Well thanks for all the good advice. I'm happy to say that I finally won this battle. I took a drive down to her shop. The first thing I notice is she had someone else take my design and make her a sign for the sign face above the windows. Now I'm shaking cuz I'm so pissed. The next thing I notice is that the open sign is turned off. Funny, it's normal business hours. I walk up to the front door and it's locked. Now I'm pissed and worried. I went to the shop next door and asked the girl if she knew the folks at Blu Nail. She said no but she had heard that they had been shut down due to health violations. HAHA, go figure. I tried to call both the shop as well as her cell. No answer and no answering machine. I spoke with my partner and decided we'd send her to collections. They keep 25% of the total bill. Oh well, it's better than nothing.
In the mean time, I called my buddy who owns a hair removal clinic. When I asked the client how she heard of us, she said she was a client of his and that he had referred her to me. After speaking to my buddy, he told me that they had no record of her as a client. So now I'm thinking - Great, I was set up from the beginning. I decided to wait till the next day to get collections after her.
Out of nowhere, she calls me the next day and apologizes and tells me that she's had the money all along (yeah right) and she wants to meat up in order to pay. Tells me she call tomorrow to make arrangements. I didn't hear anything for 4 days. So I started calling every hour on the hour. Still no answer. At the end of the day, I sent her a text message (cuz everyone with a cell phone gets those). I told her she had until 4 p.m. the next day otherwise I will send her to collections. Plus I told her that I'd sue her for Copyright infringement for using my design which she had not paid for. She called me the next day, came to meet me and handed me an envelop with a bank draft for more than the total amount owing. She again apologized and made up a bunch of excuses. Either way, i don't care because I got paid and I never have to deal with her again.
In the end I still can't figure out why she would go to such lengths to try and screw me because she did end up paying. I'm guessing she a pathological liar or something. Anyhoo, that's how it all worked out and I think I've learned few lessons in the process. Cheers!
