Problems with getting paid by Dive Chronicles magazine, USA

Over the last 18 months I have been doing some work for Dive Chronicles magazine. I am in the UK (Bristol), Dive Chronicles is in the USA (Ft Lauderdale, Florida), and nearly all my contact was by email (with the occasional phone call).

Dive Chronicles is bi-monthly. For the first 3 issues I got paid for my contributions. After that, all I have received is various promises that "the info you need for billing is in today's post", "I will sort it out tomorrow", "you will be paid in the next few days" ... the pattern was becoming predictable. I am now owed money for contributions to 3 issues, the last being the Sept/Oct 04 issue (ie 6 months ago), amounting to an estimated $1500 (I cannot be precise because the publisher has

not provided billing information).

For the last 3 months I have had no reply to any attempts to contact the publisher. (I have confirmation from other sources that the magazine is still in business).

So the real question is, what ways are there for me to pursue this debt, and how much is it likely to cost me to pursue?

Regards

John Liddiard

john@liddiard.demon.co.uk

I finally got enough information from Brad Nolan/Dive Chronicles to issue a full invoice on 3 March.

Since then I have received:

- A promise that he always pays his invoices

- A certain amount of righteous indignation about my tactics for trying to get paid

- Several more variations of "A cheque is in the post"

Fed up with his continued stalling, I have now assigned the debt to a US based debt collection company, a tactic that would not have been possible before the Internet. For others in a similar situation, especially with US based publications who seem to have more than a minority share of failures to pay, this looks like a solution (though in my case it is still early days to tell). I will advise how things turn out.

Interesting John, thanks for letting us know about this. Guess i won't be submitting anything to them....

Best

Mike

There are two sides to every story, of course, but I've had nothing but great dealings with Brad Nolan and dive chronicles magazine, and I look forward to submitting articles in the future.

I agree with Ryan. We need to hear both sides before making any decisions. Hopefully someone from Dive Chronicles will come here to make a statement. They are aware of this thread.

I agree that it would be good to hear both sides of the story - as it's obvious that people are making up their minds about Dive Chronicles based on only one side.

Now for a more general message - which is pretty much just my opinion about these types of topics:

I think it's just fine for Wetpixel users to post things like "I didn't receive XYZ when I ordered my housing, and after three calls and two emails to the dealer, I still haven't gotten it." That's a fair statement of fact, and as long as it's true, then it's usually something people want to hear about. The same goes for product reports. If you put together your setup following the directions that came with it and it doesn't work, or is certainly defective, then I'd think users would want to read about that too.

On the other hand, I don't like to hear people say things like "I got my XYZ housing and the zoom gear doesn't work." Then after a few questions, we find out that the user was putting it on backwards, hadn't read the manual, and hadn't called the dealer or manufacturer for support.

These are just two general examples based on some exchanges I've seen here and at other boards. I'm not picking on members or dealers with this post, or taking sides in any way - just posting some examples for consideration.

Cheers

James

well written James.

I tried to say something similar lately (elsewhere), but I didn't present it well, and got a bad reaction to my post. You have presented it very well.

I almost want to copy and paste it...

Hey, as long as it does some good, go for it. I can't say for sure if the people at "somewhere else" will agree, or if they will even understand, but it's worth a try.

Cheers

James

I'm shutting down this thread. I've spoken with Dive Chronicles, and payment was issued two days before John's June 9th post. There is more, but I don't want to get in the middle of the issue.