around the 5 year mark just out of spite

by dwedge

4/7/2026 at 6:22:38 AM

And another lesson: If it looks like a complete catastrofuck the minute you walk in the door, walk straight back out again. Sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

This isn't arbitrary peanut-gallerying, I've walked away from several jobs that weren't anywhere near as bad as the one in TFA because I couldn't see any way forward that wasn't going to end in disaster. One of them at least, I'm fairly certain, would have ended up in criminal prosecution.

by pseudohadamard

4/7/2026 at 7:15:41 AM

What kind of vibes are you picking up on? As a contractor, "project rescue" is a massive opportunity, so a bit of dysfunction is often a good sign.

by normie3000

4/7/2026 at 8:49:20 AM

I'm a consultant rather than a contractor, but the "shitshow" projects are amongst my favourites. They offer the chance to make a clear positive impact, which can be hugely rewarding.

From my pov, green flags for a good "bad" project mostly come from the attitude of leadership - especially if they already recognise there's a problem, and that some form of cultural change may be needed rather than expecting a purely technical solution.

On the other hand, if they seem reluctant to consider root causes, or if there's any sense that they're seeking to cover up problems or shift blame, then those are pretty clear red flags. Quick fixes tend to fall apart, and aren't really satisfying for anyone.

by roryirvine

4/7/2026 at 5:57:05 PM

Hard to put into a list, it was just the equivalent of a code smell. Some random examples:

- Fly out to the initial discussion, talk to their architect, some guy they imported from France in an otherwise entirely non-French company a long way from France (not bashing French folks here but just wondering where they dug this guy up). They've read about scalability and told him to come up with a design for that, which is distributed stateless everything (this was years before microservices and CRUD and whatnot). Except that they don't have the resources to build the stateless distributed everything so they're getting all the downsides of stateless distributed everything without getting the scalability that it's supposed to provide. You know its bad when one of the nontechnical sales guys that you're having a few drinks with after work can give you a breakdown if why it won't work.

- Parachute in for the first date, they've hired a bunch of kids straight out of college who are all hacking away at whatever they've been assigned to. So I'm walking around chatting to all of them, asking what they're doing and how long they think it'll take. Most of the time the answer is "oh, probably about two weeks". At the same time I'm running a mental Gantt chart for all the components and figure out that even if they meet their wildly, ludicrously unrealistic time estimates it's going to take them at least two years to get the product out the door. Some of their two-week timelines I estimate would take an absolute minimum of six months work, but probably a lot longer. Or a few days if they use the existing open-source tool that does the same thing, but they're going to do it better so they don't need to use any existing code.

- Site visit, the office manager screws up the travel arrangements, screws up the accom, the developers clock in at exactly 9am and down tools on the minute at 5pm so it's tumbleweeds in the office at 17:00:01, the mgt. is in a separate set of offices on the other side of the building and don't talk to the devs, over lunch the devs are talking about how much longer they'll stay before they start sending out resumes.

- The possibly-criminal one, I'll use an analogy to avoid identifying the actual job but lets say you've been brought in to develop an automated pen-testing toolkit. Not just a vulnerability scanner but something that then exploits the vulnerability. "You don't think that this could perhaps be misused by the people that commissioned it?". "Oh, we were so enthusiastic about the job that we never even thought about that".

You may have noticed a common theme here, talking to the techies and/or taking them out for lunch/drinks. So if there's one takeaway, it's do that. That's how you'll find out whether it's an organisation you want to get involved with or not.

by pseudohadamard

4/6/2026 at 2:51:54 PM

I think the hidden advantage here isn't even enforcement, it's filtering

by veunes

4/7/2026 at 12:31:08 AM

That's almost always the case. Bad actors go find an easier target.

by shermantanktop

4/6/2026 at 2:33:12 PM

> Ironically, the good clients pay within 2-3 days normally, and the difficult ones are very “long tail”.

Why ironically? Isn't that exactly what you'd expect?

by fmx

4/6/2026 at 4:02:54 PM

The ironic part is that the clients that don't need the looser payment terms (more time to pay the invoice) are the ones that get them

Kind of mirrors "it's expensive to be poor"

by anonymars

4/7/2026 at 12:47:16 AM

This is the sort of economics that small companies face when working with large companies, particularly when physical things/CAPEX are involved. Large companies expect net 30/60 terms to pay you. That's much simpler for their accounting/purchasing department. This bureaucracy occasionally necessitates nudging, especially if the intermediary you're dealing with didn't set up the invoice request on time in whichever SAP/Salesforce/Oracle system they use.

This is usually the same the other way; many vendors will give business clients net 30. That's nice if you're a small company and need to plan ahead. But occasionally, because you're considered small (liability), some vendors will want the money up-front. So unless you're very careful with cashflow, you end up in situations where your main sources of income (big contracts) are coming in after you need to spend money on a widget to fulfill deliverables.

Depending on the situation, the contract can demand the client purchase/ship things and work doesn't start until you have them in hand. This is usually the best route as you now have an out, and it's not an unreasonable request, but it doesn't always pan out that way!

by joshvm

4/6/2026 at 6:26:22 PM

I took "good client" to mean, "is easy to work with/communicates well/knows what they want", not just "pays on time". The inverse being, the ones who don't pay on time were already a pain in the ass to work with.

by moron4hire

4/6/2026 at 1:47:57 PM

It seems like none of these terms would have saved OP though

by yellow_lead

4/6/2026 at 2:25:47 PM

I think OP needed "emergency service is cash up front".

In a different domain, this is the painful lesson of almost anyone who tries to help people in a bind -- you can try to help, but yours is unlikely to be the advice that sets them straight, so you shouldn't get too invested with unproven or, especially, proven unreliable actors.

by QuarterReptile

4/6/2026 at 2:28:07 PM

>> "emergency service is cash up front“

Neatly distilled I believe you are correct

by doctorhandshake

4/7/2026 at 3:13:28 AM

This brilliantly captures what I see from YouTubers who do off-road vehicle recovery. People are super nice until the bill comes, then you learn “only release the vehicle on payment.”

by beede

4/6/2026 at 5:08:26 PM

It's worth keeping in mind that the only practical "saving" for the OP will result in not doing the job at all, since this client most likely doesn't actually have the money and never will.

It should be, oh, short-term rush job in a foreign country for a sketchy client? That is most definitely cash up front time. Oh, you can't afford that? Sucks to be you, not going to do it.

by ufmace

4/6/2026 at 6:04:36 PM

> - Late payment shall incur interest at 8% above the BoE base rate and a late fee of 100 GBP as per the UK Late Payment Legislation. Partial payments on invoices shall apply to late fees, interest, and then principal, in that order.

Do you mean 8 percent, or 8 percentage points?

by k2enemy

4/6/2026 at 6:24:22 PM

The exact wording in our contracts and the government guidance is “8% plus the Bank of England base rate”.

They mean “percentage points”.

https://www.gov.uk/late-commercial-payments-interest-debt-re...

As I understand it, from our lawyer, is that this exact wording is automatically enforceable in UK courts and easiest in the event of a dispute. It’s also generally internationally accepted.

by eckesicle

4/8/2026 at 10:10:15 AM

I've always wondered, in cases like this where 8%+2% (for example) can either mean 10% or 8.16%, why doesn't the contract just give a fictional example of how the maths would work out?

by hananova

4/6/2026 at 10:17:37 PM

> - Payment shall be made in X currency, or an exchange rate at X date on Oanda.com shall apply.

Typically you would reference average exchange rate published by the central bank

by neonstatic

4/6/2026 at 2:19:33 PM

One thing I learned from consulting is if you position yourself as the "fix your mess" guy you have to be very defensive. Ask for more up-front, and bail at the first sign of underpayment.

Be pleasantly surprised when a poorly run project is being run by nice, honest people. Prep for the opposite.

by ng12

4/6/2026 at 2:54:13 PM

You're not just delivering expertise, you're stepping into a situation where incentives are already misaligned, expectations are fuzzy, and there's often a cashflow problem hiding somewhere

by veunes

4/6/2026 at 6:26:49 PM

It sounds counterintuitive but from my experience it are often nice and (somewhat) honest people. They just came after whoever messed it up horribly in the first place and at some point they came to the conclusion that they need some external help.

by randomNumber7

4/7/2026 at 12:23:21 AM

IMHO, he was defensive in the way you suggest. He got ~25% upfront.

But let's assume he got 100% upfront.

More importantly, he didn't protect scope or contract change requests. That was the time to contract. It sounds like collecting 100% would've been leaving money on the table for value delivered.

I like your label for "fix your mess" guys, but I know/use a few who definitely bill and get paid much later (especially lawyers). Sucks for OP that he contracted with a CN firm with credit risk.

by caminante

4/6/2026 at 9:02:00 PM

Author - I don't think you learned the correct lessons here.

The most important thing is that you weren't "ripped off" - you were taken advantage of. Ripped off is when you buy a TV that's supposed to work and it doesn't. Or you just don't get one.

You were taken advantage of - which requires your active consent. Nobody made you do all these things for them on faith. You could have left after a few days. You could have demanded payment up front. But you volunteered to continue down this awful path.

I hope you learn to value your time, and yourself, higher than this in the future.

by Nifty3929

4/7/2026 at 12:04:37 AM

I’ve worked on these terms or similar ones on every job I’ve ever done, for 20 years. They’re the norm. How do I know? I’ve been in this industry for 20 years. I’ve been on both sides of freelance contracts in that time. I moderate a discord of 8000 of my peers. I speak at industry events. We compare notes. We all work ahead of payment, and honestly nothing about the fact that this was a rescue job was particularly out of the ordinary either. This is the case in which I wasn’t paid. If you’re suggesting we as a labor force attempt to change things en masse, it’s an interesting idea. If you’re suggesting I personally could have succeeded at getting payment up front in this case, you may be right, although I didn’t know how desperate they were until ~2.5 weeks into the run. If you’re suggesting I should demand payment in full before every job, you are suggesting I should win zero jobs.

