If you provide a service for a company you should get paid for the work you have provided that is in their possession and was agreed on. Fair is fair.

If the company doesn't like your work then they have a right not to continue to work with you. Not keep assigning projects with the pretense of paying.

The woman I signed up with to do website work (Artsyheart.com & Artsygreen.com) stiffed her prior website designer. I did not know this at first. Just that they both parted ways because they couldn't work together. Said she her previous designer made false accusations. So she didn't pay her. In fact, she admitted to me she still owed her $300 but this was after I started working for her. Everything seem fine at first except for the phone calls all hours of the day, and the one million emails. When I didn't answer right away she would leave me a dozen more emails and phone calls.

Now, a big misconception we web designers have is that we're supposed to be an expert in all programming languages, graphics design, marketing, as well as psycho analysts etc. True we all possess a varied array of technical skills but I for one do my best to let the client know where my strengths and weaknesses fall and adjust the pay rate accordingly. This woman hired me for a project and then about a week or two later started telling me how long certain tasks of my job should take. She was not my only client and yes I charged her for on the phone meeting calls. That's when she started to tell me how to do my job. Oh, that's right I forgot that she has a degree in computer science and can do my job with her eyes closed. What on earth was I thinking???

KM (the client) is an older woman so I bit my tongue, put up with the calls and emails and truly did my best to appease her. She would call me up all hours of the day/night wanting me to change or delete passwords. Telling me stories that her co-partners had stolen her idea and started their own websites. She didn't want anyone, not even the freelance web designers we brought on to have access to her site. She would often end up changing and forgetting passwords then get frantic because she couldn't log on. On top of that she was extremely judgmental. God forbid you give her advise on her layout etc. Plan on a million revisions followed by telephone and email responses. She complained about everyone, even her own daughters. Although the site was not completed she hired her daughter to work on it only to complain that she paid her an annual salary for nothing... She blames her previous web designer for not having the site completed. Of course, who else's fault would it be. Not her of course.

This has been the most difficult, unsatisfying, regretful project I have taken on. KM stiffed me out of the last project I worked on by changing the password... Hmmm like I didn't see that one coming. I put together a Godaddy's email marketing newsletter. It was not displaying right across all browsers so she takes it out on me and rants about I don't know what I'm doing and refuses to pay me for the upfront portion we agreed on. Anyway for all of you web designers out there my advise to you is "Proceed with caution" and get ready for a ride to hell and back. Good riddance to you KM. My life is so much more peaceful now that you're not trying to control every minute with your million revisions and waste of time phone calls.

Below is a copy of the mock up supplied by the client, KM and my first draft which I completed and she claims I did a poor job on.