What to do when your customer doesnt pay

I know its painful. Lot of us have gone through that pain where your paycheck for all the hardwork you put in to write that wonderful piece is ignored and the promised pay never comes through. You chase, you send soft reminders, you beg, you threaten but nothing works. Your inbox still shows no mails from that "customer".

What can a freelance writer do in such situations? If you are expecting me to declare a secret weapon to make such frauds pay up, then you would be disappointed. Writing on web exposes us to such scams and most of the work here is done on goodwill. Though being a established writer helps where demanding a upfront payment is possible, little is open for the new writers who fear the loss of a client by demanding an advance. Therefore, most of us end up getting paid only after the whole thing is written and thereby, endangering ourselves to scams and cheats. 

So is there no solution to this? There are 2 things one can do when the "customer" doesnt respond:

1. Sell the Articles: This is a very good way to get back what you have lost with him. Warn the scammer before you do so and exclusively mention that since he did not pay up, he does not hold the rights to it anymore. You are, hence, free to sell them. There are many sites where you can sell these. For example, article selling sites like constant content, article base are good options along with content forums like Digital Point. Who knows, you might also get a better price in the market selling them than writing them for this particular customer.
2. Post Them on Online Forums: Almost every freelance writer today contributes to the content websites like Associated Content, Triond, Helium, Bukisa, etc. They pay you for posting articles through their advertising programs and posting these articles might help you earn some good amount. Of course, you have to drive traffic to those articles. But once you get enough traffic, these articles can be regualr income generator for you. This also ensures that the client cannot use these articles as they are alreasy posted by you and would only amount to plagiarism for him.

These are the only 2 ways I can think of to get back what you might have lost with the scammer. Of course, these are post-disaster. What can you do avoid this disaster? Check out the next post!