Now that the shameful dust has settled, and we've learned which publications to avoid now and forevermore, our final installment of the Hall of Shame concerns what to do if and when you find yourself getting royally screwed. (See, we told you we weren't going to be afraid to be servicey.) To do so, we've enlisted the aid of a former magazine accounting department lackey—who admits to having screwed over more than one freelancer in their day.

Sayeth our now-repentant accountant:

If you've reached the point where it seems like you are deliberately not being paid, the warning signs of which are:

- No one answering your calls
- No one returning your calls
- No particular reason given for why you're not being paid
- Having to resend your invoice more than once
- It being more than 60 days since you should have been paid

... then there are a few magic words you can use in your voicemail message.

Those magic words, and much more, after the jump.

These are "I am going to send it to a collections agency in 2 days" or "I am going to initiate legal action." The first generally works better than the second, since so many people threaten lawsuits these days that you actually have to hire a lawyer (or send a fake but legitimate-looking legal letter—which I can provide cheap!) in order for them to believe you. But these do work, because almost all media companies have investors, and you have to report certain things to investors because of due dillegence and various other corporate governance rules.

If it's merely on the books that you need to be paid, this is one of many, many debts they owe. But if you become a pending collection or lawsuit, they have to report that separately, and it looks very, very bad;
most companies will want to avoid this if it's humanly possible, and they always have SOME money (well, unless they're about to fold), so yours can be the one discretionary debt they pay off that week/month/year. If you're worried about this ruining your relationship with the company, don't; editorial and finance are separate, so accounting will hate you, but that will often make you more likely to get paid.

Of course, this assumes that accounts payable is actually checking their messages, but god knows I went through periods where I didn't. So if you've pulled out the collections threat, call around a bit; check the
website and see if you can figure out who is in the finance department, and then ask to be transferred to each of them by name. If they won't transfer you to them, direct-dial someone else in the company and pretend you got the wrong number and ask to be transferred, this almost always works.

So sorry to all the writers (and pubs) out there I didn't pay, but hopefully this makes up for it in some way!

Earlier: Hall of Shame, Part III: The Leading Offenders