Edit to note: I took the contract’s enforceability on faith. That was not what I thought it was. Had I known the contract gets you jack shit in the way of justice, I’d have taken more seriously the possibility that these guys would rip me off, which they did.

by doctorhandshake

4/7/2026 at 9:44:47 AM

The difference between armchair pricing advice (and the advice of literature on the subject) vs the actual experience of trying to action said advice has lead me to question my sanity more than once.

by interstice

4/8/2026 at 6:07:21 AM

I agree with you on all points, but I'm surprised you come with that much experience but also faith that contracts are enforceable, especially when dealing with PRC clients. I understand you had a California based entity you were dealing with but even then, I've experienced first hand the worth of a contract in California very early in my career and it's the same as in the PRC: toilet paper. I guess maybe you've just been lucky to go this long without finding that out?

by komali2

4/8/2026 at 10:19:46 AM

I think you're prob right that I've been lucky? Also almost all my contracts are NY state. Also almost all my work comes word of mouth in what 10 years ago was still a small industry ... folks are less likely to rip you off when you know dozens of people in common.

by doctorhandshake

4/7/2026 at 8:53:38 AM

Well, they signed a contract saying they would pay a certain amount in exchange of certain work. They were supposed (and promised) to pay that amount, and when the time came, they didn't. I'd say that's a rip-off and very similar to "I was supposed to receive a TV on exchange for certain work, and what I got in the mail was a brick".

by tecleandor

4/7/2026 at 5:31:27 AM

> The most important thing is that you weren't "ripped off" - you were taken advantage of. Ripped off is when you buy a TV that's supposed to work and it doesn't. Or you just don't get one.

Pretty sure they used "ripped off" correctly: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/rip-o...

by dataflow

4/7/2026 at 6:52:12 AM

I want to talk about the semantics here, but I'm distracted:

>You could have left after a few days.

Veering towards victim blaming territory there. Also was the FAQ about progress payments added to the OP site after you commented earlier?

by Barbing

4/6/2026 at 1:14:21 PM

> A contract is toilet paper

It isn't, but you can't get blood from a stone and squeezing costs money.

It sounds like the entity that the contract is with has no real assets and/or is based in a jurisdiction which is hard to enforce judgements in. That's a case where you need to get paid up-front, which is the real lesson in this article.

by gnfargbl

4/6/2026 at 4:20:45 PM

> That's a case where you need to get paid up-front

Or at least in very small batches and with very short due dates.

by andix

4/6/2026 at 3:04:23 PM

Good lessons in here, but the part about giving up on legal action because they told him they’d dissolve the entity is questionable. This is where it pays to have a good relationship with a lawyer who will be up front about your chances and the cost of legal action. The sum discussed falls into the difficult range where it could take enough hours to try to collect that you’d be worse off than where you started if the lawyer can’t deliver anything.

However them dissolving the entity and moving their assets and IP around is also not free and will incur overhead, if they actually did it.

Threatening to dissolve the entity seemingly admits that they do have something worth collecting against. In my experience the companies who run out of money just tell you that they’re out of money and they also start losing key employees and your email contacts because they’re not getting paid either. If the company continues to exist and they’re threatening you to not sue, that might be a sign that they do have the money but they’re relying on intimidating contractors to not try collecting it.

Legal action is not free, so all of this has to be weighed.

EDIT: I should explain how I know this. Younger me took a job with a startup that got in over its head with spending but the CEO didn’t want the party to stop. His strategy was to stop paying any vendors and use the remaining cash flow to only pay past invoices for vendors that we needed something from (more work, more product) or anyone who looked like they were going to sue us. If someone got lawyers involved, they got paid. Needless to say I didn’t keep that job very long.

by Aurornis

4/6/2026 at 4:46:16 PM

I don’t know this for certain, IANAL, but it seems to me if they’re threatening to dissolve the entity, that could open the owners to personal liability.

Definitely bring it up with your lawyer.

by jagged-chisel

4/6/2026 at 7:54:04 PM

I believe dissolving a corporation requires you to attest you've paid all debts. If that's impossible, you have to go through the bankruptcy process. If you attest that you've paid all debts but you haven't, now you're committing frame against the government which they really don't like. You could be imprisoned for that.

by direwolf20

4/6/2026 at 9:29:26 PM

Is that how it works in China, though, when the debt is owned to someone in the US?

by hn_acc1

4/7/2026 at 12:56:31 AM

Even worse. In China they kill you for trying to dissolve a company without paying debts.

by direwolf20

4/6/2026 at 1:44:03 PM

I've started operating in really granular units of work. Like less than $1000 per. Cash on delivery. This won't work with all clients and all jobs, but there are places where it does work very well. Advantages include being able to avoid paper contracts altogether. Verbal agreements and a 4 column xlsx that is reviewed monthly are all that seem to be required with some of my clients.

If I don't get paid for one day of work, I will probably get over it in a few hours. If I don't get paid for six months of work, we will have a serious problem. The tighter and more incremental we can make the delivery process, the less likely anyone gets screwed.

If a party is pushing hard for long-term contracts or large up-front sums of payment, I would walk away from that transaction unless there was a literal golden goose sitting in their lap.

by bob1029

4/6/2026 at 2:03:03 PM

I am also trying to set granular milestones and get paid every 1000€. Not provide 20000€ work and then start looking for my money. I can live with a loss of 1000€, but missing 20000€ will impact negatively my mortgage and investment plan.

by lnsru

4/6/2026 at 2:24:59 PM

I have a friend who retired but still does some contract work. They were on salary their whole career and are not used to sending invoices and tracking down payments. One of their clients was late paying and my friend wasn't concerned, but I encouraged them to be diligent about insisting on being paid on time. I have been a freelancer for over a decade and in my experience, the further away you get from a bill, the less real it becomes to the person who owes it. They start forgetting what the project was, or worse, start questioning why they even have to pay for it. You have to stay on top of these things or they can spiral out of control.

by cainxinth

4/6/2026 at 5:10:24 PM

Just for my own general curiosity, once a bill is overdue, how often do you nag the customer about it? Or does it look more like an escalation process? (Start out with a polite email, then a phone call, then a phone call to their manager/business partner, etc?) Do you ever "fire" customers who always pay, but always pay late and only after they've been reminded 3 times?

by bityard

4/6/2026 at 5:44:07 PM

They get 30 days to pay. I used to start sending reminders if they were late by even a day past that, but I quickly learned that can unnecessarily embarrass or annoy some clients, so now everyone gets a two week grace period after the 30 days are up.

I send a gentle reminder just to my immediate point of contact to start. If that doesn't work, I start sending more business-like requests for payment every week, and I CC anyone I think might help make it happen.

I've never fired anyone, and everyone has eventually paid (knock wood), but there have been times when I assumed the money was a lost cause (though never five figures worth like the person who shared this blog post).

But more than once, I've had a client contact me and request new work, and I've had to remind them they still have an unpaid invoice. I'll tell them I can't start anything new until the old work is paid. They almost invariably blame the delay on their billing department, and the money eventually finds its way to me.

by cainxinth

4/6/2026 at 9:29:51 PM

Net 30 is a standard way to do this. Lots of examples online on how to add this to your invoices.

Well run businesses will pay you on the 29th day. :)

by _whiteCaps_

4/6/2026 at 6:48:32 PM

I don't know what it is about me, but I have a sixth sense for losers who will not pay. There's been a number of times where acquaintences have taken contracts I've turned down (against my advice too) and have not been paid. There's something about slick communicators that just activates my spidey sense.

And TBH, I have also had a few false positives. One contract I did not take (it was for a mix of equity and cash) turned into a 10B+ company, and I would have made enough to retire (again) on it over a 1-year contract. I didn't because the founder who called me just sounded completely clueless and was barraging me with marketing speak instead of explaining what he needed. I was so exhausted from his BS I just decided I didn't need the headache. (This is also a danger of having enough to retire ... you turn down a lot of potentially lucrative work because you just don't think the headaches are worth it).

In the grand scheme of things, other than that one big missed opportunity, I haven't missed too much upside by being so picky. And when I'm counseling colleagues about their unpaid contracts and conflicts, I'm always silently thanking the stars I have the luxury to say no. I know that's a priviledge.

by TheMagicHorsey

4/6/2026 at 1:38:28 PM

> I missed the month of May with my 2-year-old kid. My wife cared for a 2-year-old alone.

The weirdest part to me, receive a call and just get up and go? Priorities? Did you write this blog post from the doghouse?

by InMice

4/6/2026 at 2:57:34 PM

> The weirdest part to me, receive a call and just get up and go? Priorities?

The author does contracting in niche topics. When your contracting domain is uncommon you have to go where the work is.

You can charge higher prices for niche work and therefore tolerate more time in between contracts. This person may be spending more time not working and with his family than the typical FTE in this arrangement, even if the jobs occasionally require them to fly somewhere for a month.

by Aurornis

4/6/2026 at 7:24:32 PM

It sounds like he has a lot of general skills, too. I guess we all have different priorities, but I would work whatever job to not have to leave my kid for that long.

by cortesoft

4/7/2026 at 2:50:00 AM

Kid will be fine, mom will be fine, dad will be fine — a month does sound long, but it depends more on what attention you provide when you are with your partner and kids.

Sounds like he is in there 24/7 most likely spending more time than you or me with his kid over the course of the year (if you are in a regular 9-5 type of role with limited PTO) — or he'd not even mention missing a month with his 2yo.

by necovek

4/6/2026 at 7:03:29 PM

I used to have an uncle who did emergency oil well repair. He'd get a call from his boss, then he'd be on the next flight to whatever remote offshore drilling platform or exotic dictatorship had need of his services.

Apparently doing emergency repair work can be extremely well paid.

(His wife was fine with it, but when there's great inconvenience for the family balanced by great pay for the family, you've got to get paid)

by michaelt

4/6/2026 at 2:42:36 PM

You need a job to sustain a family. From the post it seems like author accepted the sacrifice for the amount he was supposed to be paid.

by charles_f

4/6/2026 at 2:03:11 PM

Reads to me like the author is trying to elicit some empathy. It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for a job. Not getting paid couldn’t have factored into that decision.

by close04

4/6/2026 at 2:05:09 PM

> It just sounds like he was just fine leaving his family for a job.

