Client Won't Pay For Domain Names

[Toms-Biz]

I have a client that transferred domain names to me a few years ago and I have since renewed them as they requested.

However, they refuse to pay for the domain name renewals which I have paid for.

Could I sell the domain names to another company?

 

[Faevilangel]

Tell him you will be taking the websites offline within 7 days if he doesn't pay up.

I would assume you told him when you moved the domains that he would be paying you for the renewal fees when due.

You would need a contract to enforce this.

I don't get involved for that reason, I let the domain registrars do the hard work of taking payments.

 

[Toms-Biz]

Tell him you will be taking the websites offline within 7 days if he doesn't pay up.

I would assume you told him when you moved the domains that he would be paying you for the renewal fees when due.

You would need a contract to enforce this.

I don't get involved for that reason, I let the domain registrars do the hard work of taking payments.

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

 

[saxondale]

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

what about the loss of your own business?


but do it the correct legal way, someone who knows how will be along soon.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

How can the sue you provide a service and if they stop paying and after giving them fair warning, you stop the service, just like rackspace or at the other end fasthosts

 

[Faevilangel]

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

So they want their hosting and domains for free?

Speak to GRD Credit on here, get him to send them an invoice which states they have 7 days to pay our you will take their hosting down.

 

[Dwebs-Ltd]

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

If they don't pay the invoice you can pull the plug. Send a final notice which clearly states if payment is not received by [date] the account will be terminated.

 

[eshopwiz]

yeah, just drop them. Make sure you send them a few emails first tho and keep all the documentation safe

 

[arfurd]

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

Let's just say for arguments sake, if your hosting provider has an issue with the server (downtime) will they sue you then?

They cannot sue you, and they need to pay.

 

[harryboon]

Look the best way is to send them a letter stating that they owe you X amount and that if the account is not settled within 5 working days that the site will be taken down.

Are the domain names in your name?

ps. they can't sue you for loss of business, it's a bit like me not paying my mortgage then suing the bank for making me homeless once I have been kicked out - its just plain silly

Get on it and sort it out, they are taking the.....

They also owe me for hosting and they say that if I take their website down then they will sue me for loss of business.

 

[kulture]

I suspect that they will probably also ask the solicitor to sue you free of charge and request that you pay the court fees! Come on, write a final notice, send it recorded delivery and if they don't pay switch them off.

 

[Geoff T]

I agree with previous here OP... non-payment should be a standard reason to pull the plug... check your t's n c's to make sure, then go after them... simples...

GRD can help check that your terms cover you to do this, and to chase them up for you if you're not comfortable doing it yourself...

HTH

 

[Toms-Biz]

They are now offering to pay for the hosting in the future but not what they owe me.

They owe me for domain name renewals and are refusing to pay for them, therefore could I sell the domain names?

I have the domain names under my registration account so I have control of them, and I have been paying for the renewals.

If so, is there a good website where I can advertise the domains for sale without taking the existing website down?

 

[Geoff T]

Give them notice of your intention first... you might see more money after that than they're talking about now...

 

[Chris Ashdown]

They are now offering to pay for the hosting in the future but not what they owe me.

They owe me for domain name renewals and are refusing to pay for them, therefore could I sell the domain names?

I have the domain names under my registration account so I have control of them, and I have been paying for the renewals.

If so, is there a good website where I can advertise the domains for sale without taking the existing website down?

I dont think you would be wise to sell them as although you brought them it was presumably under the customers request, I would just pull the site untill all payments received and also invoice a extra £100 for time spent (X Hours at £25.00 per hour)collecting overdue money

 

[Jenni384]

They are now offering to pay for the hosting in the future but not what they owe me.

They owe me for domain name renewals and are refusing to pay for them, therefore could I sell the domain names?

I have the domain names under my registration account so I have control of them, and I have been paying for the renewals.

If so, is there a good website where I can advertise the domains for sale without taking the existing website down?

I would give them clear notice that if they don't pay what they owe within 7 days, you will take their sites down. Also state that any monies received will be offset against the oldest invoices first.

If they don't pay up, take the sites down. They can't sue you for loss of business if you have a clear paper trail of asking them to pay for your service (you don't walk out of tescos and say you'll pay for that donut later!)

