A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

https://joseph-smith.co.uk/

by bhartzer • 7 months ago

73 91 7 months ago

joseph-smith.co.uk

Good (if legit)

As much as I want to side with the developers I think they are exposing themselves to legal repercussions and made their situation worse.

exe343• 7 months ago

legal repercussions

like what? contract says "money for stuff". no money, no stuff.

azangru• 7 months ago

no money, no stuff.

No stuff is one thing. Different stuff deployed to client's url is quite another.

drysart• 7 months ago

But this is very obviously not "no stuff". This is "different stuff".

Taking the website down entirely or just blanking it out is a very, very different matter than replacing it with a different message; and doubly so when the different message is actively harmful to the customer. Unless the designer's contract with the customer explicitly allowed them to do this, this sort of thing is a slam dunk legal case of either vandalism (using a physical metaphor) or in the UK as in this example, a criminal violation of the Computer Misuse Act.

Not to mention that it's an enormous red flag that will scare away other potential customers for this designer; because it demonstrates that you're very willing to sabotage their operations.

11235813212• 7 months ago

Maybe. A lot of freelancers and agencies have amateur or no contracts.

A neutral service suspended message or no response from the server is more defendable if the client goes after you. If you actively communicate on their website, it could be argued you tried to cause reputational harm etc.

Even if you're right, provoking a legal response from a client is more than a lot of creatives and developers can handle, especially if the client is big enough to retain legal or staff a GC.

I suspect that things will turn out fine for this particular developer since the client seems small and the message is mostly innocuous.

SunshineTheCat• 7 months ago

It would be interesting to see the project agreement to know if something like this was expressly outlined in it.

My guess is if it was, the client wouldn't agree to it, but who knows (many people just skim over them anyways).

petercooper3• 7 months ago

In the UK, this is less of a problem, though it depends a lot on the contract between the company and the developer. Assuming nothing exotic, that the statement on the site is true (and not a malicious falsehood) and that if the hosting belongs to the end customer they did not revoke the developer's access (i.e. no unauthorised access occurred), then the developer is in a reasonable position legally. IANAL, of course.

EGreg2• 7 months ago

No unauthorized access but they would argue unauthorized vandalism by the developer, which blocks the entire site.

Airing dirty laundry is in some jurisdictions a legal offence. Which is exactly why there needs to be agreement spelled out in contracts upfront, that this could happen, and the client would just sign it.

And I am a fan of smart contracts and cryptocurrencies, see my suggestion below:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46502285

elevatortrim2• 7 months ago

So if I'm a builder, can I build a wall in front of your grocery store's door if you did not pay me, as long as I do not lie and I do not break in?

true_religion• 7 months ago

When you don’t pay for your salesforce Licence it disables your integrations, and puts up a banner saying this has been done for non payment so you should contact an administrator.

Far be it from me to hold them up as a beacon of moral value, but in business it’s fair to say you have to pay for service.

It’s not a humiliation, it’s just factual.

elevatortrim2• 7 months ago

Not the same thing. Salesforce is a service provider, they can stop the service they provide. This developer could too. Salesforce should not be allowed to cite payment reasons though.

crazygringo• 7 months ago

This.

You're opening yourself to claims of defamation, tortious interference, disparagement, even coercion, depending on where you are. Not saying the client will win, but they can make it so you'll need to pay lots of legal fees to defend yourself.

It's much smarter to just take the site down without any kind of message, or just something that says "temporarily unavailable". Play dumb with the client, say you don't know why it went down but to fix it but you need to be paid first. Or say it depended on cloud credits that were going to come out of payment, if you don't want it to look like the site went down due to your incompetence.

Making a big public stink might feel good, but it's not a smart business strategy.

jabroni_salad• 7 months ago

I agree, if only because the UK seems to be the florida of goofball defamation cases. And while I do think the developer would win their case, having to field one at all really sucks.

intellix• 7 months ago

I did this like 20yrs ago. Would ask him for payment and he would go quiet until he needed changes. I made the changes and he would be like oohhh I need to pay you don't I! I give the details and he goes quiet again until he needed more changes

munchler• 7 months ago

Why would you do additional work after he failed to pay?

neogodless• 7 months ago

I had a client like this. It was easy work, easy money, even if a bit delayed.

After one such "non-payment" incident, the next time they needed something they basically offered xx hours of payment for 15 minutes of work to get back on my good side. In general they'd end up "overpaying" for each project to make up for their tardiness in paying.

josefresco2• 7 months ago

I build websites for a living and sometimes people don't pay their bills. Their website going down is usually not a big deal (sometimes they don't notice for months!). But their email, now THAT is a show stopper every time (instant payment).

