Safety net until I recieve final payment?

Hey guys. So I have a client who has some past html knowledge and wants full control over the site . I originally had myself setup as and admin but he was not happy about being locked out of everything. I kept him as admin and now he knows where all the chunks, snippets etc. are. I’m sure I will get final payment but I always like to have a safety net just in case. I originally linked the css file to my personal site but he wanted to make some changes and found where I linked it and grabbed the code and copied it over to his own site >:(.

Is there a way to link some major component of the site to my personal site without him being able to track it down and view source? It will temporary until I get my last payment.

Thanks a lot for the help.

The web is very open and if you can view it you can copy it. There isn’t any way I can think of to restrict the site until you get final payment. If you have a contract with the client it will be your best bet for getting final payment.

The only way to hold the site hostage would be to host the site on your own server or a sandbox server with the client lacking access to the database or backup feature of MODx.

If this client has already made progress payments, I don’t see why he would ruin his business relationship with you over a final payment. I have had clients attempt to negotiate a final payment, but (knocks on wood) never had one that refused to pay outright.

Although I never had the need to do so, you can always add a remote ’kill switch’ to your snippets or plugins, and then Zend-encode or Ioncube-encode the PHP source prior to delivery to the client. At least that way your PHP source code is hidden and better protected from being copied or reverse-engineered.

If he is an admin Super User, he can undo anything you might do. If it is MODx Revolution, you might be able to create a policy that would give him rights to everything but Access Permissions so he would be not quite a super user. That way he could still do everything on the site but you could cut off his access down the road if the payment isn’t forthcoming and he couldn’t undo that. In Evolution, you might be able to do the same thing with a custom role -- I’m not sure.

I normally set up an additional admin role which has limited features but the client still feels as if they are an Administor. I do this more so they don’t mess anything up by mistake. But what you could do is have this additional role and just uncheck the "delete users" option. This way you can lock him out if he decided he wasn’t going to pay.

I can’t see why a client would have a problem that you wont hand over full control untill payment is recieved in full.

The other option is put a kill switch in. But if they have some HTML knowledge they could remove, but you could always add it some round about way via a say snippet or something so it not easy to see what going on.

Here a good article which I read on dealing clients that refuse to pay:
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/04/09/dealing-with-clients-who-refuse-to-pay/

Thanks for all the replies. I do have a contract and it states that the site will not be launched until final payment is received. Usually I have full control over the site, but in this rare case I do not. I don’t think there would be anything hurting the clients relationship. I think anyone would agree you have to have some sort of fall back in case a client does not pay, all my clients completely understand that. I’m not trying to limit or disrupt what he is doing in anyway.

It’s a lesson learned though, next time I know I will need to write into my contracts that admin rights will not be handed over until final payment is received. Thanks again for all the replies.

Quote from: steve.mullen at Jun 07, 2010, 09:01 AM

Thanks for all the replies. I do have a contract and it states that the site will not be launched until final payment is received. Usually I have full control over the site, but in this rare case I do not. I don’t think there would be anything hurting the clients relationship. I think anyone would agree you have to have some sort of fall back in case a client does not pay, all my clients completely understand that. I’m not trying to limit or disrupt what he is doing in anyway.

It’s a lesson learned though, next time I know I will need to write into my contracts that admin rights will not be handed over until final payment is received. Thanks again for all the replies.

You’ve probably thought of this already, but I think there’s a fair chance that the client already has the entire site backed up somewhere. That would make anything you might do to secure it ineffective.

Very interesting ideas, guys! I like the kill switch. I’ve wondered about this myself, when dealing with a tech-savvy person. I have generally set up developing sites on my own hosting when I was somewhat paranoid.

As I read this, I thought of the idea of having the files on their hosting, but actually having the database hosted elsewhere you have control over (when the host will allow it). Then again, I suppose they could do a backup of their site through the MODx backend, and that would thwart that idea.

Remote databases will kill your site performance most likely.

The only time I had a problem with payment (barefaced refusal to pay, and what was I going to do about it?) they didn’t understand the significance of having persuaded me to purchase their domain name in my name with my credit card