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PhilLenoir wrote: Removing something to the value of what you are owed, especially if you provided it, is almost certainly not illegal per se (that comes under a legal concept of "self-help")
The problem that I see with this is that if the OP wrote the software but the owner added the data, then it WOULD be taking something that isn't yours. It's one thing to take back the code that you wrote...but if you are damaging the data and/or stealing data...that just feels like something completely different, to me. Just because your code organized and setup the data doesn't make it yours.
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True, but self-help is not actually limited to what you provided. Let's look at an analogy: I buy a car on credit and don't make my payments I filled the car with gas and the credit company repossesses the car. The value of the car, including the value of the gas may be more than the residual on the loan agreement. In such a case, if I don't pay up and get my car (and gas) released, the loan company can sell the car, take off the residual and reasonable costs and return the difference to me (the analogy might fall down a bit here as I've probably lost the gas). In any case, I could probably sue to get my gas back! 
If the OP does seize the database he should offer to strip it of data and even return the data, in say CSV format, or return the thing intact after his damages have been addressed.
A good example in Ontario, Canada, there's a law that demonstrates this principle. It's the "Roaming at Large Act". If you own an animal that strays on to my property and does some damage, I am entitled to seize the animal. After giving notice (2 days is required), if you have not compensated me for the damage (plus any additional expense), I can sell the animal, returning any difference to you (or sue for a shortfall). I know this because my neighbour's cattle demolished our shared fence and rampaged on my lot. I didn't seize them, but I did research the law and sent him a robust notice!
Life is like a s**t sandwich; the more bread you have, the less s**t you eat.
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Interesting thoughts...although in your analogy a tank of gas is pretty negligible compared to the cost of the entire car. That isn't always the case with data. And especially if that data contained personal information of customers. How much is that worth? And that data is "owned" by the company but there is also a customer who has a vested interest in who has that data and what is done with it. That seems much more complicated to me.
I guess I approached it more from the view point of...I was a customer and gave that guy my data trusting him to not sell it to low life marketers. Now that guy didn't pay his bills and his angry IT took my data. Is that guy going to sell my data? Does that guy have the needed security to ensure that it isn't also stolen from him? If I start getting robo calls, I'm going to be pissed. And all I can do is hope that karma catches up with him.
Anyway...just my thoughts.
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Do not damage the system.
All contacts should be logged.
Use Registered mail if possible.
If he still own you money, then send a "dunning" asking to be paid according to the contract you both signed.
If All fails, you can either let it go (couple of weeks with no pay is not fun, but cut your losses); or hire a lawyer ($$$ and time and frustration).
I'd rather be phishing!
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zephaneas wrote: $hitty
I don't know what that word is ... but I have an opinion about what your next move should be.
Certified U.S. Postal letter with return address and signature required.
End of discussion. Any other "move" or bicep stiffening transcendentalism on the part of you as the legal contractor would warrant legal action on his behalf.
(I smell a subpoena ...)
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There are too many "holes" in this story for me to have any "deep thoughts:"
1. you have not disclosed up-front many details of the situation, but have revealed them only gradually as people here have responded to you.
2. still unknown:
a. do you have a signed written contract: if you do, who with, person, or company ? If you do, what are the relevant terms of that contract ?
b. what do the people you say you at the company when you call: do you ask them directly where your contact is, or why they are not responding to you.
c. does the client have the source code ?
d. was there any crisis involved here, any exchange, or event, that led to bad feelings or mis-trust between you and your client ?
3. ownership of code: if you have been paid for 24 months, then I would think legally the people who pay you do have a legal claim to ownership of some kind. but: what does the contract, if any, say ?
good luck, Bill
«What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning» Werner Heisenberg
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zephaneas wrote: If I had to guess, I'd have to say he's decided to cancel the project.
Why are you guessing? Why not just phone, send an email, registered letter, etc and ask what's going on? If he still does not respond then make sure the application stops working properly until he does.
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Install a politely worded message into the application start-up stating that this application is not paid for and will stop working on Feb 1 if payment is not forthcoming, or an agreement is not reached by then.
