If you’re an independent contractor or freelancer of any kind, you know how tough it is to deal with certain clients.
Oftentimes, these relationships grow fractured and the contractor goes unpaid. Don’t you wish there was a way to get ethical revenge on these problematic clients?
Well, one IT pro’s story should serve as inspiration.
The story was posted on the r/ProRevenge subreddit.
This might spoil the ending a bit, since it’s obviously going to involve revenge, but it’s still a great story.
In the post , OP explains that they’re an IT contractor who’s worked in the field for over 20 years, but when this story happened, they were young and relatively green.
He took on a job coding websites for a rental company.
“I had heard a lot of warnings about not working with this guy that owned it,” wrote OP. “He had a reputation that he was sharp as a tack, backstabbing and conniving. He was a lawyer after all.”
Well aware of this reputation, OP still decided to go to work with him in building a website.
They made a deal and the coding work began.
Things went south quickly, though, as the client wanted OP to show him the progress just a week into the process. From there, the client wanted to see the front end, even though OP was programming the back end first, as agreed to in the contract.
OP scrambled to create the front end.
But it took considerable back-and-forth with the client.
“I design a new layout, with his list of demands but he doesn‘t like that either,” OP wrote. “That‘s how the next 3 months go. A never-ending circle where he is never happy with anything.”
This created a bigger problem, too: as the client reminded him, according to the contract he had to have a working back end by the end of the month, and he’d spent all his time on the front end.
“OK, I now have 12 days to do a back end for the site.”
OP notes that at this point, the client had only paid the security deposit, about 5% of the total price of the contract.
“Remembering all the warnings I had heard about this guy, I decided to add a special function to the code just to be safe, more on that later,” wrote OP, cryptically.
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Things were in pretty good shape.
OP has now completed the front end and is nearly finished the back end. He shows them to the client, who seems happy enough with the progress, but then brings up another issue: it’s too slow.
This isn’t OP’s fault, of course, as the server it’s running on isn’t fast. From there, OP says it will run better once it’s uploaded to the client’s server, which he’ll do assuming the client pays 50% of the contract.
But, in the meantime, the client had been stabbing OP in the back.
The client forwarded a message supposedly confirming that he’d paid 50%, but OP deduced that this was a fake. OP also discovered that the client had been badmouthing him, calling him a “lazy deadbeat” and shopping around for another programmer.
“So I knew he would most likely try to screw me,” OP wrote.
Without revealing this knowledge, OP told the client to log in with the supplied credentials.
“Remember that small function I mentioned?”
OP programmed a surprise into the system: if his client’s user profile tried to remove OP’s profile without authorization — basically grabbing up all of OP’s hard work while stiffing him on the fee — the whole system will delete and purge the database.
Well, guess what? The client tried to do exactly that, and the entire project was deleted.
The revenge doesn’t stop there.
Since the client had spoofed a bank email for that 50% fee, OP sent the information to police, who promptly started an investigation. OP also sold the system they’d created to a competitor for a better price.
Long story short: OP got paid and the client is now blacklisted from owning any company thanks to his shady dealings.
“I only got that 5% he paid at the begining and for working for just over 5 months on this project that is hardly anything. But the knowledge of his demise will keep my heart warm for the rest of my life,” OP summed it up.
It’s an immensely satisfying story.
Perhaps it’s the way it’s paced. Perhaps it’s because many of us independent contractors have had dealings with shady clients. But in any event, it’s a great story.
Make sure to check out OP’s own words and then let us know your thoughts in the comments!
