Deposit how much to keep

What is fair and what you need to do may not square....

How did you get so far in before you realized you could not do it?...Some of that might have been on the job training that might not be fair to pass on to your client...

Also, you live in a small place so if you are unreasonable in the eyes of the client it might cost you more in the long run than a little bigger refund than you might think is reasonable...

Good luck!

 

Your in a no-win situation........Am I reading correct that the other company got the job, or just provided a new picture? If they ultimately got the job, I would say the deposit is yours, but you can probably say goodbye to this customer.

Like I said, no-win.

 

I'd refund minus my time involved at my shop rate and returning the material minus your suppliers restocking fee.

 

a security deposit is just that,..defined as an amount of money you need to go ahead and start the process of doing the job so you will not be out of pocket for the effort and any expenses incurred in said process if the client changes their mind before you can produce a one off or multiple custom product. The money should be considered yours if you proceeded in good faith to do the work he requested depending on the laws in your state. As for the being a good client, if he actually IS a good client he will understand loyalty and fairness if you try to explain,hopefully he will but I wouldn't bet on it seeing as he went with the competition after making you jump thru some hoops first.;

 

Well, I'm about being fair to the customers. IF you CAN refund, it should be for the amount of the deposit minus materials and work completed. You can always tell him that you can reserve the materials for X amount of months if he does decide to use you again and that the amount you can not refund back to him can be applied to the next job using that material (and that material only). otherwise, consider him a lost client who really won't be back since he will be out how many of thousands of dollars.

 

Hopefully the the deposit was more then what you put into it ...1st off the list is the grand you spent, next is time, since this is a no win deal here, you might say oh well to some of the time , and return more. . But customer was wrong to go with another shop to do job , picture no big deal but job..... sorry customer you lose you went to another shop to get full job done, result lost customer bad feelings, other people will not see his point going to another shop.

How do you make that look good return monies and lose anyway, customer will not go around saying what a great guy you to many people for doing that, will he ask for more work toss up.

I would credit him some monies for next jobs. ya both win.

 

Sell the material to the other sign shop. If they don't want it, threaten to sell it to the customer . Muahahaha..... I hate it when customers bring in their own materials.

 

I think weaselB is onto something, when he comes in asking for his deposit just give him the material! See he got his deposit back

 

if the client is good enough to jump through hoops for, then why is he going to other sign companies when he's clearly in a rush and you clearly only needed a better picture (or approval to blur-out the crappy picture) to proceed?

Deposit is yours. Keep it and don't sweat it. The other company just met his deadline and he will most likely be going to them in the future. Returning him a few bucks won't change that.

 

It pretty much goes without saying that a deposit is forfeited if you choose to go elsewhere halfway through the job...?

Try doing what he just did to you, to your mechanic. Lucky if you don't walk out with a spanner out your ear.

 

Did he give you the opportunity to look for a different image with a more favorable resolution?

jc

 

You need it 50Kpixels by 30k of just the machine? or the whole scene including the snowy background is 50x30?
What kind of snowmobile are you looking for?
Does it have to be a specific brand?

wayne k
guam usa

 

So the other supplier couldn't do what you couldn't do and the customer found out you were correct. Kudos to the customer for swallowing their pride and coming back to you to get the job done correctly. I give him/her credit for that.

Now be sure that you live up to the customers expectation.

 

So, my big question is ... if none of the photos will do ... why not go illustrative with it? it wouldn't take much to vector the image. I mean, one of the actual useful features they added onto illustrator in the past ... 5 versions is the live trace. Live trace is horrid for actual artwork but fantastic for taking photos ... and tracing them with over 200 colors for near photo realistic results. experiment with that atleast to see if you can come up with something that works.

 

sounds like a WIN to me!
nothing better than a client thinking they can shop you out of a project, just to find out you weren't bullshitting him in the first place.

safe to assume you've still got yourself a solid client for future work. now make this graphic work for him and lock him down!

 

Am I reading it correctly that he walked off with a design you did and took it to another company? You own that art, if there hasn't been a final signoff with rights transfer you could take him to the moon and back. However it sounds like the customer is one of the rare "good guys" so I'd let it ride...this time.

Also buy Perfect Resize already. Everyone in this industry should have it and know how to use it. Graphic industry standard for image upscaling.