Okay, so I have a question...

Although unethical, I’m considering disabling a clients services without warning. They’re 6 months behind on paying me and I have complete access over their network infrastructure. Upon reading our contract, I’ve made the mistake of incorporating services will be discontinued due to lack of payment... But, I know if I disable things they’re not smart enough to figure out why they aren’t working and call me... That’s when I’ll tell them that I can’t preform work until past bills are paid in full.

I’m located somewhere in the US. Is this too unethical, too illegal? I just want my fucking money... Thanks!

EDIT: Yes I have invoiced then monthly. They’ve received them because I had deliver al invoices to avoid the “oh I never received it” claims.

Why would it be illegal? If do something for somebody and they dont pay you should be able to stop giving them your service because contract was unfufiled.

Dont know anything about the law tho...

Just tell them that your accounts department has flagged them for non payment, and you have been instructed to get the account settled in 48 hours, or shut off service.

Give them the heads up and a fixed time restriction before pulling the plug.

That said, they will probs just ask you not to, then you can play silly buggers :)

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Please let us know what happened next

If I understand correctly the services are running on the customers network, not your hardware.

If it was your hardware, shutting it down would be a perfectly legal and proper response in my experience, we use it in Sweden to get customer reaction for unpaid.

But with customer hardware there could be the claim of unlawful access,since even if you have access its the customers network.

A judge might consider it a crime which is probably worse legally than not paying the bills, they would just need to claim disagreement.

I am not a legal expert, just voicing what I believe.

I'd give them a week warning, and then begin legal action. Doing anything to their Network without it being in your contract might void you getting your money at all.

If I understand what you're saying correctly, the only legal way to do this is not offer your support for the services until they pay the terms of your agreement.

Like most above I'm reading between the lines but if you're saying what I think you're saying then no, it would absolutely be a bad idea.

Do it. Do it. Do it.

Freelancers and small businesses should get a license to kill business customers that don't pay them. A dramatic overreaction sets a precedent for others who may be thinking about not paying or are so careless to ignore 6 months worth of invoices.

An option for the future would be a timed kill switch that after a while, enough to get payed, the software tries to download a “license” file from one of your sites and if they did not pay you just don’t put the license there.

That way you have not made any unlawful entry, you have just not finalized delivery since they never finalized payment.

That would put you on more even terms and if they pay they never get any problem.

Send them a reminder than they are late on payment, give them a warning that if they fail to pay within x amount of time as agreed (in your contract with them), you will terminate your services.

If you're going to freelance remember that you are taking on other responsibilities that managers in companies shield you from such as this.

I think @joshbent might have faced this kind of issue before

So I’m not a lawyer but I promise you that doing anything to their computer networks without their consent is going to be considered a crime in the US. If it was your network and your hardware you could shut it all down and tell them to fuck right off. The right course of action in this case is to find a good lawyer and sue for breach of contract, you’re more likely to get your money back and the likelihood of you ending this story in federal prison drops to zero.

If it's a software with a gui. Update the software with 35 pixel high yellow banner on top of all views.

"Please Pay AnnoyOps inc" [button]

But as they said before consult your lawyer and let him draw up a better contract.

Since you invoiced them, you can get it debt collected possibly, instead of putting yourself at risk of getting charged with any of the hacking laws.

Sorry. Life’s stressful.

I host their DNS server in my server room. Their shit and software is located at their home business. I am located in a small town which I fucking hate. I don’t have a claims department. I am however the owner of a 5 man team of penetration testers and designers/programmers, so I haven’t really established the departments of a bigger business.

I’d like to go about this as legally as possible, but I can’t help to let my grey hat show. If I was younger, they’d be calling me for problems they didn’t know were even possible, but with my old age, I simply can’t. Fucking maturity...

I hand delivered another invoice yesterday. Trying not to come off as a douche, I simply stated that if the invoices aren’t paid I will be increasing all bills by 30% due to the time between the last payment. All I get is an “okay, thanks.” I left it at that although I wanted to state more or ask when I can expect payment,

But due to this being such a small shit town, I always tiptoe around hoe I handle fucks like this. It’s so easy to piss someone off that has connections and you never see another customer again. Small local governments are shit like that. I didn’t state that if it goes on longer I will terminate services, I don’t know why. Perhaps my blood was boiling and my head went dark, Idk. But, with them telling them that the bill will increase with such a high percentage; I’m hoping to receive a payment within the next few days or so. If not, I may need you lovey fuckers to bail me out of jail lol.

Thanks for all the advice, I’ll keep everyone posted on what I decide to do and what path the chose to go down.

@AnonyOps the fact that they were so blasé about you saying you'll charge more suggests to me that they don't intend to pay you. As others have said, a strongly worded letter with legal terms might be all that is necessary. I don't know US law but in the UK we have small claims court. Usually just filing gets people to pay up, especially when they know they are in the wrong.

But as per my previous comments, I would love it if you just totally fucked their company up and published it all online. I really hate companies that don't pay. It has personally affected me badly more than once.

I’m going to talk to my buddy who’s an attorney and see what he would recommend... I think I might “trip” over their fucking server power cord when I stumble in from the pub tonight, just to fuck with them a bit. I have keys to their kingdom, I’m surprised they want to play this game. That’s the biggest thing. I hold your companies heart in my fucking hands, why attempt to fuck with that. Excuse me, I’m not really like that as a business owner but fuck lol.

I disabled their services. They haven’t been replying to emails, phone calls, or texts. Will post updates. I have a feeling things will hit the fan.

@AnonyOps and what said your legal adviser?

Hit them with the small claims court letter, not a date but stating if the invoice isn’t paid today, that I’ll be taking them to small claims. They’ve paired plus the interest. I’ve killed their services anyways. I’m not doing this shit again. Thanks everyone.

Got laid. Forgot to update this. 👍🏼

Paid*

@AnonyOps both sounds good anyway 😃 Congrats!