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Whether you work in design, art, web development, or any other creative field, you're bound to deal with at least one absolutely terrible client in your lifetime. Thankfully, however, a magical place exists where all of your frustrations can be vented anonymously and among people who know exactly what you're talking about - down to the last revision.

It's called Clients From Hell, and it's so discreet that even its founders and admins remain completely unknown to this day, which is great news for the hundreds upon thousands of creatives and freelancers who have used the site to share their stories since 2009. If you've ever dealt with a client straight from the fiery pits yourself, these harrowing accounts of trickery and insanity with first give you a chuckle, and then a long, slow shiver of dread. The user-submitted posts can even be sorted by 'client type,' ranging from 'deadbeat' to 'racist' to 'chaotic good.'

Scroll down to see some of our favorite Clients From Hell moments, and be sure to check out these illustrated quotes from people who expected artists to work for free, as well as 15 types of difficult clients and how to deal with them while you're at it.

More info: Clients From Hell, Twitter

#4

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Michel M. Prins
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is the most desperate way of talking your way out of a CONTRACT

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Hans
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Linguistically he has a point. Economically, he is stupid.

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Rafael Ulloa
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

They're called freelancers because they're independent. Not because they work for free.

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Zenozenobee
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If this level of stupidty actually exist, then we shall all pray really strong for his/her gene never to be transmitted to next generation.

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Skure
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When you take money from clients like this, you did one good deed.

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Joel Lazar
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Somewhere in the spectrum between pathetic and idiotic. Double the late fee!

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Miss Wakana
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Trolling your way out of paying. Oh sure. See ya in court!" Some people are so desperate. smh.

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layne
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Having been worked as freelance artist before i became quickly amazed at how low & disingenuous people would stoop to be. Then try taking me for an idiot!

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L. Sam Robinson
Community Member
5 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

This is made up. Cost would have been included with the work estimate.

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Alex Craig
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Are there really people out there that would actually say this out loud?

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Katie Fallon
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I refuse to believe someone legitimately thought that. What about the contract they signed?

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Michèle Gyselinck
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What a moron! Freelance doesn't you work for free. It means you work on your own.

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Pat Hege
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Actually this is probably a blonde person, or some college educated person that has NO common sense

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endelbendel
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Never call for payment. Bill, then go to small claims court if you can stand the aggravation, but the personal confrontation with deadbeats is not worth it.

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Bobby Clemente
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

LMAO. Are people really this dumb? They need to be thrown in jail for not having any morals and/or ethics.

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Diane Sotto
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Wow. The judge and the court audience must have had peed their pants trying not to laugh.

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#9

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Nadine Ducca
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I sometimes wonder what parallel universe some of these people must be from.

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#11

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Daria B
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Ugh, in customer service we have a lot of cases like this "WHY DON'T YOU ANSWER ME?!" *the avalanche of spam messages was sent outside of working hours every 5 hours*. We are not a chatting service. And we are humans too, not NPCs programmed to answer any time you press the key.

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#16

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EvieNiffler
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Why don't these people understand they actually need to PAY for the service???

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#21

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Hans
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If this was CSI, they would use the reflection of the car in the puddle which is reflected in the window of the barn, increase it be 5000% and hit "enhance". Job done!

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#22

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EvieNiffler
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Tell them you accept either £20 per hour or £1 per minute for 60 minutes work ;)

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#23

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Anna Thouvenin
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

That reminds me of a friend who had a flatmate who thought she had to pay only for the time she was physically in the room. One time she went away for two weeks and didn't understand why she had to pay for the whole month since she wasn't there...

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#24

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Anastasia B
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I had that exact conversation when I was working at an IT department. More than once... We used to go on site for support... So many times people weren't happy.

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#27

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Pamela24
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

What is wrong with people these days? Expecting to get paid for services not later than they choose - are you crazy? (*sarcasm*)

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#31

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Victor Calamity
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"Why, of course it did! Legally, we can't discriminate against people named 'Bob'..."

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#33

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Anna Thouvenin
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I don't, absolutely don't know how an adult would actually believe that someone would do free work. But then, it's another level where they believe YOU pay to work for them...

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#38

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J. Pell
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The ignorance displayed is staggering. I remember a post on Quora asking if they spoke Latin in England.

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#41

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Iveta T
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

"please don't correct me again" "can i slap you in your face???"

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#43

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Victor Calamity
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My reply would have been: "I'm sorry, I'm not familiar with that word... is there another word you'd like to use that won't get you sued?"

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#44

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Juana
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In fairness, anyone who does this professionally should learn how to explain and translate their work to lay people. If everyone knew and understood the details of this stuff, they probably wouldn't have to hire a professional.

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#46

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--
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

well but at least he wants to pay unlike some of the idiots here

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Anna Thouvenin
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

He is probably used to being logged in his Google/Apple account everywhere and import all his bookmarks.

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#56

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Michel M. Prins
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Okay that's just horrible. Have the agreement of the model himself first. The rest comes later.

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#57

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nanashi
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

how? make a captcha-like test of a picture of an orange and Trump and make visitors to choose which they have more negative thoughts on?

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#58

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Hans
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

At least this client understands that files have a size. Tell that to all these people sending insanely large attachments and replying to emails with attachments always with them kept.

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#60

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Michel M. Prins
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I can understand that you can fool a teenager with $20 extra. ...Probably not a full-time freelancer

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EvieNiffler
Community Member
6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

In all fairness, it can be very frustrating trying to use a technology you don't understand. At least he was honest about his lack of understanding, rude yes, but honest.

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#64

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Anna Thouvenin
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If they can somehow send food through inboxes, I would like to order a Double Whooper.

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#66

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EvieNiffler
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Bill him hourly for the time you will be spending on creating a time machine ;)

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#69

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Michel M. Prins
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Okay, fair play. The moment someone send you a photo with him and a crack cocaine pot, you can pretty much expect all kinds of answers.

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#70

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EvieNiffler
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Some closeted bastard wants to jump on your a*s... get out of there!

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Michel M. Prins
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Horrible client, but make sure the contract has everything perfectly written out. That way they can't rat out of something.

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Oscar Acevedo
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Lmao... The fact that most of the 4GB was already used is hilarious!

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Trond B Krokli
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

The client could possibly be biased from hearing about (unwanted) internet traffic making sites slower. Might have been avoided by saying "customers" instead of "traffic". Technological terms are rarely the clients' strong side.

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Hans
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

If we, for a moment, forget about any technical details, he has a point.

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Trond B Krokli
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

My customer support colleagues and I used to joke about all kinds of flat stuff (pizza etc.) we would love to be able to fax to each other. Then again, we knew we were joking. :-O

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Trond B Krokli
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

I would definitely not want to be one of "them" with their racist attitude.

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Trond B Krokli
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

Looks like a straight-forward request to me. The only "challenge" would be updating the website, which would need to be the complete site on CDs as well, discarding the old CDs.

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Joe Reaves
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

We have a racially diverse customer base but apparently not a racially diverse workforce. I guess they forgot to ask their token African American emplyee. *rolls eyes*

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#112

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Judy Semmens
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6 years ago DotsCreated by potrace 1.15, written by Peter Selinger 2001-2017

When I think of the complexity and intricacy of Chinese characters, that comment is extremely funny.

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