Okay, I’m so livid now I could spit venom, but I’ll try to keep this as reasonable as possible.
I have, or had, a long-time client for my services – copywriting, editorial services, web design work, general dogsbody for any web updates or Facebook / Twitter updates, strategizing, you name it; I was pretty much second-in-command in everything but title. She’s always been extremely happy with my work, to the point where she’d sometimes pay me extra above what I was charging (which goes to show that I was probably charging way too little).
Anyway, due to one long and very boring story, we had a fall-out over some editorial errors I missed in one of her products (whereas 99% of the rest of the billions of things I was working on for her were perfect). I tried to apologize but she would have none of it. In my defense, while I certainly acknowledge the mistake, the schedule she’d put me on was absolutely crazy… I was doing ALL of the abovementioned tasks (editing, copywriting, webpage designing/editing, graphic design, PR, etc.) in the space of three or four weeks, for four different publications. Normally we’d only produce two publications. However, I did make the mistakes, and I owned up to them and apologized. But she was still pissed off, obviously.
After a few weeks I decided well, I need to get paid for all the work I’ve done for her since December. So I submitted it as usual, though I specifically didn’t include any of the work I’d done relating to that one product that had some errors in it. This was about 20 hours worth of work that I was discounting her, mind you, and by far most of the text was fine. But I felt I’d made an error that had cost her some reprinting money, so it was only fair that I’d not ask to be paid for those particular services. That’s fair, right?
Now, a few months earlier, she’d asked me to redo one of her websites. I agreed, she sent me a 50% deposit for the overall job ($1250), and I eventually produced 10 mockups, tweaking them all as she requested, and she felt that we were pretty near what she wanted.
The invoice I submitted recently was assuming we’d no longer be working together – her lack of contact in three weeks was pretty telling; this is someone who calls me at 1AM if she needs something done. So anyway, in coming up with that final invoice, in addition to the freebie I was giving her on the editorial work she wasn’t happy with, I also figured she shouldn’t be charged for the full 50% deposit on the potential website redesign mentioned above. However, considering the tremendous amount of work those ten mockups represented, I still felt I’d earned some of the money she’d paid me. So I lopped $600 (about half of the deposit) off the bill, accepting the other half as what I’d charge for the 10 mockups.
Okay. Well, she hasn’t paid me despite my sending several invoices. And by the way, all of the material on her site that I’ve done for her since December is still unpaid for – which means it’s still technically under my copyright. (We’ve no contract that assigns copyright to her.)
Today she finally responded with a lengthy email invoking her lawyer and said that since she wasn’t going to go through with any of my mockups, she wanted a refund of the full $1250 deposit. Also, she was charging me $500 for the work that had to be redone due to my error.
Now I can semi-understand the latter stance, although this is utterly not the way she’s ever acted before when mistakes (from other workers) have cost her money. But of course what she’s done with other contractors is immaterial, I know that. I was just aghast, because I thought I was being rather ethical as it was in not charging her for this material with which she was displeased in the first place, but apparently that was’t good enough.
However, what really raises my blood pressure is her refusing to pay anything for the work I’ve already done on the website redesign mockups.
And as I said, I didn’t have a freakin’ contract for this job yet, which was STUPID and DUMB and IRRESPONSIBLE and everything y’all are gonna lob at me. I know this. I will never ever ever work without a contract again. So please try not to lecture me too much, although I totally deserve it. 
Sadly we’d been working together for such a long time that contracts became one oft those things that I let slip by me. Which is ridiculous and lazy and again, irresponsible. I know.
(One plus side: the lack of a contract assigning copyright over to the client means that everything I’ve done is still mine, according to US Copyright law. Actually, even if we had a contract, everything would still be mine – if we’d had a contract, she’d be in noncompliance by not going through with her part of the contract, so the contract wouldn’t be considered “executed.” Or so I’ve been told by legal-er heads than mine.)
However, let’s leave that aside for the moment. The main thrust is that I put in many, many hours of work on those mockups, and she’d had every intention of paying me for them until our relationship went sour. She’d never said anything about starting from scratch.
**The opinion I need from you guys is: do you think she should pay a portion of the deposit for the work and hours I’ve put into this design job, or should she no longer have to pay for these designs since she’s suddenly decided she’s not going to use them? ** As I said I was absolutely willing to give back 50% of the deposit, but I felt, and still feel, that i should be paid for the time and effort I’ve put into those ten mockups that I edited to her wishes. This wasn’t some spec job for pete’s sake.
Ugh, sorry for the length of this. Believe it or not I’m a very good editor of other people’s words… it’s my own loggorhea I can’t seem to control!
Also, please assume that any mistakes i leave in here aren’t indicative of my own prowess as an editor. I’m still angry and am typing very fast and, well, I don’t feel like going over this a billion times.
(BTW I do have a lawyer, thank God, I’m just waiting to hear back from him.)
It’s kinda like the end of a real relationship. You want closure, you want to know why, but you shouldn’t plan on asking for or getting it. Still, you have every right to be pissed. Maybe your work was TOO good, and she got used to expecting no less than perfection from you. Or maybe you could talk to the writer who contacted you and see if he knows why…