How Much To Charge For Unpaid Limbo Project Hogging Computer Resources
 

Hi Guys

Have you ever charged for your computer and hard drive resources being hogged by a large overdue-payment project which is completed and in limbo?

If so how much?

If not, how much would you suggest? For example, to charge a fifth of the charge for a typical editing day, per day.

I had outstanding, overdue, payment from a client for a very large video project which has hogged my Mac Pro and Raid 5 enclosure for 4 months.

I actually have the Raid backed up also onto additional 1TB drives. Basically, loads of backup filling up all my hard drives devoted to this one project.

I didn't want to compress or archive the project in case the client wanted any sudden changes.

As a result I haven't been able to upgrade to Snow Leopard or the newest Final Cut Studio, despite having them sitting on my filing cabinet.

I have also been wary of updating my Raid for fear of an update damaging the data held inside.

I wanted to start on an independent feature film of mine, and other large video projects, but am waiting to get my Raid updated and the current big project cleared/archived from my Mac.

Essentially, having this overdue, large project sitting in my Mac has held me back from getting on with other big editing projects that I've wanted to do.

Any thoughts or tips would be really appreciated.

Why not send the client a note that in X number of days on said date that you will be permanently deleting their project and files from your system and see what happens? If they write back and ask you not to delete the footage then tell them that they have to pay their bill or you will erase it. If they don't reply you are no worse off and should delete the footage on that date.

Can't you just offload it to an external drive? I wouldn't have a problem billing them a couple hundred for that. I think charging them a daily fee (such as 1/5th your day rate) would be kind of over the top.

After 4 months, I would hardly call ANY changes "sudden"...

Your patience is much greater than mine. I would advise the client that in x days/weeks, the project will be transferred from Active Online status (ie. ON the RAID) to archived to disks as I believe you have done and that any and all changes after that date will require that the project be brought BACK Online, resulting in extra charges to do so. And yes, a fee for archiving on external discs SHOULD apply.

If this is for one of our many quangos, I'd give them a deadline and then do as suggested, archive the material, telling them that any additional costs will be charged. The new financial year has now started, so they shouldn't have any problems. Indecision can be rife in these organisations.

If it's one of the advertising agencies (who are well known for being slow payers) it'll put pressure on them. You can't be expected to lay aside your other business because of them.

I suspect they may be unaware that you may be in this position. Certainly a friendly, but firm phone call would in order.

Thanks for all your valuable feedback guys I really appreciate it.

Peter

Hi Peter,

Would I be right in guessing that you haven't collected any deposit from your client for this project?

Andrew