If there are any disputes other than money, make sure they are dealt with in writing too.

Don't waste your time or effort trying to sell the domains, you will probably cause more hassle. Just let him pay up, or let them expire.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

They are now offering to pay for the hosting in the future but not what they owe me.

They owe me for domain name renewals and are refusing to pay for them,

For a few years, you've been paying for their domain renewals out of your own pocket?

Why?

Could this have led them to believe this is part of the service?

And now you're asking for this money from them going back a few years?

Is it any surprise that this doesn't sit well with them.

Also, what about the hosting? Why haven't they been paying that? When did they stop paying? Do they think you're giving away hosting for free?

This is all very strange.

How did they become hosting customers in the first place?

If so, is there a good website where I can advertise the domains for sale without taking the existing website down?

That would be a spectacularly stupid thing to do. Don't even think about it.

Steve

 

[Toms-Biz]

I designed the website for the company and they paid me separately for the hosting and domain registrations. These things were listed separately on invoices including how long the hosting period was for.

They have since refused to pay for the following invoices for hosting and for the domain renewals. Now they say they will only pay for hosting as from now. That leaves a gap where they haven't paid.

They also owe me for some extra work I did for them. There has never been any complaint about the work, in fact they want me to do some more. I have told them I will only consider more work for them once they have paid what they already owe me.

I have also said that they need to pay what they owe me for hosting else the hosting won't be renewed. Their solicitor has been on the phone today going mental at me threatening to sue me for loss of business if I don't renew the hosting. I explained that I am not liable because they have failed to pay for the hosting so its their own fault if it isn't renewed.

I am giving them a few more days so that their solicitor can go back to them, but this has been going on for months.

 

[dedwardp]

I designed the website for the company and they paid me separately for the hosting and domain registrations. These things were listed separately on invoices including how long the hosting period was for.

They have since refused to pay for the following invoices for hosting and for the domain renewals. Now they say they will only pay for hosting as from now. That leaves a gap where they haven't paid.

They also owe me for some extra work I did for them. There has never been any complaint about the work, in fact they want me to do some more. I have told them I will only consider more work for them once they have paid what they already owe me.

I have also said that they need to pay what they owe me for hosting else the hosting won't be renewed. Their solicitor has been on the phone today going mental at me threatening to sue me for loss of business if I don't renew the hosting. I explained that I am not liable because they have failed to pay for the hosting so its their own fault if it isn't renewed.

I am giving them a few more days so that their solicitor can go back to them, but this has been going on for months.

I wouldn't even bother with that - it isn't worth the resulting hassle if they will simply be like this.

 

They are now offering to pay for the hosting in the future but not what they owe me.

They owe me for domain name renewals and are refusing to pay for them, therefore could I sell the domain names?

I have the domain names under my registration account so I have control of them, and I have been paying for the renewals.

If so, is there a good website where I can advertise the domains for sale without taking the existing website down?

These people must be monumentally stupid to risk loosing a source of income for a few quid.

Give me a shout if and when you want to sell them.

Earl

 

[Toms-Biz]

I would give them clear notice that if they don't pay what they owe within 7 days, you will take their sites down. Also state that any monies received will be offset against the oldest invoices first.

If they don't pay up, take the sites down. They can't sue you for loss of business if you have a clear paper trail of asking them to pay for your service (you don't walk out of tescos and say you'll pay for that donut later!)

If there are any disputes other than money, make sure they are dealt with in writing too.

Don't waste your time or effort trying to sell the domains, you will probably cause more hassle. Just let him pay up, or let them expire.

That is a very good idea.

 

[saxondale]

......... Their solicitor .........

I`ll bet it wasn`t!

 

[Toms-Biz]

These people must be monumentally stupid to risk loosing a source of income for a few quid.

Give me a shout if and when you want to sell them.

Earl

Yes, they are incredibly stupid because the website does hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of sales per year.

The domain names are shown on adverts in newspapers and magazines, printed on bags, on vehicles, in brochures, hundreds or websites link to it etc. etc. It is astonishing that they have not even paid for the domain name renewals.

 

Yes, they are incredibly stupid because the website does hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of sales per year.

