Need advice about customer who wants to return content 2-3 year after purchase!!!
 

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!

Sure we would accept this and also giving him the content for the next 2 years for free :D
What a bullshit, just wondering that you are realy thinking about it.

way too long of a wait...looks like he's trying to milk you

no, i would not do it. we shoot & deliver - client checks and approves. if there's something wrong we fix it right away. not years later

I agree. :thumbsup

exactly. but you should have something on your invoice that says "no refunds after X days/months" whatever. But in this case years later is a bit of a reach.

locate your balls, dust them off, ad actually use them.

this is a no brainer and quite scary to see you seeking advice for something like this on GFY...

I agree with what he said.

:2 cents:

/me confirms that you are indeed a retard as I originally thought

Buyer Beware.... Not your problem

Client is definitely wrong, I've returned a shoot to you without any objections on your end. Goes without saying that if it has to be done it should be done within a reasonable timeframe, time is mileage on content. He neglected to review his shoots, his mistake. Client knows he's wrong too cause he's using a new shoot to resolve issues with shoots that were put to bed years ago. Why not confront you with that before commissioning new shoots? on the shady side if you ask me.

He needed to have reviewed the content when they got it. It's that simple. It looks like this a big client of yours to be posting on GFY?

Trying to make up for the bad economy ?

I wonder what happens when you buy a car, drive it 2 yrs, dump it and refuse payment for the new one that was already delivered to you, cause you didn't like something about the old one?

hmmm :winkwink:

this thread is a little retarded... there is nothing to think about...

makes no sense why didnt he tell you when he had the problems?

I watch lots of People's Court... if you sue, you'll win.

Too much time passed where he didn't say shit. You'd win.

If what you quoted the customer as saying is true, that they said the videos needed to have better lighting and not use copyrighted music, and you continued to deliver poorly lit videos that are unusable because of the music, then who cares how long it took them to catch it if the content really is bad? If the customer has been paying you for this many years and if you need/value that business, then I'll break with the pack and say that yeah, maybe you should do something about it (sounds like you have a fairly reasonable plan to compensate them so you don't take a huge hit now).

If video only constitutes a little of what they buy and maybe they weren't planning to use it right away I can see why they might have stowed it away and not have time to catch it. There's really no excuse for selling someone video with copyrighted music in it, though. Is there?

I guess only you and the customer really know the details of the circumstances to make a decision.

I agree about the copywritten music and poor lighting but if they were unhappy and they kept ordering its really not his problem its theirs.They knew the weakness and kept coming back for more. To now say we arent going to pay a 7,000 invoice is weak,you buy something its your job to make sure its acceptable then and there not his.

Yeah, you'd think that if they made the complaint they would have followed up to see if it kept happening. Still, that is passing on a huge liability. You'd think the content provider would feel more of a responsibility for making such a big mistake and maybe even be worried about the legal repercussions if the peeved buyer decided to make trouble for them by ratting them out to the RIAA. I think it would be smarter to acknowledge the problem and work something out to appease the buyer since they are both in the wrong (if that is true about the copyrighted songs being used repeatedly).

This same post is on the three boards I visited today, and I imagine they're not the only ones. After seeing that this person considers complaints of poorly-lit copyright-violating content a great advertising opportunity, I'm inclined to side with the customer.

What are you thinking???

LOL... you are kidding.... This is his problem not yours.

After 2 years geez

Sounds to me like your customer sold out to a joker who has no budget, no sense and nobody to tell them better.

years ..no too long