What action would you take?

[RawAlex]

Here's the deal. If you are 100% sure you are in the right, I would do this:

Find the truck again, take a picture (real film is better than digital for this).

Backup for psd files to two different forms of media for later reference.

Send them a registered letter with an invoice IN FULL for all work you have done. Indicate in the letter that you have all of the proof required by law to show that you are the creator of the image, and as such, you are willing to take all needed action (including collection and / or legal action) to get paid for you work. You will no longer accept "we won't use it anymore" as they have used it in public already. Make sure that they understand that they are liable for not only the original costs of the work, but ALL collection costs for payment, including any legal costs that may be incurred. As someone else has mentioned, than can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and I am sure they would not want to lose that.

If they are still stubborn, pay a lawyer a couple of hundred dollars to send the same letter.

Then file in court. Depending on where you are, you might have a small claims (depending on the amount you are looking at) that you can use before you go the "big expense" route). If you can get a judgement there, you can move it to collection... then the real fun starts.

Good luck with it.

Alex

[pornrex]

Raw Alex that rocks! Thanks for that!

[CelticTiger]

Nice advice RawAlex. I'll follow your advice all the way. Cheers.

[SirMoby]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Here's the deal. If you are 100% sure you are in the right, I would do this:

Find the truck again, take a picture (real film is better than digital for this).

Backup for psd files to two different forms of media for later reference.

Send them a registered letter with an invoice IN FULL for all work you have done. Indicate in the letter that you have all of the proof required by law to show that you are the creator of the image, and as such, you are willing to take all needed action (including collection and / or legal action) to get paid for you work. You will no longer accept "we won't use it anymore" as they have used it in public already. Make sure that they understand that they are liable for not only the original costs of the work, but ALL collection costs for payment, including any legal costs that may be incurred. As someone else has mentioned, than can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and I am sure they would not want to lose that.

If they are still stubborn, pay a lawyer a couple of hundred dollars to send the same letter.

Then file in court. Depending on where you are, you might have a small claims (depending on the amount you are looking at) that you can use before you go the "big expense" route). If you can get a judgement there, you can move it to collection... then the real fun starts.

Good luck with it.

Alex

Note to self. Don't mess with Alex even if he is loosing weight.

Just make sure in the letter that you don't mention anything specific about the proof such as PSDs. Maybe he doesn't know what that means but maybe he's a got a kid in school that can fudge up a new PSD pretty quickly.

The general rule is never give an enemy information when it can be avoided.

[CelticTiger]

Originally Posted by RawAlex

Here's the deal. If you are 100% sure you are in the right, I would do this:

Find the truck again, take a picture (real film is better than digital for this).

Backup for psd files to two different forms of media for later reference.

Send them a registered letter with an invoice IN FULL for all work you have done. Indicate in the letter that you have all of the proof required by law to show that you are the creator of the image, and as such, you are willing to take all needed action (including collection and / or legal action) to get paid for you work. You will no longer accept "we won't use it anymore" as they have used it in public already. Make sure that they understand that they are liable for not only the original costs of the work, but ALL collection costs for payment, including any legal costs that may be incurred. As someone else has mentioned, than can run into the tens of thousands of dollars, and I am sure they would not want to lose that.
Alex

Well I followed your instructions to the "t" and lo and behold the guy called me up this morning apologising about the "misunderstanding" and said to call around today to pick up my check

Nice stuff Alex.

[Useless]

Sweet.

It's not easy to remain calm and collected when someone is sticking a rusty pole up your ass. I'm glad to hear that you followed Alex's sound advice rather than burning a rig and getting thrown in jail.