To make an extraordinarily long and frustrating story short, I interviewed with a magazine for a full time staff writer/editor position over 6 times and contributed an article to their publication as part of the application process. After over 3 months of stringing me along during this interview period they told me that they are no longer hiring for the position but would like to compensate me for my work on the article.

They did not set a specific rate for compensation. So I charged them my typical $ per word fee for freelance projects and sent over an invoice. They responded with a lowball, telling me they are only “able” to pay around half of that rate. I adjusted the invoice accordingly and sent it to them. This was now over 3 months ago and I never received the electronic bank transfer payment that was agreed upon. I followed up with them over 4 times and was told the “payment will be sent on Friday” each of these times. I followed up again and they are now completely ignoring/ghosting.

How do I get my money from these people? For context this is an extremely large events production company with about 10,000 employees and is publicly traded. Can/should I sue? Or just threaten to sue?? Help