people who don’t pay up

Every now and then it happens – someone stiffs you after you do a lot of work for them. For me, the person was Will Nickson, from the Logic Group (www.thelogicgroup.co.uk and www.thelogicgroup.net).
This was a huge shame, as the work I did for him was Footprint Travel books. After apparently not liking the first design, I did a second that they liked a lot. Then I neard nothing for a long long time. One day I had a look at the site, and lo and behold – my first design was now being used. Absolutely code for code, image for image. (For what I’d done, they’d obviously had to code all the pages from the templates that I provided, and thus add new page images!)
I was very pleased. But not a word from Will Nickson.
In the meantime, of course – I’d gone on to do more work for him. I’d done an online advent calendar for TSB Lloyds Bank, and I’d done some designs for his own website. I think that’s were the relationship fell through. He loved the first design I did, but wanted to change some details. After tweaking it into different versions, he no longer liked it. But instead of behaving professionally, and sitting down to discuss this, he began to complain that I wasn’t fulfilling his requirements, that my work was substandard, and that my prices had gone up.
He failed to understand that time spent on his changes, and interpreting his open (read that – missing) brief make this a more involved design job.
We came to a compromise – or I thought we did. I created some simple headers along the lines of something he’d mocked up for him to use.
He never replied to me again.
And neither did he pay for any of the three jobs. And yes, I chased him with emails. I left messages on his phone (it appears that the company phone number was just his own phone – one man band?)
Will Nickson, consider yourself named and shamed. I will happily remove this page on receipt of payment however!
[update]
I have recently been contacted by someone who was also cheated by Will Nickson, and to a much larger degree than I was. He described him to me as the most “lying, vicious, manipulative thief” that he had ever had the misfortune to meet.
[update]
I’ve now been contacted by three people who have done work for Will Nickson that they’ve not been paid for. It’s astounding that he’s actually still working for anyone! Neither of this websites have anything on them anymore.
So if you’re thinking of working with or for Will Nickson, or if you’re thinking of getting him to work for you, then I urge you to reconsider. You don’t want to get your fingers burnt and end up out of pocket.
[and yet another update]
I’ve now been contacted by a further 2 people who were thinking of working with Will Nickson. Both decided not to give him their business after talking to me.
[2009 update]
Will Nickson is now part of a new company called Binary Studios – binarystudios.co.uk – I’d avoid them, personally. Of course, it may not actually be a “them” – it could just be another one man band.