One thing that surprised me when I chose to set up this blog was the availability of both the .com domain name for such generic terms. thatwebguy.com had already been taken, as had thatwebdesigner.com but I could have had thatwebdesignerbloke.com if I’d wanted it.
Mind you, I was lucky enough to get a couple of released early domain names before: blogged-in.com and blogged-on.com.
I billed a client back in November for some site updates during October and for the renewal of his two domain names (a .com and a .co.uk) together with another year’s web hosting.
This was due for payment a week later…
Now this client has a history of being a slow payer. The company I use to host his domains and site - I am a reseller rather than paying for the necessary infrastructure myself - has to wait for me to pay them too, so they now don’t renew domain names until I have paid, billing me a month before they are due for renewal and these days looking for payment on invoice.
So by today, my invoice was already three weeks overdue for payment and I got an e-mail from the hosting company telling me they’d had an e-mail from him over the weekend as some e-mails to him had bounced. Hardly surprising, given that the .com had expired a week ago and the .co.uk four days ago.
I popped him an e-mail this morning to tell him what was going on and then at 6.00pm tonight got an irate phone call from him demanding I renew them! It was apparently my fault for not reminding him.
I politely pointed out that the invoice states what the payment terms are and gives both cheque and BACS payment details. I also pointed out that the covering e-mail gives a date when payment should be made by, just in case people can’t work out when “today plus seven days” is.
Clients, eh?