This is what happens when you don’t pay your clients, folks!

So let this story be a warning to any business owner who’s thinking about not paying up…

Read on and find out what happened!

I was told this belongs here. They got what they asked for.

““Here’s 33% of your website. You’re welcome.”

I had a trophy-wife-client who had a frozen yogurt business paid for by her husband. They contacted me and asked me to design and build a new website for her business.

I gave them a quote and they asked if they could pay in three installments. After we all agreed to the terms, I had written approval and I received my 33% deposit, I got cracking.

What happened here…?

We had regular check-ins and they were happy with the progress until one day they just went quiet. They were already behind on the second payment and I was growing impatient.

I was done with the site and just needed final approval and payment before launching it but I couldn’t get hold of either of them. I eventually got ahold of the lady at her day job after weeks of being ghosted.

What?!?!

She calmly told me that they found someone cheaper and that they won’t be paying the remaining 66% even though the project was complete and all their feedback was addressed.

She told me that I could just give her 33% the files and move on with my life. I made it clear that websites don’t really work if you only upload 33% of the files, sarcastically, at which point she hung up the phone.

They weren’t about to let this slide.

I still had their FP details for their brand domain that housed their current (old) website, so I decided to take revenge.

I created a page with an animated, fake loading bar that was stuck at 33%.

LOL.

Underneath the loading bar was the message: “This company does not pay their suppliers. They decided to pay only a third of the price so now they have only a third of a website.”

I went as far as to download the website files, split it up in roughly three portions (file size), and upload a zip folder containing a third of the files to the FTP folder. This way I actually gave them the 33% they paid for and I could show the file size

to prove it.

I also permanently deleted the old site’s files from the folder so they couldn’t restore from a backup. Not that they’d have a clue how to do that.

They threatened to sue me, I’m still waiting…”

Let’s see what folks had to say on Reddit.

This person spoke up.

Another individual shared their thoughts.

This reader chimed in.

Another Reddit user has been there.

And this reader offered some advice.

Pay the people who do work for you…or else…

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.