And this is a good example of why freelancers should set up as a business (in the US as at least an LLC) – in order to separate their personal finances from the business finances. Part of being in business is being sued these days. Crap happens all the time, guys like this trying to game the system or sometimes it really is your fault, (or the crap just rolled downhill onto your plate somehow.) ALWAYS CYA!
The biggest mistake was thinking people are nice and not (c u next tuesdays)
Trouble is most are the latter. It’s infuriating.
Yeah, that’s a word that I never, seriously, never use.
Funny thing is, we’ve been sued and we’ve sued people and we all still do business together. Bad things happen sometimes and it needs to get sorted legally. It’s often not a big deal.
I still laugh whenever I think about a billboard graphic I saw once where the designer had live-traced a realtor’s photo in order to get it to go large. I’m sure it looked great on their monitor and in proof. It looked like a terrible paint by number monstrosity at 12’ x 40’. It was gone the next day when I went back to take a photo of it, LOL. Someone was out $$,$$$ for a big print and an install and rush deinstall, plus a rush print to replace it, plus another install, plus a week of non-exposure for the client…it can snowball really quick
It’s also a good example of why professional liability insurance is a good idea.
As for the LLC, I’ve handled my after-hours freelance work out of one for years while keeping my personal finances completely separate from it.
This past year, though, the LLC came back to bite me. Early on in the pandemic, I was furloughed from my full-time position, so I filed for unemployment. It was eventually denied because to the people making the decisions on these things, the LLC and my previous after-hours freelance work indicated to them that I was a business owner and ineligible for unemployment. It’s turned out OK, however, since I was able to rapidly scale up the freelance work into a full-time thing that’s finally paying off. Looking back, I probably should have done that ten years ago.
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And that illustrates why freelancing is a serious business thing.
It’s not often a pandemic comes around. I’d weigh that against being sued any day. It’s good that you could ramp it up. But you have the chops. A lot of the newbs don’t.
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Take the plunge, I have never regretted it. I can never work for anyone again. Being your own boss is so freeing, and trying. But its wonderful. I look back at all the bad decisions and bad managers I had in life and thankfully I will never have to answer to anyone again, but the wife!
Anyway, its great to hear it is working out for you!
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Yes, I’ve spent way too much time dealing with that kind of thing over the years. Even so, I’m still dealing with it from some clients, but the difference is that the difficult people and their bad decisions go away once the job is finished. 
What I’m having difficulty with is the mental lack of security and not really having a fixed schedule where I show up, work, then go home. Everything seems to blur together now with no certain weekends or evenings I can call my own. I’m having to organize my time better, but it’s difficult when clients have their own schedules that change independently from each other and conflict with whatever I might have planned.
I’m trying to find a couple of good, semi-regular, long-term clients to even things out into more of a routine. I was contacted by a well-established publisher yesterday with just that kind of an offer, so it’s looking up. Like I said, I should have done this years ago.
I guess I’ve veered off the subject of die cuts. Sorry, Dany6.