Money for nothing (and your chicks for free)

I’m regularly asked to help people out with PC issues or websites.  That’s cool, it’s what I do.  I’m good at it and I charge for my expertise.  That’s right, I’m not a charity despite numerous recent inquiries from people who obviously think I am.

A few months back there was the ‘adult’ products company who wanted me to investigate why they weren’t getting any sales from their website.  OK, I’m an adult and nothing on the site was illegal, so I gave them an idea of how I could help them, including an estimate of the hours involved.

Silence ensued.

Funny how these people were keen to tell me how they spent thousands of dollars setting up the site, but wouldn’t spend a few hundred bucks making it work properly.

I lost another client because their free host died.  The fact that they hadn’t paid a cent for the hosting was somehow my responsibility because I had charged them for designing their site.

Another client asked me to add another page to their site so they could start selling stuff.  Of course they didn’t want to pay any extra for the work.   Apparently this was part of the deal (which I gave them at a very reasonable rate because they were a start-up I chose to support).   Sigh.

You get what you pay for in this world and I’m sick of the Takers in this world trying it on.

Yes I do some free work for organizations I support.  I also often charge reduced rates for genuine charities.   Sometimes this is just not enough for some people.

So to all you Takers: Take your business elsewhere, the answer is NO.

Free Chicken!