paying for your mistakes
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- DaveO
Help.
I've been working on an identity for a salon recently. Not charged much for the job and have done a lot of work on it but she's a friend. She's been very receptive to creative ideas and not fucked with the design too much. She's been quite difficult to get proper feedback / sign off / information from.
Anyway, just sent some foiled cards to print and one of the phone numbers was wrong. My bad, as i left an old number in.
However, I am pretty certain that she approved it and now am tracking back through emails to find out what's what. The requote to re do the job is a fair bit and basically £200 shy of my (very low) fee for the job.
She says she emailed me when i sent her the artwork to change the numbers. I can't find this email.
What do i do?
If it's a joint mistake (as in i didn't put the numbers in properly, and she didn't check the artwork) do i split the reprint?If it's actually my mistake, do i pay the reprint?
FUCKING ANNOYING
- inhaler970
ask for a copy of the sent email... if she's right, you're screwed and thats the cost of doing work. if she cant print out said email, shes in the wrong i say. either way friends and money dont mix.
- detritus0
I guess I'd argue for the split, but it really depends on how how much emphasis you placed on it when you sent the final proof - it's one thing to expect a corporate client to understand the implications of a sign-off, another for a hairdressing chum.
- JSK0
Look at the cost of reprint, and look at the fee you will be getting, along with future business potential (her friends etc).
If you are in the negative, walk away.
- FallowDeer0
Did you put any markup on the print?
- if you didnt then why didnt you just hand over the files?FallowDeer
- locustsloth0
If she forwards you the email she supposedly sent, it should have a timestamp which you can then crosscheck against your inbox. And like inhaler said, if it's all on you and she asked you to change it, you need to pay for the mistake, as crappy as that is. If she can't send you evidence that she requested the change, you should split it.
- vaxorcist0
lots of people have had this learning experience...
I once worked at a small agency where they had very clear client check-and-sign-off policies because years before I got there, the agency had to eat $200,000 worth of printing due to a typo... almost bankrupted the small agency and they all remembered it well...
- +1d_rek
- Wowukit
- ow fuck, that must have been 5 millions copies of that three-fold brochure.dMullins
- pubic relations?acrossthesea
- DaveO0
JSK – what do you mean?
I think that i was slack and basically assumed one number would remain and then another be added, when in fact they were two new numbers. The email threads got all mixed up man, MIXED UP!.
If i split the reprint i walk away with £500. If not i get £200. Total of the job was only £800.
- JSK0
Just reprint. Seems like you made the mistake.
- juhls0
First step: get her to send you the emails again.
Then get back to us with the result.
- orrinward0
Get her to change her contact number.
- bjladams0
i once did a full vehicle wrap with the wrong phone number down the side of a stretched hummer. luckily i dont do anything without a signature. even though it was the dudes fault, i still offered to go in half for the remake- and it created a very loyal customer out of it. ended up doing 2 more vehicle wraps and about 10,000 worth of printing.
- maikel0
Mate, if it's not clear even to you, most likely you fucked it up.
Therefore it is for you to pay.If your friend signed off the copy with the wrong number, she will have to pay it. tough as it sounds. If you are a good friend you can share the cost.
Anyway your options are (a) losing a client or (b) losing money. Think what is more important for you. Ages ago a jr designer in my studio made a cock up that costed me a client AND 3 times her salary. Such is life, bro.
- awseome! you started with mate... and finished with bro!CALLES
- I'm still not sure if I should embrace the US English that most people speak here or stick to Brit terms...maikel
- I could even say amigo or cara...maikel
- lolCALLES
- i believe it is the first time somebody actually read what i write here...maikel
- I read it, because I was perplexed as to what a cock up was. :)dMullins
- d_rek0
I recently had a job goto press where some oddball typographic characters were substituted after handing off to the printer. All of the proofs had been going to the client for sign-off with me there as quality control. Well none of us caught the character substitution that occured and it went to print as a series of squares instead of cyrillic characters. Unfortunately the mistake ended up being in a major contributors bio and had to be reprinted. Because the client had signed-off on every stage of the proofing process (and yes, the error existed on the proofs) they were completely liable for not-checking over content and thus had to eat the cost of the reprint, not to mention pulling the current job from bindery and pushing back other parts of production.
Always, always get a sign-off. If you don't then it will always be your fault.
- sometimes is better bearing the cost and keeping the client happy. Printers sometimes show some mercy as well....maikel
- DaveO0
I know. So annoying. It's definitely a case of errors on both sides. Just been through more emails and there's an email with her signing it off with the wrong postcode.
Will argue for the split. Not that anyone on here's remotely interested!
Might start doing websites instead.
- we're not just interested, we're fucking rivetedmonospaced
- johnnnnyh0
If it's on you, then you should pay. In the scheme of things the good will maybe worth more in the long run than stringing out the blame culture bit.
Will it kill you to learn from this by paying up? If it doesn't put you out of business it may keep you in business.
- CALLES0
i mean you do realize the title of your own thread... correct?