EGreg2• 7 months ago

How do you get their email to go down exactly?

ecb_penguin7• 7 months ago

Disable the account or change DNS records are the easiest.

bakies• 7 months ago

If you control the domain, you control the email.

dstroot• 7 months ago

Well… if you control their DNS you have their MX record…

rockostrich• 7 months ago

I would guess that they use their own domain for email and the dev manages the domain.

josefresco2• 7 months ago

I should clarify this is for clients who host their website, AND email with us (we simply change their pw). There's no way in hell I'm taking down someone's email if they host with a 3rd party even if they are past due. Sure I have that "control" but for me it's crossing the line. We suspend only the services we host and it turns out people respond almost immediately when their email is offline.

lsaferite2• 7 months ago

Back when I used to work freelance, I learned that all my contracts needed to have a provision not releasing IP rights until final payment was made. This provides the legal stick to side-step going through a commercial contract dispute. You frequently run into companies wanting to pay fractions of amounts due and not having a strong incentive to hurry along a resolution. Instead, without IP assignment it becomes a copyright enforcement action instead and that can get attention and resolution much faster. I never ended up needing to use it, but I did have to remind a few customers that the provision existed. This all came out of a client stiffing me on a large bill that was, at the time, extremely damaging to my cash flow.

With the above in mind, publicly changing a customer's website to something like this is *highly* unprofessional. Better to simply force the site down in a legal manner that conforms to a signed contract.

IAmBroom2• 7 months ago

More unprofessional than buying services and refusing to pay for them?

qingcharles3• 7 months ago

This worked for me once. Client refused to pay. We all met with our lawyers. Client was chuckling. Slid copy of contract over the table with IP rights highlighted. Client: "We need a minute." Five minutes later: "Here's your check."

Also, our lawyer that day had the best advice: "If this goes to court, the only winners are me and their lawyer. We both get to have another vacation this year."

reedf1• 7 months ago

301 to a competitor site.

mrtksn3• 7 months ago

I see such behavior from time to time but feels off-taste IMHO. It's almost as if would be more professional if they worked with the Italian mafia to coerce for payment(not that I approve such thing).

If contract broken, sue them. Why throwing a scene?

yieldcrv2• 7 months ago

because social shaming is faster and cheaper than the legal system

and doesn’t involve physical violence like the mafia

mrtksn3• 7 months ago

I guess its something you can do if you don't care about your reputation and you need the money now, this is because It's very uncomfortable to work with people who throw a scene just like that.

We haven't heard the other side of the argument, have we? Maybe it's not as simple as services delivered payment withheld.

petit_robert2• 7 months ago

If contract broken, sue them. Why throwing a scene?

Haha! tell me about it.

A client of mine ended his contract in 2010, pretending he did not use my software anymore. He had the source because I had to compile on site for technical reasons.

A disgruntled employed called to tell me and my associate he was still using it. It took me 3 years to find a proof, lawsuit started in 2014, the expertise began in 2016 and ended in 2021. I have a first trial hearing scheduled Feb, 12 2026. Expect 6 to 12 months before a decision, and of course, an appeal after that.

The guy had stocked up 5 million dollars net when I stopped him with the lawsuit [0], he is using the money to pay well known lawyers to delay the procedure every which way.

I'm out largely over 100 000 euros in court, expertise and lawyer fees, plus the countless hours spent responding to the endless, senseless dribble their lawyers produce.

As far as I'm concerned, my services are now hosted by me, and failure to pay shuts down the service, it's in the TOS.

[0 : he subcontracted for a big entity. I would never had gotten that contract myself, lacking the thief's network; said big entity never replied to our mails about our software]

mrtksn3• 7 months ago

Shutting down services upon payment issues is much more different than getting into laud public dispute.

Also, there's always some number of problem clients out there, never good idea to stray away from civility. There are problem merchants too, which is much more socially acceptable to shame publicly.

KomoD3• 7 months ago

This probably explains why they're not paying: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/c...

Company status: Dissolved
Dissolved on 16 December 2025

His other company:

Company status: Liquidation

People are now attacking the guy on Instagram because I guess the developer or someone, made a Tiktok video about it.

hinkley3• 7 months ago

The thing about dissolving a company is that they generally should have done it before getting a bunch of services without paying for them.

Like a gambler they think the big win is coming any second and they drag it out too long, leaving a bunch of unpaid bills behind then.

slowmovintarget• 7 months ago

Or worse, planned on not paying in the first place and made off with investor cash while maintaining the appearance of moving on their venture.

SoftTalker2• 7 months ago

As a contractor some of this is on you also. Before extending credit to a client you should do some due diligence on their ability to pay.

KomoD3• 7 months ago

Well isn't it possible that this is a recurring service? Like that he's also buying web hosting from the web dev

kasperni• 7 months ago

Really no reason to speculate. Could be a life crisis, ill health ect.

jlokier4• 7 months ago

My guess is it wasn't deliberate. They might not even know it's dissolved yet.

It's dissolved by "compulsory strike-off", which means the registrar did it as a penalty for late filing of accounts about 4 months after their due date, and failing to send an email saying "the company is still required" to the registrar, which is enough to prevent the dissolution.

It happened before in 2021 to this company. The company was restored a few months later, which is permitted when it's been dissolved by the registrar for filing accounts late.

Restoring a company also restores its liabilities (debts), so it's clear they were not doing it in 2021 to get out of debts.

My guess is it's an oversight by the owner, who is prone to filing things late and doesn't have an accountant. It's quite common in the UK for single-person companies to not have an accountant, and to not know all the rules.