The domain names are shown on adverts in newspapers and magazines, printed on bags, on vehicles, in brochures, hundreds or websites link to it etc. etc. It is astonishing that they have not even paid for the domain name renewals.

Take the site down you are the legal owner of the domain.

You may come out of this quite well.

Earl

 

[Toms-Biz]

I`ll bet it wasn`t!

It was genuine. I've had letters and emails from them too threatening me should I take the website down.

The company that owes me the money is quite a big company. The MD is a loose cannon (putting it politely) that is often making threats to people, and he throws his toys out of the pram when he does not get his own way. He will continue with something no matter how much it defies logic.

 

[saxondale]

It was genuine. I've had letters and emails from them too threatening me should I take the website down.

The company that owes me the money is quite a big company. The MD is a loose cannon (putting it politely) that is often making threats to people, and he throws his toys out of the pram when he does not get his own way. He will continue with something no matter how much it defies logic.

tom, take my advice, your not tough enough to deal with this (non intended)

put all the info about this customer in a box and walk away from it.


let the sites lapse, it isnt your responsibilty or problem ignore any more letters (or phone calls) and put it down to experiance



just for the record how much are we talking about?

 

[Toms-Biz]

tom, take my advice, your not tough enough to deal with this (non intended)

put all the info about this customer in a box and walk away from it.


let the sites lapse, it isnt your responsibilty or problem ignore any more letters (or phone calls) and put it down to experiance


just for the record how much are we talking about?

The secure server certificate runs out at the end of the month (they owe me for that too) and they will need me to renew it...

They owe me about 5K in total including work I've done for them.

 

[saxondale]

The secure server certificate runs out at the end of the month (they owe me for that too) and they will need me to renew it...

They owe me about 5K in total including work I've done for them.

and trust me, you will be too scared not to renew that for them.



you mentioned extra work but how much is the hosting and domain registering debt at cost?





.

 

[Toms-Biz]

and trust me, you will be too scared not to renew that for them.

you mentioned extra work but how much is the hosting and domain registering debt at cost?

.

I was charging them pretty much at cost as I wasn't interested in making anything from hosting.

Why should I be too scared not to renew the SSC if they haven't paid for it?

 

[paulears]

It does strike me that if they are this waspy, then if your site ever goes down for technical, genuine reasons, from now on, they will think you are doing it on purpose. So, after seeing how they threaten you with legal action for this matter, just imagine what they'll do if it ever suffers a technical problem.

I guess it really boils down to your 'need' for this client. Do you need his business or not. If they owe you 5K, but you make 50K annually from their business, then the 5K could just be additional 'discount', but if the 5K is a real loss, then it's a no-brainer. Dump them.

I suspect that you might not be able to sell the domain. I have one sitting empty that has a well known brand in the name. It's my domain registration, but if I tried to actually use it, I suspect they would object strongly, and as the brand name is theirs, it would be difficult to use.

 

[saxondale]

Why should I be too scared not to renew the SSC if they haven't paid for it?

but how long have they not paid for the hosting and thats still live?




get one of the legal guys to draft you a letter (somone must feel as sorry for you as I do)

send it to the client

let another guy from here collect the monies outstanding on your behalf and split it 50/50

 

[directmarketingadvice]

I designed the website for the company

As I suspected.

They have since refused to pay for the following invoices for hosting and for the domain renewals.

And what reason did they give?

They also owe me for some extra work I did for them. There has never been any complaint about the work, in fact they want me to do some more.

This story makes no sense to me.

They've owed you money for years and you're still giving them stuff?

There must be another side to this story. What are they saying?

Steve

 

[Toms-Biz]

They owe me about 5K and the extra work on offer is worth about another 5K.

This goes back to when they offered me a job contract to work for them. I asked for a few days to consider it so that I could get a solicitor to look at the contract before deciding whether or not to sign it.

However, before I'd even had a chance to see a solicitor the company contacted me to say they wouldn't pay me what they owe me, but they would pay me to work for them on the contract.

When I read through the contract it said that I was tied to them for x length of time, but they could get rid of me at any time they wanted without notice or reason.

I didn't want to be tied to that, so I politely asked for all invoices to be paid up to date, and they refused to pay them.

