- Context: web development for a bigcorp via an intermediary sole proprietor, specifically:
- I have performed contract work for a Client (A), who was doing the sales & PM, and sold it to bigcorp (B)
- I've secured & been providing the hosting for the resulting sites; we have an agreement with A, that we will bill this to client (B) on a regular basis
- Despite my explicit requests, he haven't secured a written contract for hosting these
- Client (A) goes silent for a year
- As a result, there's now an outstanding 12 months of web hosting bills
- I've tried: sending invoice (no response), have called him (elusive reply)
- Site is serving ~300K requests per day; hosting costs are ~$3K per year; outstanding bill is ~$8K
What worries me here greatly, is that I have no contractual obligation (other than verbal agreement), nor current financial incentive to host these (and the bills keep coming). OTOH there is a 30% probability, that keeping this relationship might bring in additional revenue, which might include hosting costs for the above.
I (and only me) have full root access to the server; and also have email correspondence evidencing the above; options I have considered:
- Getting a legal advisor, escalating collection from A via payment request, going down the small court route
- Informing bigcorp(B) of outstanding payment; and if fails, pulling the plug.
Other than "getting a contract in writing before doing anything else for clients", what, specifically, would you recommend doing about this case?