I negotiated a deal with a client to assist in their promotion at a trade fair. As part of the deal the client was supposed to supply me with promotional material in the form of self-adhesive stickers that I could put on a playing card after I had done a trick and hand it out as a souvenir (and hence viral marketing). The day before the event I asked the client for the stickers and, you've guessed it, they had forgotten all about it! I had about 12 hours to try and come up with a way of promoting them and nothing to work with!
Another part of the deal was a massive discount in exchange for my details being added to the preferred suppliers list as my client is a venue that regularly hosts private functions. However, after working for them at the trade fair they described my behaviour as, and I quote, "inappropriate and offensive" which came as a complete shock to somebody whop makes their living by being nice to total strangers! To really cap things off, when I asked them to explain what I was supposed to have said or done that upset people, they refused to answer.
To really rub salt in the wound, I gave them credit - which I don't normally do, and they were a week late paying the bill. When their cheque finally arrived they had not included the VAT so either they decided to mess me about even more or they employ somebody who is too stupid to read an Invoice.
After giving myself several days to calm down, I sent copies of the emails between myself and the client to get their advice. Guess what, the solicitor wants about £500 just to write a letter to my client asking for clarification! He also added that, because of the nature of my business, it would be difficult to quantify my financial losses and litigation would be extremely expensive.
Contract? Forget it. In future I might try and hire a few heavies to negotiate for me!