Or... maybe he needs income to exist.

by 0x3f

4/6/2026 at 2:24:42 PM

He doesnt provide any context for that if so and if you look around the site, doesn't seem like the case at all. More like he just decided on the phone something interested him enough to bounce indefinitely.

by InMice

4/7/2026 at 9:30:33 AM

Seems strange to assume that he does _not_ need income to exist, not sure what society you live in but I'm interested

by williamdclt

4/6/2026 at 6:51:49 PM

They work within a niche space, as others have said, they follow where the work is, So they are able to charge more which I hope is able for them to survive in modern economy and be able to give more time to their family.

atleast that's my interpretation of it of how logic might follow if they are working in niche space, many people seem to be applying the logic onto themselves into completely standard situation, but I don't suppose that is the case here.

Hope this helps in genuinely understanding their situation, from my reading/thinking about it.

by Imustaskforhelp

4/6/2026 at 8:28:01 PM

Well and tactfully said, thank you.

Didn’t realize it needed saying but I left the child and did the work in exchange for money I needed (still need) to feed the child.

Many people do this every day. I do it when it makes sense or the conditions require, which is to say I am a WFH contractor who sometimes works on site occasionally.

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 7:23:13 PM

The assumption with taking a contract is it's better than what your other options will be to get the same total income/time worked. Especially for specialized work like this, taking the contract means you can get multiples of the time back in the following months. When you don't get paid you end up without that time back the income was supposed to provide (and you're in 1 months less of savings to boot).

by zamadatix

4/6/2026 at 1:37:15 PM

Never do anything on faith or as a handshake deal. Always ensure you get paid (hint: escrow is kryptonite for weasels). Trust everyone, just not the devil inside them.

Also, mandatory: https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1

by rglover

4/6/2026 at 6:36:01 PM

Back in my freelancer days, I learned this lesson the hard way, and I became strict about payments (half in advance, the other half required to turn over the final work). But when someone I'd known for years had an emergency, and needed their software patched over a weekend, I made an exception and delivered the work in good faith. And then they tried to get out of paying for it. I had to harangue them for months to get the check.

The lesson I learned is that it doesn't matter how long they've been your friend, when it comes time to pay, they may still try to stiff you. The value of your service diminishes infinitely after it has been performed.

by DamnInteresting

4/6/2026 at 11:33:07 PM

Just reinforces the golden rule of not doing business with friends or family.

by ekropotin

4/6/2026 at 2:05:55 PM

> “Starting work without a contract is like putting on a condom after taking a home pregnancy test"

Choice quote from the linked talk (aptly titled "F*ck you, pay me").

by chrisweekly

4/6/2026 at 4:24:43 PM

Yes! I regularly share a link to Mike's talk - I was about to post it myself before scanning the comments.

by leviathant

4/6/2026 at 1:57:07 PM

I was owed billable hours from Stanford University but refused to do any further work until the outstanding invoice was paid. Their accounts payable department didn't want to, so I had to tell the client "sorry" and walked away. It's really weird because I didn't have a problem in the near past then and was even an FTE at one point. I'm unwilling to work for free or for imaginary, low liquidation preference equity of a worthless startup.

Ordinarily, I would sign master agreements and set PO terms up-front. Typically, the better customers would agree to very strict requirements / objectives for a particular time period for a specific price. Any deviations would require negotiation. Hourly is fine too but there must be regular milestone deliveries so that there's demonstrable value for money being conveyed rather than an appearance of a milking-oriented consultant. Expectations must always be managed.

by burnt-resistor

4/6/2026 at 2:08:52 PM

Actually sort of darkly clever– they turned OP into an unwitting investor.

Project goes well, he gets paid and they're best buds, and he doesn't even realize he was scammed (by intent). If not, well there's no point suing a failed company.

by apt-apt-apt-apt

4/6/2026 at 5:35:55 PM

If you're in California, even if business goes totally kaput and runs out of money company officers are personally liable for any and all unpaid wages. Labor Commission Office will also include a hefty punitive sum to boot.

by dilyevsky

4/6/2026 at 7:42:01 PM

Doesn’t apply to contractors. In fact, if you do contract work for a company which misses payroll, courts can claw back money out of your bank account in order to pay it. It’s rare, because usually this is about “contractors” who are actually accomplices of the owner, getting free money out of the failing company with inflated payments for fake work, but it does happen.

by Analemma_

4/6/2026 at 6:14:09 PM

I don't think this makes a difference for independent contractors.

by sudobash1

4/6/2026 at 2:01:33 PM

Sometimes you just have to get scammed to be able to recognize scams. Seems obvious to outsiders, but can be hard to see when you're in it.

Some favorites:

- No way they would actually screw me over! We're buds/they got me tiger balm/they paid some/I did them a solid

- Thin veneer of safe fallbacks that doesn't hold up under scrutiny. Legal or other 'repercussions'

- Endless delays and excuses (though it's usually too late by this point)

by apt-apt-apt-apt

4/6/2026 at 2:55:20 PM

Yeah, a lot of it only becomes obvious in hindsight because each individual signal is easy to rationalize away

by veunes

4/6/2026 at 1:36:01 PM

What's an "AR bus"? How can augmented reality windows work on a bus unless you are (a) tracking the passenger's head and (b) there's only one passenger?

by rwmj

4/6/2026 at 1:41:32 PM

Screens outside the windows (not on the windows) can provide parallax, no need to track heads. However, in this case:

> They were attempting to pull off AR effects on the transparent OLED windows of the bus without accounting for lens distortion, field of view, parallax, occlusion, etc., and were frustrated and mystified when things didn’t appear to line up. They were completely naive to what depth and scale cues are and how to deploy them.

by post-it

4/6/2026 at 2:32:24 PM

Can you elaborate? It seems to me that unless the screens are that far outside that they are where the target object is, two people that are offset laterally wrt the target object would have to be displayed something that's offset on the screen.

by FabHK

4/6/2026 at 6:13:38 PM

Imagine two passengers seating in rows r10 and r11, looking at the target T

A. You need to know where a passager's eyes are to display the POI in the right place. Even if each rows gets their own and only screen you'll need to account for their head vertical position (different people are different height) and movement, hence the eye tracking.

B. If you share a window between multiple people you end us with a POI mess with informations displayed multiplied by as much passengers in the bus.

   |- r9  -|w9
   |       |w9
   |- r10 -|w10   T
   |       |w10
   |- r11 -|w11
   |       |w11
   |- r12 -|w12

IMHO the only practical way is with personal headsets like [0] but then you don't need a bus: just use your foot or any transportation: it's AR and not VR.

0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpoLdQpPcAc

by aziaziazi

4/6/2026 at 2:27:05 PM

So is it an actual moving bus or just a simulation of one? I have not heard of the concept before

by sambaumann

4/6/2026 at 2:25:49 PM

When you walk into a shitshow like this, the first thing you do is secure your payments. Anyone who is in such bad shape like how OP described it means that they are desperate, and desperate people will do and say anything to get help.

It is most likely going to not pay anyone so you need to make sure you're paid above and beyond anything else otherwise walk.

by freediddy

4/6/2026 at 2:29:35 PM

You forgot the middleground where there are thousands of laid off people who can do your exact job and undercut you etc.

These founders hire/fire through hundreds of us, they don't give a shit.

If you say 1 thing they don't like they go to the next.

by notquitebuddy

4/6/2026 at 2:40:00 PM

That's not the middle ground. That's the other extreme, where people are desperate for work so they will say they can do anything in order to get work.

by freediddy

4/6/2026 at 3:28:15 PM

[dead]

by notquitebuddy

4/6/2026 at 2:43:36 PM

How many of those people have experience with augmented reality? Probably not that many.

$35k seems pretty low for this job. Hindsight is 20/20 of course.

by noident

4/7/2026 at 3:00:14 AM

As 75% of a single month fee (25% paid upfront), not too bad either: $46k in total for 4 weeks of work. Expenses were not included (flight was paid for).

by necovek

4/6/2026 at 1:22:18 PM

Be paid or don't work.

I am so deadly serious - do not continue working if your invoices are late.

You don't have to be a jerk about it, just explain to your primary contact that you need to be paid and you pick up tools again when the money has arrived.

BUT it is on YOU to properly negotiate reasonable payment terms. And if you don;t know or don't trust the client then require payment in advance until a stronger commercial relationship can be settled in. Do not be a baby - go research business contracts and payment terms.

Do not be afraid to lose business from companies that are squeamish about paying you - in fact actively avoid such companies.

by wewewedxfgdf

4/6/2026 at 2:12:46 PM

Sadly this is true and lesson anyone who has worked freelance has probably learned - either that or I'd wager they no longer do freelance.

Its easy to say don't be afraid to lose business, but when you're starting out, the economy is rough or all you have are the one or two clients, that's a different matter entirely.

One thing I've learned is that you always have to do the leg work, you can't assume someone will do the right thing or keep their word.

Develop a system where even bad clients, can't do too much damage i.e. upfront deposits, milestone-based payments. You have to control cash flow risks, if you are gonna take risks know what risks you're taking and when to get out.

by DataDaoDe

4/6/2026 at 2:46:40 PM

There are also bad suppliers who don't do their leg work. I've "fired" some companies who did great work for me because they couldn't be bothered to send a bill - I know I owe someone some money, but I don't know how much as despite begging they won't tell me how much or where to send it (I only have a phone number) - this bill could get larger, and they can come after me at any time for it...

Please don't be them. If you do good work make sure that you get your bills sent on time.

by bluGill

4/6/2026 at 2:16:57 PM

> Sadly this is true and lesson anyone who has worked freelance has probably learned - either that or I'd wager they no longer do freelance.

Sadly, while this is true, there are plenty of folks still doing freelance who have not learned this, and there always will be. It's just one of those lessons that quite a lot of people have to learn from experience, even after reading posts like this. The exact same reason why companies will continue to get away with taking advantage of freelance work.

by stronglikedan

4/6/2026 at 2:39:01 PM

>>companies will continue to get away with taking advantage of freelance work.

Think of ¡all the exposure! doing this free labor for us will give you! /s

or:

I'll cook you dinner if you do this days of work for me /serious?!

by ProllyInfamous

4/6/2026 at 1:33:08 PM

> Do not be afraid to lose business from companies that are squeamish about paying you - in fact actively avoid such companies.

