<prompt> Human: I apologize if this was posted in the wrong subreddit.Without divulging much personal information, heres the story. I am a freelance and I signed a contract last year January 2016 with a company that upon satisfaction of my work and completion of a large-scale company project, i will receive 30K. As mentioned, i am a freelance and i dont have a fixed income. This project took up about 4 months from me and basically during this 4 months, i was living on my personal savings. The project was completed well on the estimated date and everything went smooth for the company. I was then told i will receive the money at the end of month, just like every salaried worker in the company does.I contacted them on second week of may since i wasnt contacted and informed about the collection of the payment. I called the manager of the company, who i was told to find for any enquiries, and he said it will be delayed slightly and i will be contacted again.Weeks past and everytime i called the manager, i would be turned down with different excuses and up till today, i have still not received a single cent. The final straw came yesterday. I felt hopeless after the last call i made to the manager yesterday. I understood my rights from the contract but when i told the manager yesterday, through phone, that i could exercise my right and sue them for a sum of money, i was told to bring it on. The company is quite a monopoly in the industry and i was warned that if i dared to tarnish their reputation, he would personally make sure that i would be blacklisted among all other companies.I am at my wits end... i have no idea who to turn to and my family is counting on me to survive. My personal saving is being exhausted and would finish probably by the next 1 month or so.Whats my next course of action? I felt so indignant, i gave up my sleep and work effortlessly for the company but i am just a speck of dust to them. Thank you for reading and sorry for my bad english, its not my first language.Assistant: Contact a plaintiffs-side employment lawyer. At this stage I would suggest using someone who charges by the hour, avoid anything commission based for now.First step will likely be to send a sternly worded letter demanding funds plus interest. That should not take much time for the attorney and should get their attention. Sorry to hear, the situation sucks.Human: Thanks for the reply, i thought my thread will be lost in the sea of post.If i take up your advice, my concern is the hefty fee from hiring the lawyers. And to add on to my post, my parents advised me to contact my cellphone telecom to get a recording of the conversation yesterday where the manager threatens me. Do you think its possible?  <response>: If i take up your advice, my concern is the hefty fee from hiring the lawyers.This is unfortunately a risk you take when doing freelance work. Im sure that you can find all kinds of similar horror stories over at rfreelance the top post right now is, Client is not paying for design work that is featured on his Facebook. Should I write a comment on this fact? And to add on to my post, my parents advised me to contact my cellphone telecom to get a recording of the conversation yesterday where the manager threatens me. Do you think its possible?No, I know that the government does some shady ass wiretapping stuff, but your cell provider does not record every call that you make. 