by Joe Wallace

One question I get asked all the time about freelance jobs goes something like, “How do I know I won’t get ripped off by my client?” Everybody wants protection from wasting precious time working on a project that turns out to be a non-paying dud, but when you’re going out for freelance jobs you do have to accept some level of risk. After all, you don’t actually know your new client…but then again, they don’t know YOU either. The best tactic to use if you are THAT worried about not getting paid? It’s pretty simple, really for most freelance projects except for articles.

Try submitting the projects in batches and invoice per every batch. Give yourself some breathing room in your time delivered if you can and wait for confirmation that your first check has been sent and you’ll have few worries. Of course, the tight deadline project makes this a bit tricky.

But the batch concept as opposed to submitting the whole project at one time makes sense because if you wind up not getting paid for one of the batches you simply stop working on the freelance project.

Personally I don’t worry much about getting burned–I try to select my freelance clients carefully from the outset. I research em on Google and see if there’s any bad vibes about them in the freelance community. If not, I move ahead. A litle bit of research can go a long way. I have successfully avoided plenty of bad gigs thanks to a quick check on Google and my writing networks. You can too. One day I may get ripped off, but it won’t be for a lack of research and caution.