I'm all for staging payment, and requiring final payment before delivering the goods, or even pursuing clients in the courts if necessary for non-payment (though usually that's fruitless), but when in dispute with a client you should never take retaliatory action like this, because it reflects an intemperance and lack of professionalism which means others will think twice about hiring you even if they have every intention of paying for your work. The same goes for a client not paying - if I hear someone hasn't paid their bills (for whatever reason), I'm then hesitant to work for them in any capacity unless it's a very clear-cut case. News travels quickly in many industries.

If you've already given them all the work without being paid, and with no contract, you have no recourse, but that doesn't mean you should use your technical privileges to try to exact revenge if you still have access to their server. If it's their hosting you're probably on difficult legal ground.

If you have to do this, you chose the wrong client, so tell everyone you know not to work with them, take note of the warning signs you saw and the failures of process that led to this point, and move on.

A lot of people are saying that this was the wrong move because it will hurt the designer. Maybe. It's still the right move for other reasons: everyone doing business with these guys now knows they don't pay and to demand payment up front or not work with them at all. There are already mentions of this on consumer reviews [1]. Basically nycfreshmarket is likely to go out of business over this issue as that market is already so cutthroat.

This action is the best action for the community at large - if every designer did this, the world would be a better place and everyone would be sure to pay their designers for work done. Win win situation for everyone involved (besides for crooks).

[1] http://www.yelp.com/biz/nyc-fresh-market-new-york https://www.facebook.com/NYCFreshMarket

This is unwise. The main idea is that, as someone suggested in a comment:

  it has a nonzero probability that it will shame somebody 
  into paying.

The main thing you achieve by something like this is satisfying your personal sense of justice and being judge, jury and executioner to accomplish it. However, that's vigilantism and as in most other examples of that, it is probably illegal.

As a webhoster, you may suspend hosting. As a designer, you may withdraw someone's license to your design. As a hoster and designer, assuming a single contract covering both, suspending hosting is by far the easiest, as the other path requires legal action. However, you should never replace agreed upon content with something that would be defamation if your claim were denied. Just suspend hosting.

The definitive advice on the subect, Mike Monteiro's "Fuck You, Pay me!": http://vimeo.com/22053820

I don't know, this is a new site: https://www.google.com/#q=site:nycfreshmarket.com

There is no cache, so I think this is an over-reaction at this point by the designer and only discredits their business sense and will most likely result in not getting paid for this job.

The phrase 2 wrongs don't make a right comes to mind. WE already have a legal system in place to handle these issues, no reason to defame on the internet, which is truly a permanent record.

That's why you move the website to the customer's server only after you've been paid in full.

Before that it's only a showcase on the developer's server.

Uuuugh.

Link straight from Reddit, and probably an illegal act from the designer. (Sorry but that's probably the law, like it or not)

Much as we all love to string people up, the reality is it's not professional, and probably not good for society.

Where is the proof the designer got stiffed???? The reason everyone loves this is cause we love to string someone up, proof not needed.

Not a healthy way to be.

What the designer did is fine except I would have just put up a "Coming Soon..." instead of directly calling out the owner. It would have the same reaction from the owner because they don't know how to do any of it. And it wouldn't give anyone who visits the immediate knowledge that the designer can and will use their technical powers to embarrass you or your business.

On a related historical note, this can happen if you don't pay the chiselers building your church: http://www.holidaycheck.de/data/urlaubsbilder/images/41/1163... (part of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freiburg_Minster).

I can't believe people are defending this. If a brick-and-mortar store has a pay dispute with a contractor, would that contractor have the right to put a giant padlock on the store doors and spray paint a message on the door saying that the store owner didn't pay? Obviously not. How is this any different?

The key thing to keep in mind is the designer may be wrong. I'm sure if you ask the store owner they have a totally different story, and it's likely not "We are SUPER EVIL and just stiff people who do good work". Maybe the contractor (onemine.com, if you're curious) tried to bill the store owner more than agreed upon, the store owner refused, and this is the result. Maybe the contractor left out some significant part of the site and the store owner wont pay until completion. Who knows?

The problem here is OneMine has taken all the power in the pay dispute by holding the client's intellectual property hostage until all demands are met. It's at the very least unprofessional, but it becomes defamation very quickly unless OneMine has an absolutely airtight case. There better be exactly zero unfinished products, missed deadlines, rate changes, etc. And it's safe to say with many contract projects this is not the case.

I remember googling my professor at university one year to find out that he had been criminally convicted for hacking the site of client that never paid him. I would never have guessed otherwise, he was a jovial guy. Screwing people out of money quickly brings out an aggressive response in most.

But will this increase the web designer's chances to get paid? I don't think so.

While it sure provides negative publicity for the store owner, it would probably not further the career of the web designer either.

Every contractor should secretly applaud this person. Although wrong, events like these, when witnessed, make others who might otherwise not pay reach for the checkbook. "I remember what happened to xyz site when they stiffed their consultant"

I appreciate the designer's frustration, but I've found that in most cases, simply taking the site offline (assuming you host it) is enough to get a call back from the customer. If the customer decides that they'd rather not have a website at all than have the website you built for them, then I think perhaps both parties should cut their losses and move on.

