Collecting Final Payment from Client

Hey Everyone,

It's been awhile since I've been here, but I'm in a sticky situation and thought I'd get your insights. I'm deadlocked with a client about the final payment he owes me.

Here's the deal. I actually gave him a bargain on the deal and did the work--a rewrite of an existing landing page. This company kept asking for rewrites, which seemed a bit excessive but I complied. I've never dealt with this situation before but always do my best to overdeliver. Four drafts later, they wanted more. I won't go through the entire chain of events, but it was beginning to get unreasonable. That was last week.

Fastforward to Monday (yesterday). I discovered that they were already using my copy online. I wrote to them and asked them to pay me since they were using the copy. They say they won't pay the final payment until they get the results they want, meaning they want me to do more rewrites.

My position is that once they've published the copy, they've accepted it. Once I receive final payment, I will do edits for the next 30 days as needed. They say the job isn't finished because they are not happy with the results. (The copy hasn't been online very long at all and they changed my headline, which was a mistake.) I've told them that I believe the biggest problem is that their claim is not believable. I won't reveal the client, but I will say that the claim is not credible--knowing what I know about this industry--and hurts their sales.

We're deadlocked. I won't write another word until they pay me what they owe me, and despite my request to pay me or take down the copy, they haven't complied. I've told them that they do not have permission to use the copy and do not own the rights to it until they've paid in full. They're accusing me of escalating this situation and want to resolve it amicably. So do I, but before the project started I told them that I could not promise specific results and any copywriter who does that is lying. They hired me with full understanding of that fact.

I did a name search and saw them on eLance. I think they're confusing my level of service with an eLancer. There's nothing wrong with eLancers, but I operate on another level.

I'm taking steps to have the site pulled down and have contacted a copyright attorney. Again, this copy has only been online for a few days, and they say that I can contact their hosting company to pull down the copy. Apparently, they aren't taking me seriously.

I'm curious if others have faced this situation and what steps you've taken to resolve the issue. This is new to me. I usually ask for 100% upfront payment and made the mistake of "working" with this client. Any suggestions?