My boss said that the ones who have negotiated the best deals are the ones that are late paying, complain about just about every bill and will write angry letters when my boss index adjust pricing.

He said it taught him to never offer a really good deal for a regular customer (ie where the upside isn't very obvious).

by magicalhippo

4/6/2026 at 1:56:22 PM

I'm not sure that's the best takeaway here, in that it gets the causation wrong. It's not the deal that made the customer bad, it's that the bad customer insisted on getting a deal, whereas a good customer usually knows what quality costs and is prepared to pay.

The takeaway here is probably that the fix isn't just "never discount", but it's to screen for the kind of customer who treats a good deal as an invitation to strengthen the relationship.

by stavros

4/6/2026 at 2:28:50 PM

> strengthen the relationship

This is really the key. The "deal" has to have something for both parties. The vendor gets some kind of lock-in, prepayment, guarantee of future business, whatever it is, and in exchange the purchaser gets a discount.

The discount doesn't just come out of nowhere.

by mikepurvis

4/6/2026 at 2:20:15 PM

> It's not the deal that made the customer bad, it's that the bad customer insisted on getting a deal

That was indeed the point, guess I conveyed it in a poor way.

by magicalhippo

4/6/2026 at 2:26:19 PM

That's OK, it's clarified now.

by stavros

4/6/2026 at 2:18:51 PM

This. A bad customer made a desperate situation worse because of their inexperience, neglect, shady motives, or a combination of the three.

by danesparza

4/6/2026 at 3:10:12 PM

Where I live the phone companies do this: you can get a discount every year by calling them and saying you will change companies unless they give you a better price. They always do and the only people paying normal prices are the ones who can’t be bothered to call them every year to request the discount!

by brabel

4/6/2026 at 3:34:00 PM

And dealing with a lot of that crap is more trouble than many of us want to be filling our days with. Micro-optimizations I might have done as a student I mostly don’t do today.

by ghaff

4/6/2026 at 4:22:40 PM

In order to make out on this at my hourly rate, I would have to cap my phone time with the company to minutes. Single digit.

It's literally just not worth it. Time is the most finite resource that we all have.

by busterarm

4/6/2026 at 3:35:31 PM

These companies are scum. I don't want to be part of this march to the bottom of caring for your customer. Big companies are also different because of the firmness with which they are locked in to the purchasing infrastructure (among other reasons).

by fn-mote

4/6/2026 at 3:56:03 PM

Sure, all major US cellular carriers are scum and abuse customers in similar ways. So you'll be part of the march to the bottom whether you want it or not.

It is possible to switch to a smaller VNO with better customer policies. But then your cellular data gets dropped during heavy network congestion, which is probably worse for most of us.

by nradov

4/6/2026 at 1:30:55 PM

100% agree, and to add it can be tough sometimes to walk away from a cool project. I had worked on a project building scientific trial software, an app to review 3D lung scans, and an ML model to detect lesions in lung scans. It was really empowering, but after the first scientific trial the customer stopped paying their bills and ended up in back payment of $1M. My boss closed the project which sucked but it ultimately cost the company and people’s jobs. Just not worth interacting with bad people if they stop the agreement. There is most likely more money later but there is also money that is on time with other customers.

by righthand

4/6/2026 at 1:42:33 PM

A professional knows what they're worth and what they need to deliver. On-time payment according on an agreed-upon schedule is table stakes. That's the most fundamental requirement. Nothing happens without that.

by the_snooze

4/6/2026 at 4:07:08 PM

So true. And I'll add, no matter how trustworthy you believe the other party to be based on reptutation, relationships, or otherwise-- they should understand requiring assurances. The worst backstabs are from the people you know and who should know better. And a lot of people will justify it to themselves if they get in trouble. They will continue telling themselves that they are fundamentally good people and it just didn't work out as they rip you off for a lot of money. If they say the equivalent of "why don't you trust me?" that's a red flag.

by brobdingnagians

4/6/2026 at 2:21:49 PM

And also: political organizations and churches always must pay up front.

by moduspol

4/6/2026 at 4:11:17 PM

Agreed. Another important lesson I learned when delivering code to a non-profit org, and them asking me to convert my final invoices into "donations" to the org.

by TravelTechGuy

4/6/2026 at 2:30:05 PM

I feel like it's easy in hindsight to say some tough sounding advice in the form of "be a hard-ass", but idk, I feel like there are plenty of real life cases that contradict this advice- taking a chance on a referral to work on something you find interesting. Of course the big-money clients will be fine with a hard-line stance and they have money to pay at the end, but that work tends to be less interesting.

OTOH, one other clear subtext of the story is the "savior" attitude of a lot of tech people, who think that, if they weren't using version control before, think, "oh, I'll just tell them about this great thing, and because it's much better they will definitely listen to me and implement it - it's only logical". But the harsh reality is that "better" things won't affect an org that went along that far and dug themselves that deep.

Never underestimate an org's ability to shoot itself in the foot, even if you think you know better. That includes getting your money from them.

by awongh

4/6/2026 at 4:46:02 PM

I guarantee you that if OP said, sorry, do this or I am going home, they would have done what needed to be done. Both in terms of payment, and in terms of getting their software and hardware houses in order.

It might have involved OP getting a taxi to the airport and being chased down at the gate, but it would have worked.

And even if it didn't, they would have saved themselves enormous time, money, and stress by following through on their threats if it didn't work out.

by ivraatiems

4/6/2026 at 2:35:52 PM

>Be paid or don't work.

As an electrician currently self-stopped (for both non-payment & absenteeism, two months no contact, so far) I'm not budging. When you didn't show up for our last two on-site meetups (and still haven't contacted), I thought about filing a lien... but decided to just keep you from having tenants (by not finishing AC/water/electric). You'll get around to it..?

When I told this LLC/owner "you obviously aren't in a rush because you obviously aren't visiting the jobsite/me" I sort of expected him to show within a few days. Then a few weeks. And now we're entering a few months.

You have weeks of my punchlists (unresolved to do), I have weeks of questions (what do you want?) and you won't even do simple things like turning on power/water.

Fuck you, pay me.

[•] <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U>

by ProllyInfamous

4/6/2026 at 2:49:35 PM

This is all correct in principle, but in practice it's a lot messier

by veunes

4/6/2026 at 4:03:48 PM

It doesn't have to be messy. A lot of the messiness is self inflicted by contractors who are desperate for work and would be better of just getting a regular employee job instead.

by nradov

4/6/2026 at 2:51:38 PM

I can imagine the type of work you do heavily influences the chance of begin paid during/before work finishes too…

by notnaut

4/6/2026 at 2:17:45 PM

And for a rush job, don't be afraid to demand half the payment up front, or some other good-faith gesture on the client's part.

by danesparza

4/6/2026 at 5:00:15 PM

Your business is getting the money. Your business is not to fly around the world trying to engineer-mog the client. The OP has a bad ego.

"They don't even use version control..." Yeah? Get the money. The client are "carpetbaggers", yeah okay... get the money.

It's implied that they hired you because they need the help. But they also may have hired you because they need the help and you seem like a sucker they can stiff.

by 01284a7e

4/6/2026 at 2:56:23 PM

What if you’re a cofounder or founding engineer and the company hasn’t raised yet?

by gcr

4/6/2026 at 3:21:30 PM

Unlike in the article where a contractor was promised payment and no payment was made, the cofounder here knows already that the company can’t pay until they raise funds, and has planned for this accordingly, by living off of personal savings or contract jobs. They also understand the risk they’ve taken on and are comfortable trading their time for possibly zero returns.

by jt2190

4/7/2026 at 11:45:20 AM

Thank you. (FWIW it was an earnest question)

by gcr

4/8/2026 at 12:46:43 PM

You’re welcome!

Cofounders and founding engineers just don’t talk enough about how they model the financial risk of investing in a high risk asset like a startup, and how they make sure that they’re not taking on more risk than they can personally manage if things don’t work out. Approaches will vary by person and personal circumstances, so it’s also helpful to know what constraints they’re working with (like needing to house and feed their family).

by jt2190

4/6/2026 at 2:04:08 PM

Evergreen advice from the design side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVkLVRt6c1U (Mike Monteiro: F*ck You, Pay Me)

by ian_d

4/6/2026 at 2:09:14 PM

Watched a couple of times, but I don't fully understand the message in this video. Can someone ELI5?

by normie3000

4/6/2026 at 2:27:35 PM

Have a contract that encodes "fuck you, pay me" into the terms. Ideally, have an actual lawyer take care of the contract and the enforcement. There's a lot of law-y stuff out there that won't hold up in reality. Mortgage companies don't take payment in excuses from your clients, so neither should you.

by Kye

4/6/2026 at 2:29:13 PM

The message is to have a contract and insist on being paid according to the contract, and refuse further work until you get paid.

by post-it

4/6/2026 at 2:22:31 PM

The same founders who require employees to work 24/7/365 while they jack off to Hentai all day are the same ones who don't pay:

HockeyStack, Greptile, Velt all had problems paying me and all required 7 day a week, overnight, etc.

by ycarechildren

4/6/2026 at 1:52:01 PM

There's no such thing as a company temporarily being in dire straits. These kind of companies are always in dire straits and crisis - it's a business tactic to not deliver and not pay. Just stay away, whether you're a customer, a contractor, an employee or if they want to be your customer.

by carlosjobim

4/6/2026 at 3:21:45 PM

Your blog is a treasure trove - thanks for sharing.

Do you still cut your own hair ;) ?

But yes us folks in the creative world can learn a few things from the corporate world when it comes to contracts and payment schedules. Mike Monteiro's talk 'F*ck you, pay me' comes to mind.

---

https://www.mikemonteiro.com/

https://creativemornings.com/talks/mike-monteiro--2/1

by uxcolumbo

4/6/2026 at 8:00:53 PM

Thanks - still cut my own hair but rethinking after a particularly disastrous one recently!

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 1:52:57 PM

The fact that this is so many words makes me worry the author underappreciated the main lesson: risk exposure.

When you go out of pocket - you are out of pocket and the risk is all yours. If that one thing was different then all the remaining risk is on the client - they don't want to do version contr - ok cool you still get paid.

