Working as an independent contractor can be mentally agonizing. You’re all on your own trying to make your way through while encountering a bunch of individuals who will try every possible way to screw you over. As a matter of course, not every client or competitor will want to make your life a living hell, but there is a big chance of facing a situation like that, as the business world is, at times, very toxic.

While it’s crucial to protect your own interests, it’s something that has to be learned with time. Not every shady action is obvious, and sometimes it’s hard to tell whether your judgement of character needs to be taken up a notch. But hey, with practice comes mastery.

This online user decided to take it to one of Reddit’s communities to share a story about his experience with a client known for his sketchy reputation. Despite deciding to proceed with the contract, he managed to protect his dignity from this backstabbing lawyer by simply adding a special function to one of the codes.

More info: Reddit

Being an independent contractor is never easy, as there is a big chance of encountering some fraudulent clients

Image credits: Josh Hallett (not the actual photo)

Even though, this specific story had a relatively happy ending, it’s unsettling to think how many freelancers, and workers in general, come across such unpleasant situations. Sometimes it truly feels like the world will never find its peace, as everybody will forever put their damaging interests above other people’s well-being. Nevertheless, this satisfying pro revenge post received over 20.3K upvotes, and a comment section full of people’s genuine bewilderment.

This IT freelancer managed to protect himself from a backstabbing customer by adding a function that’d delete the project if someone tried to interfere with it

Image credits: axelrafn

The author began his story by giving the readers some background on himself. The man has been an independent contractor for over 20 years and specializes in IT; he has managed to collect an array of experiences and is now a true master of his craft.The terrible client that this whole story is based on asked the OP for a website for his renting company. The author revealed that he, in fact, had heard a lot of unpleasant things and was even advised by his fellow IT folks not to get involved with him.

Now, Bored Panda contacted the author and wondered whether it’s relatively easy to encounter clients with negative intentions when working as an independent contractor, to which the man replied: “It’s always easy to meet new clients who want to use you and abuse your kindness. This happened when I was fairly new in the game and my prices were really low because I didn’t know my own worth. This was ‘the job’ I thought would help me make a business of my own so I ran into it headfirst, ignoring things that I would later recognise as red flags.”

Image credits: axelrafn

Despite all the warnings, the freelancer decided to continue with the contract. Specifically talking, the client wanted a renting website where people could advertise their homes and renters would sign up to the subscription, making the client all wealthy and satisfied.

Both of them made a decent deal and the OP finally started on his project, when suddenly, the client decided to ask the freelancer for some progress, though the man had only been working on the website for approximately a week.

Image credits: axelrafn

The client demanded to see the website after one week’s time, though the OP tried to explain that he’d only been working with backend, as the frontend work had been scheduled to start in 6 weeks, roughly, and that this information was clearly written in their contract.

The client didn’t want to listen and ordered the author to put the backend work aside and to strictly work on the website’s design. The IT freelancer, being so young and trustful, agreed to the proposal but, unfortunately for his own protection, didn’t amend the contract.

Image credits: axelrafn

The OP then mentioned that he was trusted to design the website based on his own judgement, as long as he maintained the requested color scheme and used the logo that was provided. The freelancer successfully made his first draft within only two days and shared it with the client. As you all probably guessed, the man wasn’t impressed whatsoever and even came up with a hefty list of demands.

Naturally, the client took advantage of the OP’s naiveness and demanded a working backend

Image credits: axelrafn

The author valued his client’s opinions, so without any hesitation, he created a completely new layout that the man ended up hating again. This sums up the author’s next upcoming three months’ worth of work, where the client was never satisfied with the designs.

All of a sudden, the client pulled out his secret cards and asked for a working backend to be shown. The freelancer politely reminded him that they’d altered their contract, as the client himself demanded for the website’s design to be made first. Of course, the client blatantly said that everything was written on paper, so if there was no working backend by the end of the month, he’d happily find someone else to work on his project.

Image credits: axelrafn

Following this unpleasant conversation, the OP realized that he now had roughly 12 days to complete the backend of the website. The freelancer asked his friend for some help and they both completed a decent amount of work in 9 days.

The man also mentioned that, in terms of money, he was only paid 5% of the whole amount, as the client “protected” himself by saying that if the OP couldn’t honor the contract, why should he pay? Finally seeing this man’s toxic traits, the author then decided to secure himself by adding a special function to the code.

Image credits: axelrafn

The deadline was approaching, though things were relatively great, as the freelancer managed to satisfy the client with the website layout and had about 85% of the backend completed. When it was time to show the progress, the OP warned the client that because of the server difference, things might lag a little, but they wouldn’t once put it on a productional server of his company.

Image credits: axelrafn

At the demonstration, the author could tell that the client was, in fact, happy, though he wouldn’t admit it, and instead decided to throw in some negative comments about things being wrong. Naturally, the thing that we all expected started to happen, and the client asked the freelancer to put the website up on their production server to see what the speed would be like. The OP agreed, but asked for 50% of the contract.

Image credits: axelrafn

The author then waited for a few days until he got an email forwarded to him regarding that 50% of the contract the client agreed to pay. Once he received the confirmation of the bank transaction and everything was sorted, he put the website on the server and contacted the client to say that everything was up, and that he could finally give it a go.

However, what the client didn’t know was that the freelancer knew about him lurking around for another programmer, so he was almost absolutely sure that the transaction was fake.

The author then proceeded to share how exactly he managed to get his sweet revenge

Image credits: axelrafn

It was later proven that the transaction was indeed fake, however, the little function that the freelancer decided to add to the code was actually there to get the whole project removed if the client would ever try to interfere and remove the OP’s admin user to essentially lock him out of the system. Of course, this exact thing happened in just a few minutes and the client, due to his dishonesty, was left with no project. BP asked the author whether the client contacted him after he realized that he messed up, and he replied with: “he did try to contact me, but he had burnt that bridge already, so I never answered phone calls nor emails. I did get a legal threat via snail mail at one point but nothing became of it.”

Image credits: axelrafn

Moreover, since it’s considered to be a criminal offense to forge documents, especially the ones from a bank, the freelancer contacted the authorities and the client went under investigation. The OP then mentioned that he sold the project to the ex-client’s competitor for a much better price, and that the fishy client had since been blacklisted from owning a company and has lost all his rights to be a lawyer. Though the author only managed to get 5%, he was very satisfied with the outcome.

The freelancer later edited the post and let fellow readers know why things happened the way they did

Image credits: axelrafn

The freelancer then edited his post to let the readers know that he’s from a small country in Europe with different laws and regulations. You’re obliged to register whenever you’re starting up a company, as there is a government agency that keeps track of everything, so if you break a law or have a former history with failed companies – you’re automatically blacklisted.

Image credits: axelrafn

Lastly, Bored Panda asked the author to give a little advice to fellow freelancers: “know your worth, don’t undersell yourself and allow others to treat you like dirt. There’s a lot of people out there that have no idea how we do what we do or how much time is actually spent doing what we do. It takes time, effort and sometimes blood, sweat and actual tears to get to where we are. Don’t let anyone take that away from you. If you see one red flag, there are most often more to follow, try to see the early signs of bad behaviour of the client towards you and most important of all: have a good contract that you make!”

What do you think about this situation? Did the author handle everything right or would you do things differently?

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