| This can happen in all walks of life. My neighbour is a very good carpenter, made a really nice cad drawing + materials bill for a local church, they took it to a competitor to have it built. Limiting your exposure and building up a portfolio of 'good' customers is a slow process, it can take quite a few years to get to the point where you no longer have to worry about stuff like that. The lesson is to not give too much to a customer before you have established under what rules your relationship operates, this customer saw you do a lot of work that others would charge for for free and took advantage of that. They felt they were not under any obligation to have you do the work, it's unethical of them but it is also partly your problem because you gave them that opportunity. If you can avoid giving customers detailed specifications - and I really don't see how that is a requirement before getting to a contract, a global spec that you could hand to them should suffice, not something they can start building off - then that would probably be enough to safeguard from instances like this. It's probably happened to all of us at least once though. Also, to every story there are two sides, I'll take it on faith that this is how you see it, but chances are that they see it completely differently. They might think they guided you in drawing up the spec. Perspective can make a big difference in cases like these. Next time be more brief, put enough time in to a proposal to make clear that you are serious, not enough to give away a serious chunk of work. edit: on another note, I think I can glean from your writing that you are a German national working abroad. Cultural differences about stuff like this abound, not only would you probably have had a case in Germany, your customer likely would have never done that. Western Europe has a different attitude towards stuff like this than most of the rest of the world, I've found. Verbal agreements being honoured is a pretty rare thing elsewhere, it's all about the contract. I've lived in Canada for a good five years, last year I was in Germany for some business, and the company I visited gave me a roughly 7,000 Euro computer + CNC controller on my say so that I'd pay when I got back to NL, saving me a trip. I could never imagine that happening in Canada with a new business relationship. You may have to do 'in Rome' as the Romans do, or you'll be taken advantage of! |