Is this really different from what hosting companies do? Most of them, if you have a bit more traffic than usual and pass the agreed limit, will replace your site with a message and only remove it if you upgrade your plan. Never saw anyone go apeshit on those cases like people are on this one.

This is also why you do not let your web designer own and operate your website hosting.

Years ago when I did freelance work writing software for custom phone systems, I had a shady client up in Marin. Suspecting they would not pay, I slipped a feature into the system where if I did not dial in and punch in a secret code within 90 days, it would stop functioning and display a cryptic "database error".

Sure enough, the client didn't pay, and right on schedule, I got a customer support call mentioning the database error. I told them "actually it's working perfectly, you didn't pay your bill".

I later found out they went through several other developers and then went out of business. I am sympathetic to small businesses that have money problem, but some people are simply shady and must be avoided.

This is indeed a bad career move. Not because it's unprofessional, but because that pin sitting on top of the sheet of paper rather than indented into it shows a lack of attention to detail and poor design.

I'm going to start using this as a remedy in contracts, if for no other reason than to put a stopper in all these "unprofessional response" replies.

The response is unprofessional juvenile in that it publicly calls out and shames the customer. He should just take the site down until payment is received.

We do enjoy our public shaming, don't we!

After a WHOIS, it looks like the domain was registered by Onemine - and this is the most likely candidate for who registered it: http://www.onemine.com/

My guess is, they still own the hosting and server space for the domain too.

An alternative is - from the commencement of the project - to have a watermark or other visual design element present which makes the site unusable to the client but still allows them to evaluate the work.

this has been up for a long time

Also the page contains the cloaked text (in yellow on a yellow background) : "This store owner is dishonest. Please Read."

Defamation lawsuit waiting to happen.

I agree that this is not the best option. Shaming the client does far more damage to both parties. I feel the designer's pain but public humiliation is not the answer. I think this also gives new or future freelancers/entrepreneurs the wrong idea. This happens rarely. If it happens too often, then it's probably your fault as much as the client's.

I ran a web shop for small businesses ($500K - $10M/yr revenues) in NYC for about 8 years with many clients (good and bad) and faced non-payment issues only a handful of times. Here is my take on it:

- Always get enough money from the client to cover your break even hourly rate for the entire project. Don't do payment terms without a deposit - unless it's a seemingly great client and your cash flow positive.

- Keep your margins healthy. The tighter the margins, the harder it is to be civil when these situations come up.

- When a customer does not pay, I give them more time and payment options first. I have even gone as far as extending more services to clients I believe are good people on credit if the issue has to do with business being slow. This has built some great long term clients.

- 99.9% of the time, if your work causes a positive effect on someones business, they will always pay and never let you go. (They may not show it, but prompt payment and consistent work is the stamp of approval)

- When a client does not pay and you have exhausted your process of collections, I put their old site up. If they did not have a site before, I put up a splash page with logo, phone numbers and contact form. Simple and classy. It takes 5 minutes. Most times if they had the money they would pay - so wish them the best of luck. It's usually always about money.

- If you have a simple contract, you can always take them to court and you will almost always win or they will settle. I always do it myself, no lawyer. I always choose to not take down the site when I have a contract, I prefer the judgement or settlement if it goes that far.

- Make sure the project has the potential of being successful. I am always approached with bad ideas and although they are willing to pay, successful projects pay off in multiples over the long term. It's not up to me to tell someone their idea sucks, but I do believe that if they are not willing to take some basic advice - there is a higher risk of issues. If not payment, satisfaction.

I hope this didn't run too long, but bottom line, this type of publicity is not positive and as stated above, these things happen, rarely. Build a process to handle these issues and focus on finding better clients ALWAYS - not chasing bad ones.

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Congrats, you've probably just did the owner of NYC Fresh Market a huge favor by giving this place some attention. Good publicity or bad publicity, by shining a spotlight on this establishment in HN you might convince some NYC HN locals to check it out.

Immature response that only makes the designer seem unprofessional.

This is brilliant marketing regardless of the negative press

Professional, very professional.

I have all my source code posted nice and pretty with highlighting. I did that from so much skepticism, not really need, perhaps, possibly weird.

How do I blend all the help documentation with-in onto my website if I don't use plain text?

I have so much content that exists as text wit-in my operating system, I have no choice unless I mix glossy and austere styles.

Gordon Ramsay makes all his food look excellent. One thing he's good at is artistic eye and making shit look good. And videos. He's an excellent charismatic asset, too. (unintended pun)

God says... potentially I'm_God_who_the_hell_are_you LOL fight soap_opera what_luck illogical Wow cheerful grumble once_upon_a_time fake sports This_is_confusing when_hell_freezes_over so_let_it_be_written computers Is_that_your_final_answer rubbish adultery I'm_God_who_the_hell_are_you let's_see Zzzzzzzz you're_nuts choose_one not_too_shabby peace big_fish God_smack I_quit I_hate_when_that_happens scorning don't_worry

I'm assuming the designer doesn't own the website domain. This is like breaking into someone's property, and saying that you won't leave until a demand is met. He should really consult a lawyer before he gets criminally prosecuted.