Usually when you have to pay in to get paid out (outside of a direct investment scenario) it's a scam. The people who fall for the Nigeria Prince thing are operating the same way.

by xyzelement

4/6/2026 at 9:43:57 PM

When I was unemployed, looking for a job, living off severance, someone from my previous job contacted me to do some consulting work "for a friend". Initial terms were for some kind of stock in the company.

It seemed shady from the start, but since it involved python, something I had very little experience with, I decided to try it. I worked like 15-20 hours per week for a few months, learned enough python to be comfortable with it and some other APIs as well (being a little vague on purpose). Later said they could maybe afford to pay me some $$ due to another company they had founded being sold (I verified this much, the person had founded and sold a few companies).

It eventually fell apart after my first deliverable (as I expected, mostly). I used encryption to send python files that would only work for a couple of weeks. Not sure if they ever did anything with it (it's been a few years). Oh well, it ended up helping me get another job where python was a good skill to have.

The biggest loss was that of losing all trust in the person setting things up.

by hn_acc1

4/6/2026 at 1:56:46 PM

That doesn’t really sound like “being ripped off,” as opposed to “betting on a lame horse.”

The people behind this were irresponsible, childish, and exemplars of the Dunning-Kruger effect. They weren’t really hardline crooks. Crooks are probably a lot more organized.

I have gotten myself invested with similar crowds. There’s usually a charismatic spokesperson, leading the chaos.

They likely didn’t plan to rip him off, but paying him wasn’t really something they thought about. Real crooks put lots of planning into taking money.

> Multiple very junior developers were touching (binary, TouchDesigner) code and deploying straight to production via thumb drive, with zero version control. In fact, they didn’t know what version control was.

I suspect many startups fit that description. If they survive, then they usually pull themselves up by the bootstraps, eventually. Many of them collapse, taking everything with them.

by ChrisMarshallNY

4/6/2026 at 2:35:04 PM

I think you’re right and it’s fair to reframe this that way, in that in a certain sense, despite my naivety, I was the adult in the room and should have seen what they couldn’t.

But then given what I’ve learned since I think I can say with some certainty that this particular group saw the writing on the wall and were willing to use the skilled labor and time of an endless army of cannon fodder to try to staunch the bleeding or take one more long shot at getting final payment, and doing so without the agreement or awareness of the people they enlisted to the risk they were participating in.

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 2:40:12 PM

I've seen similar, at a bigger scale.

When the wheels start coming off, morals are first over the side.

In some cases (think Theranos), it can go all the way into straight criminality. Most times, it just reaches the point where everything collapses, when the supports rust away.

by ChrisMarshallNY

4/6/2026 at 1:21:14 PM

“A contract is toilet paper”

A little hyperbolic, but more accurate than not when laypeople think about contracts.

A contract isn’t a magic spell, it is a declaration of shared understanding that can be used for clarity and in legal proceedings.

If you think of a contract as a way to ensure you get what you agreed, yes, it is toilet paper, because a contract doesn’t remove counterparty risk.

by fontain

4/6/2026 at 1:32:38 PM

In a fight between a piece of toilet paper backed by millions in legal spending vs a rock solid contract backed by nothing -- the toilet paper (even if it is used toilet paper) will win every single time.

by blitzar

4/6/2026 at 1:49:19 PM

A piece of contract toilet paper is still better than a bare hand shake agreement.

by hermannj314

4/6/2026 at 1:39:40 PM

He says "trust your gut" about 12 times, but the whole lead up has 0 mention that he was worried he would not get paid. His only gut feelings seemed to be around tech issues.

by fred_is_fred

4/6/2026 at 1:53:31 PM

Yes, I guess also trust the situation when it looks completely wrong. your gut is not lying when it sees that as well

by billnad

4/6/2026 at 1:54:53 PM

> End clients can’t tell the difference between these bozos and me. I don’t know what to do with that information but it feels bad.

this is only getting worse with ai.

all the artifacts of good work are there but none of the depth.

by throwaway98797

4/7/2026 at 2:19:42 AM

> A contract is toilet paper

A contract is an entrance ticket to a court case. If you can't afford to fight the court case, the contract isn't much use. If the other party aren't in a jurisdiction that the court can enforce in, the contract isn't much use. If the other party can just vanish and when you try to take them to court, the contract isn't much use.

A contract doesn't stop other people from doing things (or make them do things that they would otherwise not do). It just specifies that if they do those things (or don't do them) then you can take them to court. You still need to be able to take them to court for any of this to work.

Contracts aren't toilet paper. But they also aren't the magic solution to all problems that they are sometimes held up to be.

by marcus_holmes

4/7/2026 at 6:01:18 AM

Tried freelancing for a bit. Thought being my own boss might give me better mental health. I couldn't have been more wrong. The better part of my time was spent on convincing the clients, what is built is what they had described.

by elwray

4/6/2026 at 1:16:46 PM

Contract terms can vary greatly depending on the situation and the company you’re working with.

Early/frequent payment terms are always good to have but you may not always have the leverage for it depending on where you’re at as a contractor.

Takes getting ripped off a times before insisting on better terms I guess. It’s like bombing your first job interview… you can prepare but it just needs to happen.

by condensedcrab

4/6/2026 at 2:31:34 PM

> The faith was that if they could’t pay, they’d let me know because I was actively digging their asses out of a hole they’d dug, and doing so tirelessly and professionally, without complaint.

I get what the author is saying here. But it's a bad idea to treat one's work team with deep communal devotion in this way, as if they are a kind of dysfunctional family-- or, in the author's case, apparently higher in status than real family.

Doing this without proper remuneration creates a market distortion, and that is bad for capitalism.

by jancsika

4/6/2026 at 2:31:50 PM

There's not any incentives to pay you when they're in China and there's no legal recourse from the US. Even in the US suing is often times not worth it economically and getting someone to pay after a win is painful too if they don't just file bankruptcy. Escrow or upfront only is the best way to go.

by b8

4/6/2026 at 2:42:27 PM

The company was California-based, they were offering services in China. At least, that was my read. The contractor was also in California.

Honestly, this seems to be bad advice from their recovery services. Suing is 100% recommended here. There are plenty of lawyers that will work on a pro rata basis for account recovery in California. Sure, you lose a portion of your 35k; but you get more than you would have letting them get away with paying zero.

There's also laws in place to keep companies from "closing up shop" and opening in a new entity. It doesn't necessarily erase your debt (it can, but only in rare circumstances). And, even if they do get around it, it keeps them from pulling the same shenanigans going forward, in the state.

by deaddodo

4/6/2026 at 2:54:18 PM

Not saying I know better but this contradicts what I heard from multiple collections companies with in-house legal - they all said suing would not be worth the ~$2,500 upfront fees and that the debtor would just vanish. The debt still exists so I'd love to think otherwise! Feel free to HMU if you have a specific lawyer/practice in mind ;

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 4:34:12 PM

The debtor can't "vanish", they are either an individual or an entity with registered individuals attached to it. Obviously, their structure matters a little bit along with where they are incorporated. But if they are incorporated in California, their debt is 95% recoverable if they want to continue doing business in any way. As an individual you can go after garnishment and other relief. As an entity, it's similar but to their company/corporate holdings.

If they try to dissolve and create another business that operates in the same sphere/as a successor or with the same management team; the debt doesn't disappear, you just prosecute the new entity. With an added cherry of potential criminal prosecution, if they're particularly egregious about it.

People can 100% get around paying, that happens. But the judgement will remain on their record. This will make reincorporation difficult as well as just acting as a warning to future partners that do basic due diligence.

No one's saying it's easy to get the money back, but rolling over probably is the least desirable outcome (and probably why they've acted this way with so many people).

As to your collection firms, I can't speak to it. Maybe your situation is more complicated (e.g. registered entity out of state, unclear contract terms, etc) or they just don't want to go through with the hassle of doing more than they were hired to do (send nag letters and hope for easy turnover).

In the future, you can use it as a learning experience. Keep your deliverables under the small claims limit, do metered payouts, etc.

by deaddodo

4/6/2026 at 2:36:34 PM

This was a California company and contract, but your comment does apply to their situation with their client

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 9:42:00 PM

Man that was an awful read (but well written). As someone who is starting to slowly work on my own consulting activities, I feel I am up against a world of "ripping-off". Thanks for sharing.

by 3abiton

4/7/2026 at 3:54:45 PM

Doesn't China have that whole "social capital" thing where defaulting on debts and other bad behavior can have real long-term consequences? Or does that not apply if you're defaulting on debts to non-Chinese?

by fencepost

4/6/2026 at 1:40:35 PM

> A contract is toilet paper

no it isn't. why you did not sue them? success rate of international arbitrage (New York Convention) proces into China is 90% success rate. USA/EU companies who sue Chineses companies in China for breach of contract seem to be winning rates. Enforcement of USA curt orders do not need to go thorugh Chinese courts again, and are enforced by local authorities (local sharks) with success rate of 80% for foreign firms suing chinese firms. fees are also fairly low. case is straightfoward.

if author went and sue, likely he would get his money back.

by balbladsaf1231

4/6/2026 at 1:50:24 PM

> why you did not sue them?

Because they could just dissolve the entity and get away with it. Did you even read the rest of the article?

by LoganDark

4/6/2026 at 7:58:32 PM

You can't do that and if you do do that it's an imprisonable felony. You have to pay all debts before dissolving a corporation. If you can't pay them you have to go through the bankruptcy process.

by direwolf20

4/6/2026 at 4:03:47 PM

[dead]

by ctdinjeu4

4/6/2026 at 4:17:42 PM

In such a situation (startup with unclear financial situation, foreign country) I would demand weekly payments. And if it is more than a week late, I would just leave.

by andix

4/6/2026 at 1:53:47 PM

No longer a contractor but I used to offer a 10-15% discount for paying upfront. Almost every client took this deal. Earned a little less but never lost sleep over payments.

by jfrbfbreudh

4/6/2026 at 2:51:02 PM

Why not make your rate 15% higher than your desired rate?

That way your “discounted” rate is the rate they should have paid and they feel like they got a deal.

by bena

4/6/2026 at 2:36:09 PM

OP wasn't ripped off, OP just forgot to define their contract. Like, entirely.

