People who are self-employed or do contract work know that for every bunch upstanding, paying clients, you’re going to encounter a handful of less than savory ones.

OP used to build websites as a side gig, and says she was pretty good at it.

At university, I designed websites to make some extra cash and pay for tuition / rent etc.

I got pretty good at it, and had a great network of clients around London (UK).

Then one day she was asked to build a website for a woman who was an interior designer – even if her only clients were friends and she and her kids lived off her husband’s considerable income.

One day, I was introduced to a lady (we’ll call her Debbie) who ran an “interior design” agency in West London. I put the speech marks there because all of her clients were her friends, or friends of her husband.

She was extremely wealthy, lived in a house on one of the most expensive streets in London, and had a chauffeur on call. All of her money derived from her husband, who seemed very sketchy.

She also had these two sons who just sat around the house all day smoking weed despite being in their late 20s.

OP did as asked, but the woman claimed to not be satisfied and refused to pay.

Anyway, I designed a website for her which she was very pleased with.

Her exact brief was: “I want this website to show the best interior design service in London”.

I quoted the price, she agreed and I built it, but then when it came time to pay she suddenly started complaining that the website wasn’t quite right (despite being live and generating lots more traffic than before).

She refused to pay, and stopped answering my calls.

So, OP directed all of the web traffic to her competitor and rival.

What she didn’t realise was that I owned the domain name and could legally do whatever I wanted with it.

So I redirected it to her closest competitor, a nearby interior design agency run by a rival of hers she hated.

She called then, and despite lots of blustering, eventually paid up.

Within 6 hours I got a phone call from her going ballistic that her website was “broken” and that it had to be fixed ASAP.

I explained that I couldn’t really do anything, but vaguely suggested that if she stumped up some cash then maybe I could do something.

I won’t repeat the names she called me – but the next morning my account was credited with the money.

OP never did get around to changing anything, though…

I never bothered to change the domain back, and blocked her number after that.

The site is still live to this day.

Did she go too far? I wonder if Reddit thinks so!

Why is this a thing, though?

Apparently it’s a trick of the trade.

You do what you gotta do to get by, right?

Though they say sometimes it’s best not to anger sketchy folks.

And this person is cackling at the evilness of it all.

This is stone-cold.

You get what you pay for, lady.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.