Whilst still refusing to pay what they owed, they offered me some money to do extra work for them for a set fee providing it was done before a deadline. There was no way it could be done before the deadline, and they already owed me money which they were refusing to pay, so I declined it.

They have since offered another contract for some work but this says that they will pay me what they owe me but nothing for the extra work.

Whichever way they twist it, it still means that they are only paying me 5k instead of what should be 10k.

There is actually more than one website involved. I told them I wouldn't renew the hosting (which was due 2 days later) for it unless they paid what they owe for that website. Their solicitor went crazy at me on the phone but I stuck to my guns and they paid it.

Now they are saying that they will only pay the rest of what they owe me if I sign this contract, they won't pay me for doing extra work, but they are willing to pay for future hosting. Again, I'd only get just over 5K instead of 10k.

I have seen a solicitor and he says not to sign the contract and that I should demand payment for the rest of what they owe me. He says that it seems like the company is blackmailing me.

However, I have now given the company a quote for the extra work for about £5k, and said I'm not doing anything until they have paid me the 5k they already owe and I want paying in advance for the extra work.

Their solicitor called me today and he wasn't happy with the cost of the quote. He was trying to get the cost of it down but he knows nothing about IT. I said fine, I won't do the extra work and I want paying the rest of what I'm owed, or the other websites hosting won't be renewed. Their solicitor is getting back to me in the next few days...

 

[saxondale]

I want a "solicitor" who does business over the phone!!


your not going to get any more money from these people, set the legal ball rolling.

 

[Mpg]

I've been to County court a few times now. And I'd like to believe any district judge would (providing your story is accurate) decide in your favour. It sounds like these guys are trying to screw you over and dangling a big carrot which I also believe you will never see.



@saxondale. I'd like a solicitor that would not only deal over the phone but would also try to negotiate a better price for my supplies. And if he can do accounts and marketing too that would be a bonus

 

[saxondale]

@saxondale. I'd like a solicitor that would not only deal over the phone but would also try to negotiate a better price for my supplies. And if he can do accounts and marketing too that would be a bonus

I`ll bet the "solicitor" just happens to be female.

 

[directmarketingadvice]

Whilst still refusing to pay what they owed

You're still not explaining why.

Did they say "**** you, you're not getting the money"? Or did they give a reason why they think they don't owe you it?

Steve

 

[Toms-Biz]

You're still not explaining why.

Did they say "**** you, you're not getting the money"? Or did they give a reason why they think they don't owe you it?

Steve

They were flatly refusing to pay the invoices without giving a reason, but now they are claiming that they paid for them as part of other unrelated work I did for them - which is complete nonsense. I can show that they paid for hosting completely separate from my other work for them because I still have the previous hosting invoices and records of payment they made.

Only a few weeks before this kicked-off, the right-hand man told me that the MD has used despicable means in disputes which would get the MD in a lot of serious legal trouble if he ever spilled the beans. I also know they have tried to make things difficult for people who are due to retire so that they will leave early with less of a pension.

 

[sjdev]

They were flatly refusing to pay the invoices without giving a reason, but now they are claiming that they paid for them as part of other unrelated work I did for them - which is complete nonsense. I can show that they paid for hosting completely separate from my other work for them because I still have the previous hosting invoices and records of payment they made.

Only a few weeks before this kicked-off, the right-hand man told me that the MD has used despicable means in disputes which would get the MD in a lot of serious legal trouble if he ever spilled the beans. I also know they have tried to make things difficult for people who are due to retire so that they will leave early with less of a pension.

I'd just go to the small claims court, and not work for them again. Seem too dodgy.

 

[NPEXCWW]

Tell him you will be taking the websites offline within 7 days if he doesn't pay up.

I would assume you told him when you moved the domains that he would be paying you for the renewal fees when due.

You would need a contract to enforce this.

I don't get involved for that reason, I let the domain registrars do the hard work of taking payments.

I have created a basic website for my freight forwarding company just really showing the services offered. I now want to take it to the next level and create a customer suite for my customers to log in to and see all the information on shipments they have sent individually. Another request i have to find a way of adding forms to the site so i can pull the information from the forms into a database / list or a document that my customer can print. Do you have any ideas of a cost effective way of doing this?