If you have any friends who work in the arts, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard stories from them about getting screwed over when it comes to getting paid from time to time.

And it’s so lame!

But it happens more often they you’d think.

A photographer shared a story about how they evened the score when a client wanted to stiff them for some work they did.

Read on to see what they did!

Don’t want to pay me for my work? Let me remind you of our contract terms.

“So back in the day, I worked as a commercial photographer.

Most of my clients were great, but a few liked to drag payment out or think they could just not pay me because they were a big company and I was just one guy.

I had one assignment where I delivered about two dozen images of models with their products. It was a pretty big deal for me. At every step of the way, they expressed their delight with all of the images I delivered.

They’d paid me 1/3 up front and after delivering the images, I billed them for the balance. And I waited and waited and waited. Nothing. Every time I called, I got some excuse until they just stopped answering my calls.

Then it happened. They published the images and in ways that went beyond what our licensing agreement had covered. So not only had they not paid me for the usage we’d agreed to, they’d used the images in ways that went well beyond what we’d agreed to. They still weren’t answering or returning my calls.

OK, they wanna f**k around, they’re gonna find out. So one of the things in my standard licensing agreement is a condition that says, “ licensing is contingent upon payment in full”. So by not paying me, all of their usage is considered infringement, not just the usage outside of our agreement terms.

One thing I did when setting up my business is establish a good relationship with a lawyer. It helps that my cousin is a lawyer with good friends. So I call my lawyer and detail everything that’s gone down. He sends them a letter letting them know we intend to sue for infringement since the images were never licensed, and that the penalty is like $150k per image and block their use of the images altogether.

I know they got the letter because they called me freaking out. Offering excuses “we were in the process of paying you”. It’s been 3 months past the due date.

Accusing me of poisoning our working relationship. If you wanted a good relationship, you would have stuck by our original agreement and paid me. I ended the call by telling them they needed to deal with my lawyer.

They must have consulted with their own lawyer who evidently told them just how f**ked they’d be if they went to court over this. In the end, I settled for less than what I asked for in the initial demand, but it was far more than if they’d just paid me and negotiated for the additional usage.”

Let’s see what people had to say about this.

This person thinks this photographer hit the nail on the head.

Another Reddit user shared some good advice their father gave them.

And one person talked about what happened when someone tried to stiff their husband.

Imagine having to pay THAT much because you used ONE image. Wow!