Viacom Has 22 Reasons Not To Pay You

viacom is terrible for paying ANYONE. vendors have been contacting me asking where their money is for months now, all i ever get is "your request is pending" from finance. everything is routed to india now. so much for efficiency.

personally i think this non paying thing goes higher than that though. im positive all those parties at the hammerstein, free booze parties are catching up to viacom right about now.

but at least its going to be summertime soon and the bitches at the lodge is gonna be lookin good!

@CriticalMass: Peoplesoft is a nightmare. One of the publishers I work for uses Catalyst, which is equally labyrinthine and awful.

I contacted my MTVN service person 3 months ago. Still waiting on those VINs.

One of these days Viacom is going to decide that working for them counts as valuable 'experience', for which they should be billing you.

Then you'll look back at this flustercluck, and pine about 'the old days'.

Krashstar

InvoiceWorks is an independent vendor. I used them via BearingPoint, and never had a problem with the system. It was actually one of the better third party expense management systems I've ever used. Understand that 'expense management' is a yield based industry that sells primarily on two fronts: minimizing back office overhead and treasury/cash management (read: loans to your client while wait for a check). The system is only as good or bad as the firm utilizing it. When a company wants to minimize cash flow, they turn up the heat on AP clerks running it -- they make less than most of the freelancers, and tend to be vindictive when they see the situation as poorly portrayed as this. Get your ducks in a row. If you don't understand invoicing, or POs or accounting, and you want to freelance, take a bookkeeping class; I'm sure Media Bistro has something that actually could be really useful.

@KatieMick: credit card chargebacks are an entirely different thing.

cdmunch

I recently forgot to put the VIN number on an invoice and the person who processes the payments actually added it for me and sent me a reminder. So now I will always remember my VIN number! (I do think you are overreacting, actually. This is hardly a scandal. And actually, if someone did not know about VIN numbers it is because the person they work for didn't tell them. The memo went out January 6th.)

Carol Gardens

@cdmunch: AMEX does this too - and the refuting timeframe is exceedingly short, and if they reject your prtest of the chargebeck, too bad, so sad - with no reason listed.

There's also the beloved PeopleSoft system implemented by most magazine publishers, which gives managers about a thousand ways to not pay freelancers. An illustrator once sent an email to head of finance that said WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO PAY ME, MY CHILDREN NEED SHOES? after his invoices were repeatedly rejected for no reason at all.

CriticalMass

Department stores have the same system- it's called "chargebacks." They use them to screw small designers and suppliers by deducting various amounts for what they perceive as mistakes, anything from including invoice numbers on a check to bad mailing labels. Sometimes these chargebacks can amount to tens of thousands, even hundreds of thousands of dollars.

cdmunch

As opposed to the Commercial Production industry and the Graphic Design industry, who are represented for collective advocacy by AICP and AIGA respectively, the key groups representing those who work in marketing and promotions for television (the departments in question here) are owned and operated by the "industry" itself. Those groups, Promax (for those who work in promotions) and BDA (the design guild) are sham PR organizations who do nothing except host an outrageously overpriced conference/circle jerk/awards show every June (total cost front-to-back this year, the worst year for media in my career memory = $1600!!!).

And guess what? If you hope to get any business in the next year you're obliged to pony up the extortionary cost and spend three days standing around making inane small talk in the lobby of the Hilton on 6th Avenue with people you'd just as soon stab in the eye.

Those who work in the TV industry are completely without representation and recourse, it would be funny, and I would be laughing, if I weren't currently owed many tens of thousands of dollars by these same fuck-ass networks and their representatives. Fuck these shit-heads, really, someone needs to set Sumner Redstone on fire...again.

Ricki-Oh

It's times like these when I take comfort in the fact that I only write for blogs and thus never have to bother with the expectation that I will be paid.

Kinch

This system will be sold throughout the media world. I can already see the low rent commercial:

Perplexed accountant at desk with piles of invoices. Here comes the voice from the sky with answer:

"Tired of paying your freelancers??"

Accountant nods head up and down.

"Well guess what? Now you don't have to!"

Accountant looks curious, as in "Really?"

"That's right. It's easy. Just set up this nifty little program we created for your office PC billing network, Endless Invoice. What does it do? It's simple. We'll put your mousey freelancer on a deadend maze of paperwork and enough internal errors that, eventually, they'll become so frustrated and angry with the process of refiling, they'll quit searching for their cheese and die of starvation. And with death, you won't have to worry about lawyers and other worker bees looking to sting you. Feel better? Order now!"

I find I can't hire anybody who cut their teeth at MTV. It creates an awkward and maladjusted creature. This is obviously part of the reason why.

TVAddendum

Clearly someone just needs to take more shits between the fifth and seventh floors at Viacom

slainte_pants

Invoice will be routed for approval within minutes.

Invoice will be rejected within months. Invoice will be paid in part within years.

Isn't "Sincerely, MTV Networks" an oxymoron?

@KatieMick: Ugh - and double typing.

@cdmunch: Hmm - not sure; I work in University billing university and we're not the cardholders, so why would we get the chargeback?