Most freelance writers will have had experience of late or no payment for work submitted in good faith and had all the stress that goes along with chasing payments and knowing that all that time you spent on researching sources and writing was wasted. But there are ways you can increase your chances of getting paid and avoiding scammers.

My personal recommendation is that with a new client, you provide a minimal amount of work and then do not do more until payment has been received in full. This is to establish that they will pay and to build a relationship. After that, you may choose to work on articles while waiting for payment for an earlier batch but avoid submitting more work until payments have been received for previous submissions. For large writing projects, I advise asking for a minimum 50% deposit up front.

Be wary of employers who say they will only pay 'after publication'. Once they have published, if they choose not to pay, you will not be able to sell the articles on as they have already been published and employers mainly want original previously unpublished work.

Avoid this situation arising by having a contract in which you can state YOUR terms. The contract can advise that copyright does not transfer until you have received full payment and that any use of the article by them before payment has been received is breach of copyright and legal action will follow.

With a late payment, I advise giving them 1 week's notice that they pay or you reserve the right to sell the articles on and publish them as you please.
If you want to be polite about it so as to gain more work from them, ask yourself why you want to work for someone who behaves like this? If the client is problematic seek work elsewhere. This is a growing market and as a writer you should value yourself and your talent and behave as a professional.

There are scammers out there who make their living getting writers to submit work and then they do not pay. There are sites and forums that provide details of the most notorious scammers. So do your research and check them out. Learn from the experience of others.

Leah Gray aka creativeblogger is an Internet Writer/marketer, Problogger, Dating eBook author and Relationship Columnist. She is also a Qualified Stress Consultant and Character Analyst MASC, AMANF. She is available to hire for various Internet writing/blogging projects. For more details of those visit her home page here: http://www.creative-blogger.com.