Nobody forced OP to work 11-14 hour days. Contracting 101 stipulates that you define your hours ahead of time. You come in, you provide your expertise, and you leave at the end of the day. Let the client's junior employees work long hours. Not your problem.

OP brought their own equipment, which is totally fine but "who provides equipment" is also in the contract from the start. OP should have made a list of equipment that the client will require to complete such a project and stipulate a client budget be set aside to cover any shortcomings as they arise.

The contract is where you define when you get paid. "Deposit is XYZ quantity, non-refundable. Contractor will be paid for the upcoming week in advance by X date. Failure to remit payment will halt work."

I understand that the point of this blog piece is that it was a learning experience for OP but this stuff is pretty obvious isn't it? This is pretty much what comes up when you google stuff like "how to get into freelance contracting." I'm shocked and feel bad for OP for letting things get this far. Sadly, they were not ripped off by anyone but themselves.

by dangus

4/6/2026 at 2:41:08 PM

These types of situations are endemic to my industry, for better or worse. I wasn't intending to complain about the working conditions by way of making it seem as though any of those things were unusual — I was providing that context by way of saying I conducted myself as a professional does in these situations. I've been in this (immersive, interactive, creative tech) industry for 20 years and those conditions are absolutely expected onsite when commissioning, installing, or preparing for a live event. Refusing to work beyond say an 8-10 hour day would leave the project unfinished and we work on a 'show must go on basis'. With that said, doing this for 20+ days without a break is unusually grueling, even for this industry.

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 3:32:57 PM

[dead]

by theredones

4/6/2026 at 2:48:08 PM

This reads less like a "got ripped off" story and more like a perfect storm of every classic consulting red flag showing up at once

by veunes

4/6/2026 at 1:15:28 PM

> They were carpetbaggers and dilettantes convinced by their own inexperience and the advice of a onetime VJ that they could pull off something I’d twice helped quote to be brought home by a cadre of hardened killers with shitloads of math and know-how at eye-watering prices. They were way way way over their heads and were in no way interested in updating their priors in light of the shit they were swimming in.

And yet, somehow, you gave them the most important time you had for their promises.

by hyperhello

4/6/2026 at 1:39:10 PM

> I missed the month of May with my 2-year-old kid. My wife cared for a 2-year-old alone.

This wasn't because of the customer or not getting paid. This was the author's choice.

by buran77

4/6/2026 at 4:27:38 PM

Very very important to get something up front; sometimes half up front doesn't always work for long projects, but you can scope out tranches where if you dont get paid for the first section of work, you walk away.

Has saved me from wasting my time on loads of projects before.

Reading the thread, I think most of us who have worked contracts here have been burned one way or another

by yawnxyz

4/6/2026 at 4:09:18 PM

Sadly every consultant can tell you at least one (hopefully only one) story about clients who refuse to pay. Either outright, or with some excuse about you "not delivering", or they "not liking" what you delivered. I have one of those stories as well.

My SO has her own story - she ran into a guy whom she later found out does it as a policy: hires people, never pays, threatens to sue them if they publish their story. Her lawyer told her to just forget about it.

It's then that find out the limitations of our legal system: if the client is international, forget about it. If they're out of state, prepare to deal with an expensive legal process taking place where the laws may not always favor you. And even if it's local, and you won in a small claims court - good luck collecting.

I have periodic payments built into all my contracts, with the final payment taking place after acceptance tests, but before me surrendering all materials and code. I won't say this is a 100% bulletproof solution, but the alternatives suck.

by TravelTechGuy

4/6/2026 at 5:28:51 PM

> If they're out of state, prepare to deal with an expensive legal process > you won in a small claims court - good luck collecting

While these statements are generally true, it shouldn't dissuade anyone from pursuing these remedies.

Years back I took a small programming contract with a 'friend of a friend' that ended with me delivering what was asked and them suddenly not having any money, claiming the company was going under.

They were in another state. I filed small claims by mail and they never responded, so I got a default judgement without ever needing to travel, for under $500 in total fees. The judgement is worthless though, right? Probably...

Fast forward about a month and they had an investor willing to float the company for a while longer, but now my judgement is a giant wrench - the investor won't give them money as long as this is hanging around. I got the cofounders to jointly take on the debt personally (after consulting with a lawyer that this was possible - he didn't even charge for the consult!) and I vacated the judgement against the LLC.

A short while later the LLC went under anyway, but since I had both founders' personal finances under my thumb (which would allow garnishing wages, obtaining leins, etc.) I was able to recoup the entire contract amount from them personally.

I wouldn't have spent more than about $1,000 chasing that money down, but a few hours of paperwork and a few hundred dollars ended up making it easily worth my while.

by njovin

4/7/2026 at 11:53:55 PM

I'm sorry that this happened to the author... but I can't help but wonder if any western business or contractor will ever learn that this is a very likely outcome of doing any kind of business in China.

"The faith was that if they didn’t pay, the legal system would enforce our California-law contract and make them pay."

Like come on dude. You left your wife and 2 year old child to fly across the world do this project on the faith that some random AR bus company would honor their word and pay you 35k? How did you think this contract would be enforceable? I've got a bridge to sell you if that's all it takes to get you to go all in.

Business in China does not operate the same way that it does in western countries. Period, end of story. If my California based AR bus company hired this person, agreed to pay them this amount in writing, signed the contract, then bailed. I would get sued and have to either pay this person or spend more money hiring a legal team to draw it out long enough to where this person quit trying to sue me. Either way thats not a great outcome, it makes my business look bad, there are repercussions so I would rather just pay this person the agreed amount.

In China they will just walk away and dissolve the company if you come after them hard enough (like the author mentions) and start working again under a new company name. They know this too, and they know that western businesses (Americans especially) are operating under the assumption that there will be penalties for not following through on something you said was going to happen, so they take advantage.

I guarantee that all this company intended to pay the author was the initial amount they gave to him in the upfront fee, knowing full well they would eventually leave the country once the work visa ended or the project time was up and they would never see them again / be able to just send a canned response back to any follow up about paying the full amount.

The company in China will sign whatever you want them to, you could ask for the moon in return if they don't deliver on their side of the agreement and they would happily sign it knowing that you won't be able to do anything but make a blog post about it if they don't.

When are we going to learn this?

by kjlldld

4/6/2026 at 7:42:06 PM

One thing I've learned from working in different fields, which seems to hold true for all business: If a client approaches you with a dumpster fire of a repair job, are too broke to get a real fix, and get agitated (or simply ignore) by the talk of what the job will cost - simply tell them "sorry, I can't help you with this one".

99 out 100 times they will be a hassle, and you'll be lucky if they pay you anything beyond the upfront payment.

Even worse if it is another business, as the author writes, those can just declare bankruptcy and walk away.

by TrackerFF

4/6/2026 at 7:49:28 PM

You went to China and worked for free. What you whining about? Are you surprised they did not pay you? You even had a sore wrist. What a hero! No sympathy whatsoever.

by thesaintlives

4/6/2026 at 2:27:34 PM

> End clients can’t tell the difference between these bozos and me. I don’t know what to do with that information but it feels bad.

This is unfortunately all too common. It's hard for someone who isn't an expert in the specific field to separate a smooth grifter from a more typical sales pitch

by swiftcoder

4/6/2026 at 1:11:46 PM

All this for a $35K contract, that sucks.

by BowBun

4/6/2026 at 1:15:48 PM

Who are they?

by dragonsenseiguy

4/6/2026 at 11:29:23 PM

It's a scam economy.

by gverrilla

4/6/2026 at 2:19:50 PM

Wage theft is the most lucrative and least prosecuted crime in America.

by jordanb

4/6/2026 at 2:28:37 PM

FTA: China

by QuarterReptile

4/8/2026 at 5:37:45 AM

FTA: California-based client

by AlexeyBelov

4/7/2026 at 10:31:46 PM

> I’ll happily tell you who they are - get in touch

Don't be a coward. Name and shame.

by gaws

4/7/2026 at 3:03:12 AM

Hmm, definitely an unpleasant lesson in lead qualification. Lots of clients aren't worth it. Good learnings to trust your gut. Especially with places that are in bad shape income-wise.

by renewiltord

4/7/2026 at 12:22:46 AM

I once worked for a founder who gave me a “raise” from a W2 to a 1099 contractor. Except the raise was just not deducting any of the taxes from my pay. I was 24 and was naive.

I sued him, and won reclassification as well as two payments he never paid me, but both the state and IRS could care less that I’d been taken advantage of. They happily added their fees, interest and penalties for something I was the victim of. Years later, the debt resurfaced in the form of aggressive levies directly to my bank account after no contact for over 10 years and no collection activity. By then, the fees and interest were 3x what was “owed” to them. They actually told me it’s standard practice to wait until the debt grows and then collect on it. After so many years I didn’t even have the records from the lawsuit.

I learned that the government doesn’t care about you, especially if you’ve been scammed you have to be extra careful because that’s a signal to them you’re someone they can get even more money from. The process of disputing it will waste more of your time and mental health than it’s worth in all but the most extreme cases, and that is 100% by design.

by iamleppert

4/6/2026 at 7:42:18 PM

Not really to the point of the post, but how can you deal with parallax error when your users are sitting on bus seats and your display is built into the bus window anyway?

by harvey9

4/6/2026 at 3:18:03 PM

The page is actively hostile to me using reader mode on my phone. It keeps resetting my scroll progress to the top of the article. This is the second time I’ve run into this (first was within the last two weeks).

I hope this is a bug in my phone’s handling of something and not intentional. Until I know otherwise, I’m treating sites where this happens as deliberately hostile for the same reason as always: ads. I use reader mode to escape ads that my ad blockers miss but also to avoid poor design or hard to read fonts and the like. My response is the same as ever: I closed the article.

by alsetmusic

4/6/2026 at 4:53:15 PM

think you got a bug my friend - this is a static site

by doctorhandshake

4/6/2026 at 5:49:38 PM

Thanks for confirming. I was confident the first time because many websites are hostile to users. Seeing it again within a short window made my spidey-sense tingle.

by alsetmusic

4/6/2026 at 1:06:17 PM

Who are they?

by for_i_in_range

4/6/2026 at 1:44:27 PM

I don't want to name what my quick Google search revealed, but if you search for augmented reality bus Beijing there aren't many options and it fits the authors characterization of their fleet consisting of ~20 buses.

by sva_

4/6/2026 at 1:15:34 PM

Which they? The contractor, the project owners, etc?

