One of the most annoying parts of being self-employed is trying to get paid for your work. Whether it’s from a blog post or influencer related social media posts, I’m always trying to follow-up with clients to get paid. When I originally wrote this, it was in a flurry of anger and annoyance at a certain company who requested a post to be posted in a short time, and then they proceeded to ghost me for an entire week.

I had sent three follow-up messages trying to get paid, all with no reply, which made me wonder if the website is scammy if that’s how they handle business. Of course, I was just dealing with their media person, but I went and recommended holding off on using the promo code I posted until I heard back, just to be safe.

They contacted me with a request to post on my Instagram page, and the work was required to be completed in a quick time frame. They promised payment and product shipped out within 48 hours. I posted the image as requested and sent them the links. No reply.

I waited 48 hours and followed up, also no reply. Then I gave them the weekend and all of Monday just in case they needed to get caught up, and I followed up again after a week of being patient and let them know I’d be archiving the post until I heard back. I never heard back, so I archived the post and sent them a message letting them know. Archiving takes the post off your feed, but saves it as it is, with the engagement intact, and can be reactivated at any time.

And guess what?

Less than 12 hours after archiving the post, a payment magically showed up in my Paypal. A day after that I got an e-mail saying they were having issues with their payment system. I didn’t point out that that would in no way affect their ability to reply to my multiple e-mails. They didn’t say anything about sending the free cosmetic products they promised, but they did send $50 extra so I decided to just let that slide, count it as a win, and move on.