Plenty of health conditions or life events can cause an oversight like this, especially for someone who is already prone to filing close to the deadlines.

After the company is dissolved this way, it's unlawful to continue trading, which includes paying suppliers from company funds. The owner immediately loses all company assets. Their bank accounts may be frozen or closed quickly, so they might suddenly find themselves without access to their funds. That can be a awkward if the owner wasn't expecting it, or if they don't even know it's dissolved. Business banks in the UK freeze account access for other inscrutable reasons sometimes, so it's not always obvious when the reason is dissolution.

This doesn't excuse not replying to the supplier to explain, unless they are really unlucky and lost access to their paid Google account or similar as a side effect as well. Or if they had the kind of sudden health condition or life event that causes a person to miss filing deadlines.

IAmBroom2• 7 months ago

Restoring a company also restores its liabilities (debts), so it's clear they were not doing it in 2021 to get out of debts.

Was it clear that wasn't the reason they were not doing it, or was it clear that the reason they were not doing it was to get out of debts?

ecb_penguin7• 7 months ago

I have no idea what the contract says, what was paid, or any of the other conversations they've had. All I see is someone complaining publicly about a private matter. When that happens, I assume they're wrong.

Normal people don't air petty grievances on the internet. They use the courts and other mechanisms.

According to another comment, the business is dissolved. They don't care if their site goes down. So this guy is looking unprofessional for nothing.

JohnGB• 7 months ago

You say that as if the courts are a reasonable solution for most people. In many cases the cost and time render them useless and often cost more than the invoice that is due. In some jurisdictions you may recover this, but in many you can't.

ecb_penguin7• 7 months ago

You say that as if airing your problems on the internet is a reasonable solution for most people.

We have small claims courts in every jurisdiction in the US. It costs $50 to file, and you do not need an attorney. The courts will review the contract and generally reach a reasonable decision.

There's always a cost/benefit to things. I bet the courts have returned more money than Facebook posts have...

qingcharles3• 7 months ago

When I had a dispute with a client over coding work my lawyer said: "If this goes to court, the only winners and me and their lawyer. We get to take another vacation this year." I've always heeded that advice.

mkl95• 7 months ago

It looks like the company's owners didn't give a simple heads up to their providers before dissolving it. In my eyes, that's way worse than what this particular provider has done. If the sums aren't large, they might lose money by going to court.

jlokier4• 7 months ago

The company owner didn't dissolve it, the registrar did as a penalty for not filing accounts within about 4 months of the due date. The owner might not even know it's dissolved yet.

WhitneyLand2• 7 months ago

Yeah, I’d be wary of hiring the developer even if he’s in the right.

reaperducer2• 7 months ago

Yeah, I’d be wary of hiring the developer even if he’s in the right.

If you pay him, you'll have no problems.

You were planning to pay, weren't you?

SoftTalker2• 7 months ago

This strikes me as something like a landlord changing the locks when a tenant gets behind on the rent. In many jurisdictions this is illegal, as there exists a defined process for dealing with non-payment of rent: eviction.

reaperducer2• 7 months ago

I see it more like when a restaurant doesn't pay the lease on their kitchen equipment and the kitchen equipment company comes and puts giant unremovable orange stickers on the restaurant windows letting the owner and the world know that the equipment inside is their property and must be surrendered or legal action will be taken.

shadowgovt• 7 months ago

Counterpoint: airing petty grievances on the Internet has proven, time and again, to be a remarkably effective way of getting the grievance addressed by an otherwise inaccessible third party.

Evidence: just about every post on Hacker News about Google breaking that eventually attracts a personal followup from a Googler who reads HN.

If you're angry about not getting paid and your client has given you control over part of their public-facing persona, I can definitely see using that control to make it known that you are in a state of disunion with them. I can even see it being done with no harm to your reputation because other future potential clients know they will be able to pay you.

ecb_penguin7• 7 months ago

[flagged]

etchalon• 7 months ago

If someone doesn't pay you, stop providing the service.

A message like this on a client website doesn't do what you think it's going to do.

newresearcher33• 7 months ago

is it legal? turn it off instead of doing that, because it damages the brand

biglyburrito• 7 months ago

Why should the person they didn't pay for services rendered give two poops about any damage they do to the offender's brand?

bityard• 7 months ago

Less-than-fully-reputable shared hosting providers have been doing a variation on this for decades. Although normally in the form of a pop-up or banner at the top of the page.

When I worked for a hosting provider, an overdue account would get daily emails for up to a month. After a month, the site would be disabled (404) or the VPS would be turned off. After three months, the site/VPS would be archived. After one year, the archive was deleted.

Astonishingly, there was always a fairly steady stream of customers who would come back over a year later and ask for their site to be restored, or to get a copy of it. I never enjoyed being the person who had to give them the bad news of the consequences of their choices.

TheChelsUK• 7 months ago

This is why as an indie business you need business insurances that would pay out in cases like this.

I doubt anyone would work with this dev in the future, but lol it’s still quite funny.

A web developer posted a payment shaming message on their client's site

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