And is who they are relevant to the lesson (stealing time/effort is easy to get away with, you need to protect yourself from that)?

by dspillett

4/6/2026 at 1:46:17 PM

Article contains this:

> I’ll happily tell you who they are - get in touch

by firtoz

4/7/2026 at 11:12:08 AM

I don't think a message on HN classes as getting in touch. This may have been posted by someone else entirely, having seen it posted elsewhere.

In any case, if they don't want to publish the name on their own web page, they'll not want to publicly post it as a reply on HN either…

by dspillett

4/7/2026 at 8:47:38 AM

In atheist cultures with no concept of sin, people see obeying contracts as being sheep, it is in fact looked down upon. People will pay you only when they need something else from you, so solution is to frame a contract in a way they won't be able to make do without your final deliverable - and assume that final deliverable will never be paid, just price that in.

It's not a pleasure to work like this, but it can be done.

by anovikov

4/7/2026 at 10:37:43 AM

Dutch culture is primarily atheist, yet it's considered virtuous and goes-without-saying to uphold agreements . A common saying any child would have heard is "afspraak is afspraak": an agreement is an agreement, period. Atheist doesn't mean amoral or unreliable.

Individual businesses may be different, of course.

by oerdier

4/6/2026 at 2:20:59 PM

[flagged]

by avoidyc

4/7/2026 at 8:39:56 PM

This user is a serial troll who has been baiting HN and YC for years. He has over 500 such accounts. Obviously we ban them as we see them.

I'm adding this information because if I don't, some readers will assume we banned the account for sinister reasons. That, of course, is the whole point of this made-up story in the first place. It reminds me of the troll who created accounts with female-sounding names so that when we banned them, he could accuse us of sexism. Some people do this kind of thing.

by dang

4/6/2026 at 4:51:24 PM

> NEVER work for a YC founder.

I would generalize this to "don't work for someone whose ability to pay is based on a high-risk gamble".

There are certainly shady people who can pay but don't because they are greedy avaricious bastards. But there are also plenty of people who would like to pay but whose business venture fails and with it goes their funds.

In the author's story, they probably should have concluded fairly early on that a team that wildly incompetent was also unlikely to produce a product that satisfies their client. And if the client doesn't pay, no one gets paid.

by munificent

4/6/2026 at 8:55:03 PM

"I'll get you the money tomorrow. I'm heading down to the track to go get it."

by throwway120385

4/6/2026 at 6:51:54 PM

I'd say it's almost something of a rite of passage to get taken advantage of if you're young and working in tech startups. Usually this is in the form of abysmally low pay, along with "Sweat Equity":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweat_equity

Of course, the startup doesn't go anywhere, and your sweat equity never materializes, so you're left with just the pitiful pay.

I went through this in my late teens/early 20's, along with many friends.

by gavinray

4/6/2026 at 9:25:07 PM

I've been part of 2 startups, 2000 and 2005. In both cases, taking the "more salary and less stock" option worked out to my advantage.

by hn_acc1

4/7/2026 at 12:02:24 PM

We sound similar, I've had some adventures on AngelList. Made an absolute killing, back when that was possible.

My total lifetime "ate it" figure is only $2k, and even that one the client kind of eventually offered to pay, but I just let it be because I wanted to put as much distance between myself and them for other reasons.

Best advice in the article? "Trust your gut". If something feels vaguely off, I walk away immediately. I can see those non-paying incubators coming a mile away. Biggest indicator beyond gut: do they have existing contractors who seem happy? Ask them pointblank if they're getting paid. Easy as that. And of course, if they are paying you, but then stop paying you, or delay paying you, then stop work immediately.

Agree, YC founders are the worst type of person.

by thr0w

4/6/2026 at 8:03:41 PM

Back in 2015 I worked for a startup. I turned down a job at a more stable company because this startup had me doing Erlang and I really wanted to work with that.

The job worked fine for about six months, and then one week my paycheck (which usually was on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month) wasn't in my bank account. I go the CEO of the company and mention this and he said something like "Oh yeah, something got fucked up with payroll man, don't worry we'll give you a double paycheck next time, with interest man".

I was young enough in my career to just accept that, and so I waited two more weeks and again, no money in my checking account. I confront the CEO about this, and he says the payroll stuff is still fucked but don't worry man I got you, next paycheck will be a triple paycheck, and an extra two grand for everyone.

Two weeks later, the building's doors are locked, and none of us are able to get into the building. One of the other engineers called one of the investors and apparently the CEO "could not be found", and all of us were laid off on the spot.

This began one of the worst times in my life. I was already not the best at managing money, and because I had naively believed him about eventually getting all my backpay I hadn't been saving especially. I hadn't been conservative with my money, and I had gone a month and a half without a paycheck, and as such I was completely broke.

This led to a lot of terrible stuff happening; my landlord filed a lawsuit against me for back rent, my wife started having medical issues with her eye and we didn't have any insurance or money so we couldn't get it looked at, and I had to call a friend and beg him to loan me $400 to pay some bills and so I could get groceries. He's a very good friend, and he did help me out and I did eventually pay him back, but it was unbelievably depressing to me.

The part that sticks out to me was when I had to fly to Seattle for an interview with Amazon, and while they would happily reimburse everything for the trip, I realized that I didn't have enough money on my debit card to do the "pre-charge" thing that hotels do, and my credit card was maxed out. I was afraid that I was going to be stuck being homeless in Seattle for two days because of an interview that I knew I would not get, and I felt so bad that I let my life get this way. Fortunately in this case, I was able to call my mom once I got there, lied and said I "lost" my credit card and I was able to get her to call in a credit card to the hotel, so I wasn't homeless, but that didn't occur to me until about five minutes after I arrived at the hotel.

Eventually I was able to get my stepfather-in-law to loan us enough money to get my landlord to drop the lawsuit, and eventually I found the job at Jet.com, which was a great job that paid well and ended up being a huge stepping stone in my career and where I met a ton of ridiculously smart and cool people that I still chat with to this day.

I will never forgive that CEO for that period of my life. While it did end up working out, I still occasionally have nightmares about that time in my life, and how upset I was, and how I wouldn't wish that feeling of worthlessness on my worst enemy. In some senses I'm kind of grateful for the experience because it did really force me to grow up and learn how to take care of myself, but ultimately I still wish it hadn't happened.

This wasn't YC, but it was still a VC-funded megalomaniacal CEO, which is why this reminded me of it.

by tombert

4/7/2026 at 2:29:49 AM

During my MBA we were taught about the FedEx founding story [0].

The founder of FedEx got low on cash. So he took all the remaining cash (including what he owed in payroll) to Vegas and gambled it. And won, and paid his staff, and the rest is history.

We were taught that this was a great example of "entrepreneurial hustle". I was horrified.

How many founders copied this lesson? How many employees couldn't pay their mortgages because the CEO had learned the wrong lesson from this story?

This kind of nightmare irresponsibility needs to be punished, not glorified.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FedEx_Express: "However, the company began to experience financial difficulties, losing up to a million USD a month. While waiting for a flight home to Memphis from Chicago after being turned down for capital by General Dynamics, Smith impulsively hopped on a flight to Las Vegas, where he won $27,000 playing blackjack. The winnings enabled the cash-strapped company to meet payroll the following Monday. "

by marcus_holmes

4/7/2026 at 6:40:54 AM

The grifter that teaches this as a great example of "entrepreneurial hustle" as part of an MBA programme is the real hustler here.

by blitzar

4/7/2026 at 10:05:15 AM

It's actually unbelievable that this would be taught as anything but a cautionary tale of survivorship bias.

The FedEx founder got lucky. The countless others who tried a similar gamble didn't and unfortunately their story doesn't seem to be taught because "desperate founder gambled the employees salary and lost" just doesn't have the same ring.

by short_sells_poo

4/7/2026 at 3:36:19 AM

I've heard that story, though I always kind of thought it sounded like bullshit. Obviously I have no way to prove that, I guess I'm just usually skeptical of gamblers bragging about their big winnings.

But yeah, even if it is true, then it's hardly a good lesson. "CEO took all remaining money to Vegas" isn't exactly something to idolize.

by tombert

4/8/2026 at 6:54:42 AM

Seems to be true-ish:

> "The $27,000 wasn't decisive, but it was an omen that things would get better," Smith said about the gamble

> After his blackjack win, Smith was able to raise another $11 million, the magazine reported.

[1] https://www.foxbusiness.com/money/fred-smith-fedex-blackjack...

by limbero

4/7/2026 at 10:37:51 PM

27k isn't big winnings in the gambling world.

by qup

4/7/2026 at 10:10:35 AM

Why was your mom your last resort? And why did you lie to her?

Is this that American thing, where kids move to a different city at 18 and only visit their parents once a year for Thanksgiving?

I'm in pretty much daily contact with my parents and siblings. They always know what I'm up to, what my financial situation is, and they would be my first contact in case of any difficulties.

by meindnoch

4/7/2026 at 3:47:09 PM

Long story I don’t want to get into; suffice to say that while I am fairly close with my parents now, I was not at that particular time.

by tombert

4/7/2026 at 6:54:33 AM

Rough. Thanks for sharing that.

by Barbing

4/7/2026 at 12:18:10 AM

> and then one week my paycheck (which usually was on the second and fourth Wednesday of the month) wasn't in my bank account. I go the CEO of the company and mention this and he said something like "Oh yeah, something got fucked up with payroll man, don't worry we'll give you a double paycheck next time, with interest man".

> I was young enough in my career to just accept that

This reminded me of two much smaller-scale events from my personal life:

1. I engaged a Chinese tutor. After several weeks of lessons, one day I found that I had forgotten to bring my wallet to the lesson and couldn't pay her. I considered this a huge faux pas, but she treated it as a non-event, brushing it off with "no problem, just pay me next time". (Which I did. The inability to pay that week was just an accident on my part.)

