Clients you should be aware of

Tips - for freelancers

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Make money on a job board

As a freelancer you could work with anyone and bid on any project, but there are always clients you'd better avoid. Mainly because they would lose you a lot of time (and time is money), but it could be even worse.

Well, let's sketch up how to spot the troublesome clients and how to avoid those time losers...

Can you do it this for...

Yes you can! But no, you won't.
Why not? If you are dry it might look good to have some work instead of none... Because it rarely stops there. Some less money, a bit more work, something a client “accidentally” and at the end of the day you find yourself swamped in 500% for the 50% of the money you thought are barely OK for a 100%. Then come the corrections, client changes the concept in the process, the client of you client has to approve before the payment is released. You could lose a month or two for a project you planed to accomplish in a couple of days (and priced accordingly). If you are rich and work for fun, it could cost you some time and nerves which could be spent better. If this is not your case, you could only hope that your landlord, electric company and stores would understand and would not insist for a payment. Meanwhile being busy you've missed lots of other projects.
OK, there are also people just looking for a good deal. The problem is that the same people would see you working for them without any payment as an even better deal. The risk to get cheated is significant and is you to decide if you can afford it or not.

Some little changes must be done, but unfortunately I've lost the source...

This could be true if he/she is totally unprofessional. Hard disks break down and such...
But wait... even he/she is so absent to lose the source file, he could always contact the person who initially did it and require the source again. If he/she has paid for the project, he/she owns the sources too, must not be a problem as long the original creator still wants to hear from him. It would save you and the client some time and money.
Well, sometimes freelancers change their occupation, leave the business, have a vacation or something and could be contactable, but this is quite rare. Most probably your perspective client had missed the “payment” part and therefore can't contact the previous freelancer. There is a great possibility to forget your payment too (after losing you lots of time to recreate the project from scratch, not having the source and these little changes here and there to lose you time as for a whole project).
be warned

You must be especially careful about the moral legal issues. Some frauds are willing to steal somebody else's property and get somebody else responsible for that.

You are great! Just great! I love your work!

Generally there is nothing wrong with that. It's always a pleasure if somebody likes your work. So, why is this little red lamp in your head still blinking?

Think about this a bit. The client buys your services. How often do you react like that when you buy something? Not much really – you are going to spend some money and hope what you get would be worth.
If this at your at least third project for this client you could relax – probably he means it. Otherwise (especially if he hasn't seen anything final from you), be warned – he/she is probably new in business or not planning to pay at all.

A variation of this is when the client is your buddy. Calls you at short names, likes to chit chat at random topics... well that's nice but quite often when it comes to payment the buddy client is temporary short of money. Could you wait till the next week, month, year, life...? Of course, what are buddies for!

We'd like something nice that really touches...

Cool. There are just two problems about this attitude:

You could never know what the client finds nice. You can't get inside his head and he is unable to explain (actually sometimes he thinks he is but can't realise it is a disaster until he sees it). It takes attempts, revisions and actually good concepts that get trashed in the process until he eventually likes something. These attempts coast both of you time and money (as you keep losing other possibilities) for you.
The client is unprofessional (no matter the scale). The final output would be something you'd barely put in your portfolio after giving a lot more work and time than usual in the process. He might have the time (and a low budget), it might be his hobby, but for you it is still the business that pays (or not) your bills.

If you have nothing better to do or just like the guy and the project, this is not that bad. Just try to explain that since he is at low budget and is going to coast you a lot of time, he/she needs to wait for your time while you are not busy with something better paid.

Until our final satisfaction...

Unlimited revisions. Sounds good for the client. Well... just tell your landlord that you will pay your rent when you like to and in amount you like. He must be happy to hear that too.