Send to collection agency. You do have some proof of the commercial arrangement , i.e. not just oral agreement ?

Just to be sure, I’d write them a letter where I’d include the bill and state that unless you haven’t received the money by date XX, you will take legal action.. and if they still don’t pay, then just turn to the police, they should know what you can do.

Good to know Molly Malone’s may do this… I have a friend here who just moved to Finland from the US and is looking for work, and we actually thought about Molly as an option.

1) Oral agreements are still binding. No judge is going to think you did it for free.

2) There is statutory viivastyskorko (late payment interest) of 11.5% per month I think. Send them a new bill with the accrued monthly interest and see how long it takes to get paid. They know they’ll have to pay up some time and if they know it costs them.

I think you should do as Saara suggested, bill them again, and, if nothing happens, tell them that you will take the matter to the police. Similar thing happened to my brother who wrote columns for a Finnish magazine as a freelancer. He had to wait for his fees for almost a year, and got his money only after he threatened the publisher with the police/district court (even though he hadn’t actually contacted the police, the threat seemed to work).

Send to collection agency. You do have some proof of the commercial arrangement , i.e. not just oral agreement ?

Yeah, mostly oral, although I have plenty of e-mails promising to pay me, and even ones saying they paid.

2) There is statutory viivastyskorko (late payment interest) of 11.5% per month I think. Send them a new bill with the accrued monthly interest and see how long it takes to get paid. They know they’ll have to pay up some time and if they know it costs them.

Good to know!

You could politely ask them about a receipt of the payment because you want to sort it out with your bank because you think that the bank has lost your money.

Yes, ask for the payment confirmation as well as providing them with a bill noting that the payment is past due.

In terms of being more aggressive, if they are jerks about it, leave a note on their front door asking why they have not paid their bill from March. Secure it with large nails. Then do it again the next day. There is no excuse for being a deadbeat.

I guess you can also start introducing them into your comedy routine….

Just get someone ( a third party) to phone the boss and talk about the money they owe you. My guess is that you / they will have to talk to the right person i.e not the bar manager.
If all else fails, a phone call from a layer always speeds things along. MM know they would lose the case and would end up having to pay the legal fees as well.

What, you made an oral work contract and now the employer won’t pay? What kind of a libertarian are you anyway?

Strictly speaking, they did not sign anything and are therefore under no obligation to pay you a single cent.

Unions are for things like this. Consider it an educational experience.

Freeridin’ Franklin, an oral agreement is legally just as binding as a written contract. Proving an oral agreement may be difficult in some cases. Shouldn’t be a problem in this case with the emails and the work already obviously done.

My suggestion would be to contact the local Russian mafia. I am sure they would know what to do.

Phil’s big mistake was not joining actors,musicians,and comedians
***UNION***…that would ensure promised recompense under threat of legal action by said ***UNION***….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pGNPbxqlRXg +

I’m with Franklin on this one. The other point to be careful of here Phil is drawing too much attention to all this unless you have been careful in paying all taxes and other expenses involved. With ather comedians involved, all booked by yourself I would keep my lips sealed and try to make MM see your way of thinking. Come to think of it, this might be one reason holding up their “payment” to you?

Allan @12 might be on to something too.

Phil, do it like Gingo Ringo’s style! Go there and take all their tables and chairs, then directly to Kirpputori, sale them and you’ll get your money back.
Ps. If you need help, take all these fat a** blog’s readers who are just sitting here for nothing.

Phil, I know this imformation doesn’t help you much anymore, but we have so called “Palkkaturva” system in Finland: http://www.mol.fi/mol/fi/00_tyonhakijat/08_palkkaturva/index.jsp (maybe you get somebody to translate the text for you)

If you don’t get paid, you have to apply for your salary within 3 months. Usually even a threat of applying your salary through these official ways is efficient enough, but unfortunately most emplyers know foreigners aren’t aware of their rights. So it’s beneficial for them to postpone the salary as long as possible, preferably longer than these magical three months.

As said before, ask for the bank receipt with “arkistointitunnus”, and ask the banks what’s the problem if they produce it. If they don’t, start counting 11% interest PER YEAR, not per month, and write down all expenses incurred. Call a collection agency and tell them to write a “tratta”, i.e. a public notice of lack of payment. Molly will be first notified and they have seven days to react to this, or else. If shit really hits the fan, it will be published in Suomen Asiakastieto registers and Kauppalehti, which will bust their credit.

