Hi there,

I find myself wondering about something else respecting the services that I am offering through my web site and was wondering if I could get additional input from anyone that might care to give it?

Specifically I am wondering about the following...

I have never, ever had a client of mine stiff me as in walking away with my work and not paying me. Partly I think because I have been very careful about who I work for and because I have not focused at all on working for anyone not based in San Diego (where I could at least go and stand in front of their store front with a protest sign if they did not pay me LOL).

If I do excellent work to the complete satisfaction of a client I expect to be paid what was agreed upon.

Now the problem is this...

As a result of what seems to be a good merchant account deal that is being offered me where I will be able to start accepting credit cards at no up front cost to me (without having to use the likes of PayPal)...I will be able to now offer my services generally over the Internet to anyone.

Which will introduce the very real possibility that I might not get paid for work done for someone entirely over the Internet. Who might live several States away from me (I live in California) or even in a different city than San Diego.

I am thinking that it might be wise to absolutely require a $25 deposit on whatever work I am hired to do for those persons or businesses that are not in the immediate San Diego area.

What do you all think about that?

I realize that I might lose some prospective customers over this requirement (if I implement it) but it's the only way I can think of to somewhat protect myself from people just hiring me to do web site development work and then walking away without paying me.

Anybody experienced problems with non-payment for work over the Internet before? Is that just a cost of doing business? Have you been able to diminish that somewhat in some way? If so...how?

As an alternative is it workable to require a certain amount of money to be put into an escrow account whose funds will not be released unless both parties agree or something similar (if such a thing is available online)?

I am all ears if anyone has any input or suggestions on this.

Thanks.

Carlos