Not working your standard 9-5 job has its positive sides, but it also has numerous drawbacks, one of those being not having a steady income.
When we add the fact that some “employers” you’ll find online will try to scam you by taking your work and not paying for it in return, working as a freelancers can be a pain in your rear end.
Luckily, there are some tips we’d like to share with you on making sure you get paid for every job you do.
One of the safest ways to ensure you receive your pay is to ask for it in advance. This kind of move takes a lot of guts and experience but it a good way to see how the other party responds.
If your potential employer agrees, all you need to do is fulfill your part of the deal. If they disagree, let them make you a counter offer, which could be that they pay you a third of the entire value of the job in advance. You can divide the work into equal parts, for instance, into three thirds, and ask to be paid before each third, delivering a third of the project every time.
You should be able to get some sort of pay in advance from honest employers as a token of their good business practices. If they refuse carefully weigh the risks against the benefits and decide for yourself whether to take the plunge or not. If it’s a big project most freelancers will tell you not to take on the job without a prepayment.
If the job is small you can follow your gut feeling because you won’t invest too much time and effort into it so even if the other party turns out to be dishonest you won’t feel that bad about having a little faith in humanity.