I know many of you do independent freelance work of one kind or another, and I'm curious about how you get paid for it. (Not, "how do you decide what is a fair price for your services?" or "how do you sell a service when similar-looking services are often given away?" though those are also interesting questions.) I mean, how do you get a client to actually PAY you, once you have provided the service?

I've had a couple of frustrating experiences. After an hour's work, the high school student knows a little more math than before, and says, "Oh, my dad was going to pay you, but he's not home yet. Can we pay you next week?" It's not a situation where I can say "no" very readily. The worst of it is when the kid stood me up the following week--empty house at the scheduled time, and no response to phone or email.

A more frustrating example involved more work. There's a grad student who hired me to teach him the statistics he needed to analyze his thesis research, and edit his rough draft. I did a big chunk of editing and met with him for a few hours...and he paid me about half what he had agreed he owed me for the editing. We set up another meeting, at which point he said he would pay me the rest (and I would teach him more about statistics), but he didn't show up. At this point, I'm sending him email and hoping he mails me a check. Considering past experience, it seems unlikely.