Show me the Money

I'd like your suggestions dealing with this problem before I do anything.

I'll try to give all the facts. Back in October, someone who is an editor for a health web site (I checked out the site first before I wrote my article), advertised here on AW for health writers. I answered the ad through email and had some correspondence with the editor. She liked my writing, gave me an article to write, told me exactly what she was looking for--length, type, etc. She also told me to send a short bio and an invoice on the agreed payment amount. I invoiced on October 15. Therefore, it has now been 2 months since I invoiced.

She had said she would let me know if there were any edits. She never did get back to me. So one day I asked her about my article. All she said in her email was that she sent my invoice to accounting and I should hear from them. Well, I've heard nothing.

On my own, I visited their web site, looking to see if my article was published. I couldn't find it until I put a few key words in the search bar. Then it came up. So, even though it seems to be separate from the other articles, it is there. I have no idea why it is not posted with the other articles. And yes, my name and bio are with the article.

Since I still have not been paid for my research/writing, any thoughts on how I can get my money? I've already invoiced. Should I just pester the editor? We are not talking about a huge amount of money here, but I did the work and want to get paid.

Lavern08 said:

I've never experienced this before, but YES, I'd pester them until I got paid, Girlfriend.

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Thanks, Lavern. Unfortunately I am experiencing this more and more. They ask for the work within 2 or 3 days, you get it to them promptly, and then have to wait forever to get paid.

I may wait until after Christmas to pester them. It often seems as if editors are unavailable at Christmastime.

Well truthfully here, the editor did seem to be passing the buck to the accounting department. She said she forwarded my invoice to accounting and that I should be hearing from them. I have not. She made it sound as if it's out of her hands now.

Since this is a web site, I am going to try to find a phone number on it that I can call. If there IS an accounting department, I'll talk to someone about my payment.

I am very skeptical about the whole thing at this point. At the beginning the editor seemed to want someone to write articles on a regular basis. She has never asked me to write anything else. That makes me very suspicious.

I agree that I didn't handle this situation very well at the outset. But we learn from our mistakes. I won't make the same mistake again.

So I have an update to this story.

I wrote an email to the editor who asked me to write the article. She responded last night, apologized, and said she would contact someone about my payment.

So today I got an email (the kind you can't respond to) from someone at the web site for whom I wrote my article. They're saying they will pay me if I sign up for Bill.com, which I've never heard of.

I have a PayPal account; that would be fine. Has anyone here ever heard of Bill.com?

Angie said:

I have a client who pays via Bill.com. I think it works for them like accounting software -- you can invoice through it, too, but I've never bothered because I already use Freshbooks and/or PayPal for that (depending on the client). But it is a legit site.

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Thank you for that info, Angie! I appreciate it.

One thing I keep thinking is if I go to the trouble of opening an account with Bill.com, I will probably only use it once. I already have a PayPal account which is ready to use.

Well this story has a happy ending.

I was just about to call them on the phone to discuss paying me via PayPal when I happened to check my emails and found out they did pay me via PayPal. (today, that is)