@JaredBusch said in When a client refuses to pay - What do other consultant / MSP do:
@scottalanmiller said in When a client refuses to pay - What do other consultant / MSP do:
Threatening to destroy stuff, I think is bad. Although I think a lot of that comes down to how he approached it, his tone sounds way too much like the mafia: "it would suck if something was to happen to your computers tomorrow."
It doesn't matter and you don't need to bring it up like that. You can make it clear that service will end without payment, that contact will be broken off, etc. Nothing wrong with that. That should be obvious and go without saying. Saying like he does makes it sound like he is going to break things or is keeping some secret from them.
If you are going to "threaten" don't go any farther than making it clear that you are no longer available to them... you can't work for free.
The threat doesn't make any sense as Eli states it, because another MSP can just come in and do the work.
He was not threatening to destroy anything of the clients on site stuff. He clearly stated to simply delete all of the client data in his possession.
Delete all of his documentation on the client infrastructure.
Destroy/throw out CD/DVD backups he had. Now why he had backups is a different issue? Those should never be in the consulting firm's physical control like that.
Oh I agree, he didn't directly say that. But the manner in which he was saying it sounded... odd. The "I hope nothing happens" sounds like the old school mobsters with "it would be a shame if someone set your business on fire". I realize that the only threat is deleting things that, in theory, would not be important to the customer. The whole "threat" angle is odd unless something additional and fishy was going on. I think he just means it to scare them, but it comes across as too much.
