Client refuses to pay and keeps ‘forgetting’ invoices, forcing freelancer to send blitz email barrage to get what’s owed: ‘Oh, I thought you needed them resent’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jan 2, 2025 9:00 AM EST

According to all of the masculine self-improvement mentors on the internet, who you all know are all-knowing, all-encompassing, and science-based life coaches who have never ever been wrong, there's absolutely nothing better than being a freelancer. A self-employed entrepreneur is not subject to micro-managers or full of themselves bosses. 

The only part they may forget or leave out of their sermons, or maybe just don't take into account is a little thing called human nature. 

Enter the timeless saga of the "forgetful" client, a true masterclass in said nature and the art of selective memory. Being a pushy, pressuring, and demanding business owner while they need you and becoming totawy fowgetful the second they need to pay.

The courageous contractor at the center of this story starts off with polite reminders, dutifully resending the invoice every week. But after five rounds of "Oops, I must've missed it," they decide to take matters into their own hands. Bombarding the clumsy client with a daily email barrage. 14 invoices sent like clockwork until the client finally reaches their breaking point.

When the client calls, absolutely seething about being "spammed," our self-employed servant doesn't miss a beat. With the kind of calm only a masterful passive-aggressor could come up with, they reply, "Oh, I thought you needed it to resent. Just making sure you've got it this time."

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  • 01
    20 Phone W G Goog "Just making sure you've got the invoice this time."
    via Torsten Dettlaff
  • 02
    just send me the invoice'- so i sent it. 14 times.
    via armaniemaar

  • The real triumph here isn’t just getting paid—it’s doing so with a mix of persistence and passive-aggressive brilliance.

  • 03
    a client kept "forgetting" to pay, so they'd ask me to resend the invoice every week. after the fifth
    via armaniemaar
  • 04
    time, i set a reminder to email it daily until they paid. they finally called, yelling, "why are you spamming me?” i said, "just following your instructions."
    via armaniemaar
  • 05
    *UPDATE: so a lot of you are asking what happened next. after i sent the invoice 14 times, the client finally called me
    via armaniemaar
  • 06
    -voice absolutely dripping with indignation -and said, "why are you spamming me?"
    via armaniemaar
  • 07
    i calmly replied, "oh, i thought you needed it resent. just making sure you've got it this time.”
    via armaniemaar
  • 08
    there was a pause. the kind of pause where you can hear someone's soul leave their body for a
    via armaniemaar

  • OH how much I love that pause, the glorious, soul-crushing silence where you just know the client is reevaluating their life choices. A mumbled excuse follows, a hang-up in defeat. And wouldn’t you believe it? Payment miraculously appeared that same day, all 14 invoices were suddenly marked as read.

  • 09
    second. then they mumbled something about "getting the check sorted" and hung up.
    via armaniemaar
  • 10
    the best part? they paid that same day. all 14 invoices were marked as "read" in my email tracker within an hour.
    via armaniemaar
  • 11
    Cheezburger Image 10449317888
    via Via Unsplash+ (and Clay Banks)

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 12
    moral of the story: sometimes, the squeaky wheel doesn't just get the grease it gets paid.
    via armaniemaar
  • 13
    hegbork The best way to get "forgotten" invoices paid I've ever seen was a very early web hosting company in the 90s. If the customer didn't pay on time their web site would get redirected to an error page saying "site unavailable because <company name> doesn't pay bills on time".
    via hegbork

  • The commenters on our fearless freelancer’s story share some amazing stories of bravery mixed with creative retribution.

  • 14
    Glitter_puke Place I used to work handled the hosting for a nearby university's law school. Absolute sh client and I was the A/R person tasked with chasing down their late invoices. We eventually had to, after 3 warnings in
    via Glitter_pv#e
  • 15
    a one-week span that we would, take down the law school's website during enrollment. They cut the 4 months past-due $250 check for hosting that afternoon. Like, how hard is it bills? to just pay your Client was the owner's alma mater so he let them get away with way too much sh.
    via Glitter_pv#e
  • 16
    Homeschooling Dad Yeah, a friend of my wife's was babysitting a lawyer's kids and was enlisted to join them on a family vacation. She was told her job duties would be one thing, but when she got there, they were another. She ended up quitting, he didn't pay, and she took him to small claim courts. He counter- sued, but quite literally didn't bring the receipts.
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 17
    She won, representing herself, against a lawyer simply because the lawyer thought entirely too much of himself. (To be clear, I'm not saying all lawyers are like this.)
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 18
    realdappermuis I worked for a global cancer charity the boss of the local charter did this sh. It's a power move. Not because they can't. Makes them feel good to have power like that
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 19
    It took a lot of convincing but eventually got him to give me access to the online accounts so I could just make the payments. There were some that were overdue by a year, but people didn't want to hassle 'a cancer charity'. Problem there was that a
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 20
    confirmation code would be sent to his phone. All he had to do was forward it, a 5 second action. And he'd make me wait, and wait and wait and have to redo it and redo it. For no reason other than arrogance
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 21
    Some people refused to provide service to us without upfront payment, and we had a 20k attendee event about to fold because even though he was sitting in my line of sight and I
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 22
    had verbally asked him to send the code, he was just flexing his lil ego, and didn't send it until it was too late and I had to sweet talk convince the service provider late at night before the event to still do it
    via HomeschoolingDad
  • 23
    tarhoop Years ago, I hired a guy to shovel snow while I was on holiday. I gave him half up front and agreed to pay the rest on my return.
    via tarhoop
  • 24
    He didn't shovel once, and it snowed daily. I texted him, he told myself. me to f This was in the early days of smartphones. I had one, he didn't. He was not adept, or his phone was incapable of blocking my number. I downloaded an app to schedule messages.
    via tarhoop
  • 25
    End of the day, I sent him a message that said, "It's the end of the day, remember, you had a chance." I set it to message him every hour that he needed to pay me back, or the frequency of messages would increase.
    via tarhoop
  • 26
    He messaged me in the morning to go f myself. I set it for every fifteen minutes. He messaged me by noon that he spent the money, and he couldn't pay it back.
    via tarhoop
  • 27
    I changed the message to say, "You shouldn't spend money you didn't earn, pay me back." And I set the timing for every five minutes. He begged me to stop. He said he was on the way.
    via tarhoop
  • 28
    I changed the message to say they would stop when I had cash in my hand. He didn't even make it 24 hours.
    via tarhoop
  • 29
    angmarsilar One of the places I work at (a large outpatient medical center) forgets to pay the satellite TV bill from time to time. You turn on the TV and there's a banner on the TV
    via angmarsilar
  • 30
    to "Call this number to pay your bill" with no station availability. Our section will leave the TV on anyway, even after getting calls from administration to turn off all of the TV's. It's an absolute embarrassment.
    via angmarsilar
  • 31
    Puzzleheaded_Film_24 I miss the fax machine. I once took a Final Notice invoice, sellotaped the top to the bottom so it formed a continuous message and faxed it to a hateful
    via Puzzleheaded_Film_24
  • 32
    customer who treated me with absolute contempt. One whole day of faxing over and over so his machine couldn't get any other messages in... those were the days.
    via Puzzleheaded_Film_24
  • 33
    anomalous_cowherd There was a web developer who had a bit of code that reduced the opacity of the site three percent every day after the due date. A month after it was overdue the site would be completely invisible except for the web devs contact and payment details.
    via anomalous_cowherd

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