Here you go. Hope it helps!
I'm a content provider and recently have a problem with one of my best customers who has been regularly buying content and paying on time for the past 8 years. He has refused to pay for an order of about $7k saying that I have supplied him with poor videos for years.
We were supplying about 50 sets per month, of which about 3 hours was video. And he wants to return video only...I think it is not too much time to check 3 hours of video with 5-10 workers in stuff.
After non payment of the latest invoice he seemed to disappear for several weeks, not replying to my emails. Eventually I received the following email:
"...But there is lots of material you sent us that we paid for that we
cannot use. And no we did not have time to check all that stuff out
before you were paid. We spot checked some stuff and you were told the
lighting and quality needed to improve and to not use copyrighted
music etc..."
We are a customer-oriented company and would obviously agree to amend or substitute any content which did not meet our customers approval, but not 1-5 years after supplying it!
Even given this huge delay in identifying a problem, I have asked our customer to make a list of all the videos which are not acceptable, with reasons, and have offered to offset the cost of these against future orders.
However, I can't agree to non-payment of a $7K invoice just because of some vague comment about 'poor quality' of the videos we have supplied. I think we are being very fair about the situation and have tried on numerous occasions to talk to our customer to resolve the situation satisfactorily.
Am I missing something? Sure it is the responsibility of the customer to check the quality of the content before payment, especially as there were never any upfront payments. Usually payment was 2-3 weeks after delivery with plenty of time to check all was OK.
I wonder what other content providers think. Would you accept returns of content from several years ago? What would you do in my situation?
Any suggestions gratefully received!
I'm a content provider and recently have a problem with one of my best customers who has been regularly buying content and paying on time for the past 8 years. He has refused to pay for an order of about $7k saying that I have supplied him with poor videos for years.
We were supplying about 50 sets per month, of which about 3 hours was video. And he wants to return video only...I think it is not too much time to check 3 hours of video with 5-10 workers in stuff.
After non payment of the latest invoice he seemed to disappear for several weeks, not replying to my emails. Eventually I received the following email:
"...But there is lots of material you sent us that we paid for that we
cannot use. And no we did not have time to check all that stuff out
before you were paid. We spot checked some stuff and you were told the
lighting and quality needed to improve and to not use copyrighted
music etc..."
We are a customer-oriented company and would obviously agree to amend or substitute any content which did not meet our customers approval, but not 1-5 years after supplying it!
Even given this huge delay in identifying a problem, I have asked our customer to make a list of all the videos which are not acceptable, with reasons, and have offered to offset the cost of these against future orders.
However, I can't agree to non-payment of a $7K invoice just because of some vague comment about 'poor quality' of the videos we have supplied. I think we are being very fair about the situation and have tried on numerous occasions to talk to our customer to resolve the situation satisfactorily.
Am I missing something? Sure it is the responsibility of the customer to check the quality of the content before payment, especially as there were never any upfront payments. Usually payment was 2-3 weeks after delivery with plenty of time to check all was OK.
I wonder what other content providers think. Would you accept returns of content from several years ago? What would you do in my situation?
Any suggestions gratefully received!
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