Late Payments and Non-Payments

The translation industry is probably the only one where thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise is custom-made and delivered often on the basis of a phone call or e-mail from an unknown client, without credit check or down payment. Individual translators, working hard to make ends meet, often finance large corporations by unwillingly extending interest-free credit for months. Is late payment or non-payment for translation work a serious problem? And what can or should translators and their organizations do about it?