After Feb 1, an equally polite message stating that the application has become inactive due to ...
Keep it polite, professional and factual.
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First, take a deep breath. It sucks to not get paid.
But it happens. This represents roughly 1/24th (less than 5%) of the total billing.
Be careful doing anything "destructive". US Laws are clear. You can be charged with TRIPLE DAMAGES.
Also, when it comes down to shutting down software, that 5% number is important.
Would you be able to justify to a Jury that you took 100% of his business down, for 5% backpay,
well within the 30 days allotted to most companies to pay a bill?
Breathe.
Determine what YOU want to do next. (Do you LOVE this project so much, that you would take stock, or defer your salary in some way to help him make it through a tight time? Are you ready to move on anyways?)
Forget about this guy, and what he has done. You can't change it anyways. Think about who you want to be. Be that person. Move on. It is business. It is nothing personal, don't take it personally.
I have a client who owes me a small chunk (about half of a month), and closed their doors. Similar story. I just refocused on other clients, and did not think about it until I responded to this. You know what? I am making more with the other clients... Would I do ONE THING to ruin my name, reputation, or their defunct company? NOT on your life. Bad Karma. It is not even worth hiring a lawyer to go after. ($5,000 - $10,000 retainer, lawyer gets 33%, etc. etc.).
There is just too much work out there to worry about the idiot who wont pay or can't pay.
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DUDE --> GET A LAWYER… GET A LAWYER… GET A LAWYER… GET A LAWYER… GET A LAWYER!!!!!
Do you actually "own" that code? What's in the contract? How does CA's law play into this? Can the "code" be considered abandoned? Where do the servers operate... US or Canada; how do those local laws effect this situation? Can some legal precedent set in a local court be harmful/helpful? Could disabling that software be considered a move to hold it for ransom?
I'm basically trying to say the situation is complex and should require legal research. Do you have that kind of legal skill? Even if you do, are you willing to take on that kind of professional (even personal) risk?
Hire a lawyer skilled in corporate and international law. Take his/her advice. They might even say that it's not possible to "win" or it's not worth the financial cost. Don't let this situation become self-destructive. If the lawyer says you can "win" then let the lawyer exact your revenge... you just sit back and smile.
- great coders make code look easy
- When humans are doing things computers could be doing instead, the computers get together late at night and laugh at us. - ¿Neal Ford?
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I am not familiar with the California's law and how the Canada's law can apply to US, but I guess is better to send two e-mails per week, warning that no payment was made and thus the access to the application will be limited. It's best to consult with a lawyer what timeframe you must give to the company and what complications you may have and how many notices you must send. After a month, consider limiting the access to the app functionalites according to your notice letters.
It's important to consult with a lawyer who has experience in the IT area (there are many lawyers but few specialize in IT, please take that into consideration) and has experience in International law (I believe that is the term in English).
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I forgot - please don't damage the code. Limiting access is one thing but damage usually according all countries' laws is criminal. Preserve the code-base!
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What I do with customers who don't renew support contracts is lock them out so if they install an upgrade from my site without authority it puts their system in demo mode. I have a 'status check' page that enables them to check first so this is only a surprise if they don't check first
In your case It's annoying, but firstly do your best to contact them, and if you get no-where after a month then change your program to a demo version until its resolved. Be as professional as possible
It might not be what you want to hear but if they point blank refuse to pay what they owe, just write it off and move on as its only been a few weeks, as legal action is expensive, time consuming and will do your head in, but under no circumstances do anything that can be misconstrued as intentionally damaging to their system, because presumably as its your software, where are any existing customers going to get upgrades and fixes from?
Good Luck
Bob
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There are a several items to consider:
1. This is January, the period when bank holidays interupt payments.
2. Staff holidays may result in clerical errors where batch tallys do not match and work must be redone to ensure accounts payable goes through. I got caught out by this on my US pension.
3. You may be subject to excise payments to IRS on income received from international sources. Might I recommend contacting a good attorney?
Take no action until you know all the facts.
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The dude is on holiday. Tread carefully.