Ok, unlike Anonymous suggested Palkkaturva (Eläketurvakeskus) will not cover that, it’s just for employees whose employer cannot pay their salaries any more because of a bankruptcy etc. As an etrepreuner or anyone else you have no such protection. What I’d do would be to contact a collection agency, (Lindorff, Justitia, OK-Perintä etc.) and talk with them, it won’t cost you a dime.

Talk to collection agency – yes.

However they might require you to first send a reminder to the client and give them another 14 days to pay that. If they don`t pay, the agency steps in.

Let`s just hope that they don`t require more paperwork between you and the client. As I understood, you only have some saved emails.. which of course might be valid in court, but is it worth going so far is another question.

Anyways, don`t forget to sign proper contracts next time!

@10

“Strictly speaking, they did not sign anything and are therefore under no obligation to pay you a single cent”

INCORRECT

An oral agreement is a binding agreement according to the law.

Kevin: I am afraid he’s not. You’re just going to have to look for a boyfriend somewhere else. Now go to bed. It’s after midnight!

My name is Kevin and I am an unemployed dick.

panomies:
“An oral agreement is a binding agreement according to the law.”

In a perfect world, true. In practice, the winner is the one with the superior litigative liquidity. Then again, a libertarian should have no problem with this.

But, but, I thought that Finns were honest!

(at least that is what they always say about themselves to foreigners)

Lol

Phil,

I’m with Punter here. You should make sure that you refer to your agreement with MM in such a way that the social security and taxes should be paid by them, not you. If you acted as an employer towards the other performers and sold a “service package” to MM, you probably should have withdrawn and paid taxes etc from their wages. Since your agreement was verbal and since the tax authorities would not classify you as a professional comedian or talent agency (by the length and frequency of your career in the field), you might still make a case that you acted as MM’s employee when contacting other comedians, and only made a loan to the other comedians until the time MM would pay them (as I think you presented the case in your blog). So it might be in your interest that MM paid the other artists’ wages directly to them, and then you could collect your private loan from the other artists.

I’m not an expert on taxes, this is a topic for somebody with more knowledge of Finnish accounting practises and tax law. Maybe you should print all your correspondence with MM, write a detailed description of your verbal agreement with MM, and contact Turre Legal with those papers and then sort out your strategy. Whether it is worth the effort depends on how much money you stand to not collect and how much legal fees and social/reputational losses you expect to suffer.

The border between private “squirrel skin” barter trade and business dealings is constantly contested. My impression is that the tax officers do not care about small fry, but look for large, systematical tax evasions. I would not expect them to be especially punitive, but I would expect them to carefully collect their due from you, MM, and all the other artists involved.

are they Russian??

If they are………. they shoot first pay the dead guy later

Thank you mara. Always enjoy your posts. As we know, never take on the tax dept in Finland. Sounds like they have you by the short and curlies. Leave it alone and learn from it or take matters into your own hand and outsource debt collection to a reliable 3rd party.

Did they not give you a reason why you had not got paid? was there something wrong with the invoice or they just did not pay?

“But, but, I thought that Finns were honest!

(at least that is what they always say about themselves to foreigners)”

It’s actually a myth mostly parroted by naive foreigners to other foreigners.

Many thanks to all the advice guys and gals!!!

Looks like the manager of Molly’s caught wind of this post and finally decided to contact me about this. We’re moving forward and it seems that I’ll get paid.

Little negative publicity can do wonders to reluctant payers .

No 29!

That’s what Finns brag about themselves to foreigners – everyone knows that

“That’s what Finns brag about themselves to foreigners – everyone knows that”

-and the french are frog eating surrender monkeys or the “orientals” are polite as fuck.

These stereotypes prevail because of ignorant foreigners of -insert country, group, ethnicity here- spread them amongst themselves. When they do in fact realise that the reality is different or completely opposite of the myth. They either A) Become bitter, hateful asshats towards the natives or B) They become annoying fanboy asshats.

Hence the word myth

tax

tax

Anonymous No 1 is a fucking ignorant native. The other one sounds ok but I suspect this is the same person doing the solo stand-up comics here. Even more stupid than a native Finn.

Ha: now I invented a new saying “to be as stupid as a Finn”:)) My colleagues loved it!

“Ha: now I invented a new saying “to be as stupid as a Finn”:)) My colleagues loved it!”

I bet the “colleagues” otherwise know as hobos sure love it when you tell it to them over the watercooler aka barrel of industrial ethanol.