Customer requesting refund

Doesn't sound like a very expensive order. Just charge for what you did and refund the rest which should be most of it. If ya didn't fabricate anything, you're not out anything but some mock up time, which evidently wasn't to their liking at all. Maybe just refund the whole thing, since they literally didn't get anything from you.

 

You need policies that are black and white when you accept a job. Customer needs to understand what they are handing over money for and the procedure if and when something like this happens. Artwork and deposits need to be identified as non refundable/refundable. Most of this can be avoided in a few sentences on the bottom of a sales order.

No offense but you shouldn't be holding someones money and not providing anything in return for a year. There should be a time period of either accept the proof or refund their money. On this job in particular I'd just give all their money back and move on.

 

sounds like this will turn into a cluster real quick.
refund and walk away ASAP.

you are out only time correct? call it a learning experience

If you bought materials, then they pay for that

 

Refund their money.

 

I'd charge for art time (pad it a bit for the items you had to order) and refund the rest with a happy face.

 

here are the terms we use


Order Cancellation:


if a job, order, project or any portion of the scope is canceled, you will be invoiced for all labor, services, and materials utilized up to the time of cancellation.

Production begins, which is any service/product after estimating, when approval, or deposit/payment is issued.

 

When you say "it’s pretty much what we did but with a different background colour." how close is it to the layout you provided? Did they ever ask for the colour they ended up with?

This is where washing your hands of them and adding some kind of language to your order forms, layout proofs, etc. that warns potential customers that your designs and intellectual property are copyright protected is the smart move.

Most people regardless of whether they have any ethics or not probably won't read it, but at least you have it and if they sign anything it's on, they can be held liable if they violate it. I don't think an A Frame and shingle sign is worth the legal and public relations fight, but it ups the game on you at least appearing like a legitimate vendor. We also shouldn't live in fear of a bad social media review if a customer treats us shoddily. The vast majority of people can see right through a specious or malicious review that usually has a few details misrepresented, outright lies, etc.

Try and get in the habit of sending out proofs as .jpegs or with a watermark of some sort on them to at least make the offending sign company work at it a little to copy your work.

 

It happens to everyone and usually without warning. Sounds like you have a good handle on it.

 

Another consideration here is what course of action can you take if someone files a charge back with their credit card company. I've learn from many years of accepting cards online people can and will file charge backs for any reason (legitimate or not). If you don't have written policies available on your site and/or displayed in your business then it will be much harder to fight these (and win). Some obvious ones, proof policy, return/refund policy, warranty, and color policy.

 

Id still keep an eye out. A customer sent us a pdf that was password protected...I needed to change something in it, and their art guy was on vacation. A quick Google search and about 30 seconds and the pdf was editable and password was removed.... It's not hard, and anyone who can Google "remove pdf password" can do it.

Usually the shady people who get you to do all their artwork and then decide to go elsewhere are the ones who'd try to remove it. Or their printing buddies likely will know how to search and do it.

 

Vista Print?

 

No. There's actually a website where you upload the pdf... It removes the password and you redownload a new pdf.

I think it was - https://smallpdf.com/unlock-pdf though there's lots of sites in there. I didn't look into it to see what files it would or would not remove the password from... But I tested and it worked for our work files we encrypt and the one the client sent. Handy to have around incase you need it...

Most people don't encrypt from printing, just editing. That way the client and you can print the proof, sign it and fax it. That unfortunately allows anyone to print to pdf.. Thus creating a new pdf that isn't protected, and is still vector. I'm not sure that's the way the website uses... But I've used that way before also. Reading through that one website it kind of sounds like it's what it's doing.

You could always password protect from printing. But that blocks faxing...and blocks customers from printing the proof for their reference. Kind of a screwed if you do, screwed if you don't situation.

I didn't mean to make a guide on how to bypass everyone's security... It started out as a way to protect your file more...so!

The only real way to protect yourself if you think the customer might pull one over on you is to rasterize the proof with a low enough dpi that they can't do anything with it and send that. Then they can't enlarge it, or send to another shop who can steal all the vectors / graphics easily. We've had to do it this way for a few clients.. But nothing can stop someone from re-vectorizing or recreating your work if they want to. It's just a bit more of a pain than removing the password.

 

Why, oh why are all these somewhat new members deleting their posts when they don't get the answers they wanna hear ??

This new generation of sign people is the pits. Can't do a danged thing, and then when ya try to help them, they cop an attitude and take it so personally, they go home and take their ball with them. Rather than being a real man.... or a real woman, they take their ball and go home, like some spoiled little brat. Someone recently was just talking about this latest group of people and they're right on the money with their perspective on the situation.

 

I'm lost and really would have liked to read the first post