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If the amount of money at stake is worth pursuing, consider having a collection agency work for you (one of the reputable ones). I had to use an agency a number of years ago for software prodcuts that I sold. Several clients did not pay, when the agency got involved, I was able to recover about 75% of what was owed.
This is probably more expeditious and less costly than hiring an attorney, who might be motivated to run up the hours. The agency gets a cut of the recovery, so their motivation is to move the process along. Also, a good agency is well versed in all of the legal angles, and can ramp up the pressure on the non-paying client in a way that complies with all applicable laws. The agency that I used had a multi-step process, eventually leading to legal action against the non-paying client (the legal action was performed by their attorney, and was included in their cut).
This removes a lot of the emotional pressure on you: you no longer need to be thinking vengeful thoughts and contemplating actions that will get you into a much deeper problem than you want to be involved with.
If the software that you developed is important to your client, will they not need to return to you at sometime in the future for fixes/enhancements?
Let the collector do the work, and allow the situation to quiesce. When the client is ready to work with you again, you can start with a deposit to cover the amount lost to the collector and cover the anticipated amount that you will bill.
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So you've been working for 2 years on this project. Was the project a coding project or was it a monthly maintenance plan project?
If it was a coding project, have you completely satisfied your end of the contract agreement? If you haven't yet finished the project, certainly there must be some areas in the project that still need your attention. Or is that all out of the way?
If it was a service you were performing for the client and he didn't pay, in the U.S., we have what is called 'Theft of Services', but you'll have to prove that your client intended to use your service without the intention of paying for it. But, then again, you're dealing with international laws.
If you've completed the project, how many payments was he outstanding?
There should be no reason for you to act out of character. In the U.S., it's normal for businesses to take up to 90 days to pay. You can still write it off as a business loss from your taxes. Although, you'll have to show a good faith effort in trying to collect, (i.e., send emails to the client requesting payment and stating your intentions for a reasonable period of time).
Even for large amounts of outstanding balances owed to us, it's sometimes better to cut your losses and run. Figuring that the amount of time, money and thought you spend trying to collect, you could put to better use cultivating another better paying client. And, you'll write all this new learned experience into your contract so that you can have some control the next time this happens, and not have to commit a criminal act.
Big rocks and little rocks and sand.
Happy coding, hope you get paid!
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We're discussing changes to the member reporting system and I wanted your input as a sanity check.
At the moment when a member's account is closed due to reports, it disappears. It's like it never happened and no one can prove anything. It's like we provide the alibi and the getaway car.
We're going to change this so that if an account is closed due to a member or members reporting that account, a list of all those who reported the account will be shown. I would be proud to have my name shown as the one who stopped a spammer in their tracks, and I'd also be happy to hold my head up if I had to close an account of a member who was being abusive and disruptive.
Not everyone feels the same, however, and so I'm expecting some members will stop reporting spammers/abusers when this change is made. That's fine, as long as there are members still willing to do the right thing.
So my question is: Do you feel these changes will have a net positive or net negative effect on our site's membership and its ability to control spam and abuse?
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Net positive I think.
Chris Maunder wrote: it disappears. It's like it never happened
I hope that the database continues to hold the data whether it's made public or not.
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I would consider making it an option on showing there name and maybe giving a little more weight to those that do.
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This defeats the purpose.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Want me to vote him down for you? Say the word and he's gone. 
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Chris,
I do not think it does (or more correctly, that it has to)
As a NEW user, I would not feel confident with that information showing up.
But after a year or two, I think it would be a badge of honor.
Is there any way to tie this to the members choice + their rank?
(The demi-gods on the forum cannot opt out. But us lowly servants can?)
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Making it a choice defeats the purpose.
cheers
Chris Maunder
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Positive, I think.
Yes, there will be those who retaliate - but I suspect that they do that against those they suspect of downvoting / abuse voting then anyway.
If it introduces a realisation that the authority to do something comes with responsibility to use it appropriately, then it can only be a good thing.
Bad command or file name. Bad, bad command! Sit! Stay! Staaaay...
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