![[Freelance]](../gif/fl3H.png)
Email from Freelance Office made client cough up
AN LFB member told the Freelance how a short, polite and friendly letter sent to an editor by the NUJ's Freelance Office was all it took for them to secure several hundred pounds' worth of invoices overdue from a consumer print magazine. The money appeared in their account the following day.
Said freelance seems to have still been able to keep their longstanding relationship with their editor after the exchange of emails with the Freelance Office. This is just as important as getting paid, and is why the publication is not named in this article.
The same freelance reports that shortly before this, a small press publisher who'd owed them a tiny royalty fee for over three years finally paid up within a few hours of their email regretfully warning them that they'd have to contact the NUJ about this outstanding payment. Lo and behold, the money was in their account next morning!
In the case of the consumer publisher with the multiple outstanding invoices, the freelance in question had for many years sent invoices with the words "strictly 30 days" at the bottom, and a link about the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act, with a warning that they would enforce it. The publisher was trying to turn it into a "payment on publication" gig, which neither the freelance concerned nor the Freelance Office were having.
Contact details for the Freelance Office are here. While you may not get a reply immediately if you leave a phone message, be assured that messages are continuously monitored and they will get back to you, possibly by email.
Our source said that normally they wouldn't bother enforcing "strictly 30 days" deadlines so rigorously, previously with other money coming in from many sources they'd let it go. But in these leaner times of a cost-of-living crisis with less work coming in at the moment, they had no choice but to insist on any money due be paid immediately, and so should you.
A reminder that "strictly 30 days" is the law under the Late Payment of Commercial Debts Act and that by insisting on this they are merely enforcing the law and preventing their clients from breaking it, as said freelance was able to explain to his editor with whom relations are still cordial.
Collect-o-matic! - helping NUJ members collect debts