2. Living in China, I arranged for someone I knew through a board game club to help me order an air purifier online. She would buy and receive the air purifier and then hand it over to me.

She notified me that she had received the air purifier and I went out to pick it up from her. We had a short conversation and I took it away. As I was riding home, I got a message from her: "It seems we both forgot the money."

So I offered that I could either come back right away to hand over the money, or give it to her the next time I saw her (presumably at a meeting of the club). She wanted me to come back right away.

I did, because obviously I have the obligation to pay for my thing. But in that case I was slightly hurt by the implied lack of trust.

---

The incident with the tutor occurred in a context where I had already built up some payment-related trust, so I can understand why things happened that way.

by thaumasiotes

4/7/2026 at 5:54:26 AM

Maybe she just needed the money. Paying later always has the risk that it will never going to happen. And she helped you, did she get anything in return?

by galaxyLogic

4/7/2026 at 8:02:43 AM

I baked her a pie about once a week.

by thaumasiotes

4/7/2026 at 12:39:58 AM

Yeah, an issue with startups, especially extremely small startups, is that you often become very close with everyone. This isn't inherently a bad thing, it's good to like your coworkers, and when the startup does well it's kind of fun to trade "war stories" after the fact.

The problem is that if/when the startup goes bust, it is a double whammy; not only do you lose your job, you feel betrayed by someone who has become a close friend.

I liked this CEO, he was a really nice guy (until he apparently ran away with money), and since he had become (what I thought was) a friend, I felt inclined to believe him when he deflected my questions about the paycheck. Obviously I was wrong to trust him, but I was in my early twenties and hadn't become the cynical old man that I am now (and that I am actively trying to fight against now).

I used to blame myself for being so naive and believing him, but I don't anymore; being trusting and assuming the best of people isn't a disability. The guy lied to me, he's at fault, I'm not at fault for trusting someone that I thought was a friend.

by tombert

4/7/2026 at 6:18:25 AM

Just happened with my dad, with one of his rental tenants. One of them lost his job (didn't get the job after the probation period), so he had booked a flight back home. Except because of the war in the Middle East, the flights were delayed constantly so he couldn't go back - and given that his flight was on a budget airline, it would take ages until normal operations resume (they still haven't resumed). The guy kept telling my father that he would pay once his ticket was booked, up until the very last minute when he revealed that he was broke and could not pay, burnt bridges and all. He incurred a significant expense after booking a flight with a non-discount carrier airline.

The irony was that had he revealed that he was broke from the start, my father wouldn't have minded as much about the rent (he has forgiven rent in such cases in far too many situations), but would have also helped him get the ticket for cheap.

by fakedang

4/7/2026 at 2:31:56 PM

[flagged]

by spoiledyckids

4/7/2026 at 2:30:18 PM

You're gonna lose that building, daddy's boy lol

by dangsabitch

4/7/2026 at 6:54:47 AM

[flagged]

by aaztehcy

4/6/2026 at 8:17:47 PM

[flagged]

by luckyyou

4/6/2026 at 8:23:07 PM

No argument that I was extremely fortunate to have the people I was able to reach out to and get help from. My friend, my mom (though she didn't actually spend any money in this case, just called in a credit card for the hotel prebill), and my stepfather-in-law made what would have been an extremely terrible situation to just a very terrible situation.

I'm sorry you don't feel like you get the help you need, though I think just based on this comment you would benefit from talking to a therapist. This isn't a dig, I see a therapist.

by tombert

4/6/2026 at 10:02:42 PM

[flagged]

by yeahookbro

4/6/2026 at 10:12:45 PM

Therapy is much more than just bitching about your problems, and I'm afraid that if you think that whining on Hacker News is going to do anything to help you, then you're either deluded or stupid.

I also don't know what "you types" means? My parents were super against therapy and wouldn't let me go to a therapist or psychiatrist. I sought it out when I was 26 years old.

by tombert

4/6/2026 at 10:37:18 PM

[flagged]

by lolforreal

4/6/2026 at 10:41:57 PM

I think what's sad is to find a long post about being ripped off by a startup and then using it extremely tangentially as an excuse to try and tell everyone to feel bad for you. "Woe is me, I would try to do something to improve my life but alas all I can muster is typing on a keyboard to a bunch of uncaring strangers on an internet forum full of software engineers."

I don't really know what I should be "aware" of; I stand by that you should consider seeing a therapist, because clearly you are dealing with some stuff that is far beyond the scope of what you're going to get on Hacker news.

I probably am mentally deprived in some way, but at least I'm self aware enough to actually try and improve my life instead of, you know, bitching about how the world is rigged against me.

Also, I find it telling and cowardly that you keep making throwaway accounts instead of owning your opinions. I can't say that I think you really stand by your convictions.

by tombert

4/6/2026 at 10:58:12 PM

[dead]

by tomtard

4/6/2026 at 11:05:26 PM

Gotta admit that I do like the name "tomtard", I might steal that.

Yes, I'm the idiot in this conversation. Clearly the pinnacle of intelligence is someone going on Hacker News and interjecting a weird thing about how no one cares about them and how the world is rigged against them.

The problem is that I'm so stupid that I didn't realize the immense genius of such a maneuver, and as such the shear magnitude and girth of your intelligence went over my tiny head. Some day I hope to have even 1% of your giant brain and maybe then I will have the intelligence to bitch to strangers about how the world hates me and that therapy is stupid, but alas I fear I am not ready for that yet.

Oh by the way, it's still cowardly to keep making throwaway accounts because you're too much of a wuss to actually own what you say.

by tombert

4/6/2026 at 11:22:05 PM

It is rigged, and everyone knows it.

Ivy League is supposed to be the “pinnacle of intelligence” but it produces only fraudsters and hacks.

Talentless idiot retards like yourself who can’t wipe their own ass without their mommy.

by yallknowme

4/6/2026 at 11:32:54 PM

I didn't go to an Ivy League school. I was a college dropout (dropping out from a perfectly-fine-but-not-remarkable state school) for the first decade of my career, and my degree now is from WGU, hardly some elite fancy school.

I assure you I can wipe my own ass without my mom's help, and I haven't needed any financial help since that episode where I asked her to call in a credit card so they could do the pre-bill at the hotel, which again didn't actually cost any money.

You are really stretching this because you really want to be a victim and you really want to paint me into some yuppie trust fund kid, when that simply isn't the case. Sorry, life is more complicated than stereotypes you saw on television as a child.

Everyone knows it's rigged, but the amazing part from your comments is that it's rigged specifically against you. You said as much in your first reply. That's amazing. You're a very special person, the entire world has conspired to specifically make your life bad.

I may be an idiot, but at least I'm not a coward like yourself.

by tombert

4/7/2026 at 12:30:13 AM

> systemic financial inequality doesn't exist, people just like being victims

Ok well then I hope your house is burned down in riots and then your family are killed before your eyes, and then I'll just say you want to be a victim since that's the natural response to attitudes like yours

Literally won't even care when it happens, because I'll remember how you thought about it

by thereitisfolks

4/7/2026 at 12:54:09 AM

I didn't say that systemic equality didn't exist. Of course it does, you can feel free to go through my post history if you want to see where I've argued that very point in the past. There's a million reasons why there exists inequality, like race, religion, ethnicity, and of course poverty. Obviously things should be done to help with that.

You said, and this is a quote, "don’t know anyone else in the world except for me who doesn’t have any help" which seems to suggest that you are being singled out.

I have no idea about your life and frankly I don't really care. You derailed something in order to complain about how the world hates you, and bizarrely tried to make me feel bad for being able to call my mother to call in a credit number for a hotel pre-bill, and it sure seems like you're trying to make yourself seem like a victim.

If you had your house burned down in a riot and had your family killed before your eyes, then I think you should see a therapist instead of fishing for...whatever the hell it is you're fishing for on Hacker News.

by tombert

4/7/2026 at 2:25:32 AM

don't know anyone else != they don't exist

by peanutgallery33

4/6/2026 at 8:24:05 PM

May I ask why did you take the L in the end?

by livinglist

4/6/2026 at 9:59:21 PM

He kept using the work product and brand assets for a while, I sent a follow-up email later saying there would be legal action if he didn’t stop using them since he didn’t pay for them.

He left the site up for years but became the CEO of another startup, and the emails started bouncing at the other one.

Advice I got was basically there is not shit I can do, I was a contractor (1099) and even if I had been W2 and had payroll protections the company no longer exists.

It’s very easy to re-brand and start anew in fact that’s what I was helping him do from the last time.

by cantwin

4/7/2026 at 10:19:03 AM

[dead]

by NeoBild

4/6/2026 at 10:31:48 PM

[dead]

by nightrate_ai

4/6/2026 at 2:40:58 PM

Back in my younger days I found a bunch of liberals who were claiming to run a software company. They were really into the social justice BS.

After about a month of employment, I was told I was being rude to ask for payment. Apparently they neglected to tell me that they actually only pay their employees 60 to 70 days after they start.

Of course the first red flag was them doing the 1099 dance for slightly above minimum wage. I had been forced to do that before, but guess what. They paid us every single week.

Quiting without notice was one of the greatest feelings with these clowns. By this time they had started to ask me to literally work for free. "Unpaid training". They stopped scheduling me for paid hours anyway, so no notice needed.

Right after that I worked for some conservatives. They paid me early. My first year I got a large raise.

There were some awkward moments like the CEO telling me who to vote for. But for the most part it was awesome.

I still consider myself to be very liberal, but I don't want to work anywhere that does a lot of virtue signaling. Your beliefs don't make you a good person, your actions do.

by 999900000999

4/6/2026 at 2:54:18 PM

You realize that your anecdote here is itself virtue signaling, right?

Because, I’m sure multiple people here could tell similar stories with the political leanings of the groups involved reversed.

by bena

4/6/2026 at 7:52:28 PM

I'm an individual. I can have beliefs.

Corporations, can not. I've been though this twice. If they're doing press releases about how liberal they are, it's probably not a good fit.

Now that I'm old and jaded, I want politics out of my workplace.

by 999900000999

4/7/2026 at 1:48:48 AM

[dead]

by s5300

4/6/2026 at 3:56:20 PM

A bunch of liberals got into my walls and started chewing the wires.

by add-sub-mul-div