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An IT specialist developed specialized warehouse management software for a client and immediately found an employee on staff who was stealing from his boss. The client didn’t believe him and said it was just a glitch in the program, refusing to pay the developer for the work done. But he didn’t let anyone hurt him.
A simple program to save a business
An IT specialist wrote a program to manage a warehouse and inventory for a hardware store, but the client refused to pay for it, for which he ended up paying. He told his story to The Register.
The programmer, whom the publication calls Bill, created, in his words, “a fairly simple stock control system” for his client, who was the owner of a small store. He said that the work did not require much investment from him, but the client soon returned with complaints.
Man or Machine
The store owner claimed that the program Bill had written was not working because the product was listed in the database but not on the shelves. Bill began looking for the source of the problem and found it, but not where he expected it to be - the program was functioning correctly, unlike the warehouse employee.
Bill studied the invoices and documentation on the delivery of goods in detail and received visual evidence that the warehouse manager was secretly moving some goods without registering it in the program, after which he illegally sold them and pocketed the money.
Bill passed this information on to the store owner and added that the problem with the staff he had discovered perfectly demonstrated the effectiveness of the software he had created. But the client did not think so - he continued to insist that Bill's program was broken and refused to pay for it.
No money - get problems
This story, according to Bill, happened about 30 years ago, in the 1990s. "The customer waved the software disks at me and said he wasn't going to pay £400 for three useless disks," he told The Register.
Next came the negotiating phase, which eventually resulted in Bill finally being able to get paid, but not nearly as much as he had hoped. The customer was willing to pay him only £200, half the amount he had previously agreed on.
After the negotiations, Bill told the shop owner that he needed to do some minor tweaking of the program code - just one last update. This update was a small piece of code that, on the last day of each month, would erase all information from the computer on which Bill's inventory management program was installed.
A miser always pays
Having "updated" the program, Bill waited, and at the end of the month, when his code worked, the shop owner called Bill for help. And he was only too happy to solve all the customer's problems - but only after he was paid £150, and in advance.
"It wasn't that hard to restore - just one line of DOS," Bill told The Register. He pretended to the customer that he was doing a very difficult and important job. "By mid-afternoon, everything had magically come back to life," he added.
The following month, Bill's program cleared the hard drive again, and he again agreed to help for an advance payment of £150.
By this time, the shop owner was thinking of upgrading his fleet of computers, deciding that the current ones were outdated (apparently due to frequent deletion of information).
Bill thought that this upgrade could be the end of his profitable relationship with this client, but in the end he was wrong. One day, his phone rang - the same shop owner on the other end, asking Bill to install his inventory control program on the new PCs.
Bill did not refuse him again, but again asked for £150, and definitely in advance.
A simple program to save a business
An IT specialist wrote a program to manage a warehouse and inventory for a hardware store, but the client refused to pay for it, for which he ended up paying. He told his story to The Register.
The programmer, whom the publication calls Bill, created, in his words, “a fairly simple stock control system” for his client, who was the owner of a small store. He said that the work did not require much investment from him, but the client soon returned with complaints.
Man or Machine
The store owner claimed that the program Bill had written was not working because the product was listed in the database but not on the shelves. Bill began looking for the source of the problem and found it, but not where he expected it to be - the program was functioning correctly, unlike the warehouse employee.
Bill studied the invoices and documentation on the delivery of goods in detail and received visual evidence that the warehouse manager was secretly moving some goods without registering it in the program, after which he illegally sold them and pocketed the money.
Bill passed this information on to the store owner and added that the problem with the staff he had discovered perfectly demonstrated the effectiveness of the software he had created. But the client did not think so - he continued to insist that Bill's program was broken and refused to pay for it.
No money - get problems
This story, according to Bill, happened about 30 years ago, in the 1990s. "The customer waved the software disks at me and said he wasn't going to pay £400 for three useless disks," he told The Register.
Next came the negotiating phase, which eventually resulted in Bill finally being able to get paid, but not nearly as much as he had hoped. The customer was willing to pay him only £200, half the amount he had previously agreed on.
After the negotiations, Bill told the shop owner that he needed to do some minor tweaking of the program code - just one last update. This update was a small piece of code that, on the last day of each month, would erase all information from the computer on which Bill's inventory management program was installed.
A miser always pays
Having "updated" the program, Bill waited, and at the end of the month, when his code worked, the shop owner called Bill for help. And he was only too happy to solve all the customer's problems - but only after he was paid £150, and in advance.
"It wasn't that hard to restore - just one line of DOS," Bill told The Register. He pretended to the customer that he was doing a very difficult and important job. "By mid-afternoon, everything had magically come back to life," he added.
The following month, Bill's program cleared the hard drive again, and he again agreed to help for an advance payment of £150.
By this time, the shop owner was thinking of upgrading his fleet of computers, deciding that the current ones were outdated (apparently due to frequent deletion of information).
Bill thought that this upgrade could be the end of his profitable relationship with this client, but in the end he was wrong. One day, his phone rang - the same shop owner on the other end, asking Bill to install his inventory control program on the new PCs.
Bill did not refuse him again, but again asked for £150, and definitely in advance.
