I didn't get paid today.

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Coppersmith

Coppersmith

Senior Member
Location
Tampa, FL, USA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
I very rarely have problems with people not paying me. Today I did. I had a job today to troubleshoot and repair a bedroom with no power. I had worked for this client a few days before on another job without problem. I'm there 20 minutes when the babysitter brings me a phone with the client on the other end. Here is the paraphrased conversation:

Her: "I forgot to call you to cancel the appointment. We want to have the other work pass inspection before we pay you for any other work."

Me: "Well, I'm already here doing the job. I've been here 20 minutes. At this point you are already responsible for paying me for the minimum one hour charge of $$$ you agreed to. So I might as well finish doing the job, at least up to the end of the first hour."

Her: "Have you opened up anything yet?"

Me: "I haven't opened up any boxes yet. After I gathered all the tools I thought I might need from my truck, I began testing the outlets with a voltage tester. I just found an outlet behind the wardrobe that looks like it's ripped out of the wall. That might be the problem."

Her: "I didn't give you permission to move that wardrobe. It's flimsy and might fall apart."

Me: "In all the years I have been doing this job, I've never had someone tell me I needed special permission to move furniture after the fact. And you're right, it wants to fall over now." (I was holding it up while we were speaking trying to figure out how I was going to keep it from falling over. I ended up pulling it out on an angle and leaning it against the wall. The entire back panel that would normally steady it was torn off with just some old duct tape holding it on.)

Her: "Well I don't see why I have to pay you if you haven't opened any boxes yet."

Me: "It's because you made an appointment and I showed up for that appointment. This time is reserved exclusively for you. I could have scheduled another paying client at this time, but you reserved it. The meter started running as soon as I left my house. So what do you want to do?"

Her: "Give the phone back to the babysitter."

Babysitter: "She said you can leave now."

I gave brief thought to filing a lien just for spite, but I know the time and cost involved and decided to just let it go. Thankfully I was only there a total of 30 minutes and it was only 13 miles from my house. Could have been a lot worse.
 
petersonra said:
that is someone you should just scratch off your list of customers you are willing to serve in the future.
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...unless they pay you X2 for what they owe you so far - X1 for what you did today plus X1 for whatever work you could have done for someone else during that time.
 
In a similar vein, an EC customer of ours didn't get his final inspection a couple of weeks ago because the job wasn't paid up. We contacted him numerous times to get his account current. T&C's were 90% before the final, and 10% within 30 days after the final. He had only paid the 25% down. The kicker was that the state was there as part of the inspection. We'd told him that he could send a check or give us a credit card number to charge, but he basically blew us off. Well, come inspection day, he got all torqued when he realized we weren't there and weren't going to be there. "Don't you trust your customer to pay?" The work site was actually a customer of ours. We told him the contract was with him, not the end user, and he hadn't met the conditions of the contract, end of story. He'd been a slow pay on an earlier job, too. We won't miss him as a client.
 
petersonra said:
Maybe. But there are usually a bunch of electricians out there looking for stuff to do.
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Yeah, and here’s to hoping Coppersmith knows the electricians and can tell them about her paying habits..

🍻
 
My experience has been when she calls someone else, she can't resist telling them how you "tried to rip-her-off" and, hopefully, this will be a red-flag for the new guy :)
 
I wouldn't work for that lady again even if she did pay me. Anybody that says you didn't have permission to move a duct taped together wardrobe sounds kind of weird to me.

FWIW I had a pool contractor that did not pay me $6000. 00 that he's been owing me for 4 months. I found out he had a golf cart for sale for $5500. I don't play golf, but I've now got a real nice golf cart in my garage, ;)

Lucky to get it, too. I found out now he's hired an auction company to sale everything his business owns. He owes the Plumber $19,000 and many more people.
 
I’ve got a very old customer that owes me $6000 for putting automatic transfer switches on his chicken houses. He eventually pays, but this time he is taking extra long. Looks like he gets his labor rate increased by quite a bit! Said he has to sell some cows to pay me. He inherited several hundred acres of prime land years ago, but will not sell any of it. The tax man wants to foreclose on him, then he scraps up enough money to stop the tax sale.
 
Coppersmith said:
decided to just let it go. Thankfully I was only there a total of 30 minutes and it was only 13 miles from my house. Could have been a lot worse.
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Having visions of the final scene in the 2011 movie Lincoln Lawyer.

Biker gang beats up a dirt bag as favor for this attorney that works out of his car, then walks up to attorney's car and asks for some free lawyer'ing to return the favor.

Lawyer agrees to avoid a confrontation then turns to his driver and says, "Thats Ok, he's a paying customer. We'll make it up next time."
 
I rarely had that issue, fortunately. I talked to an appliance tech who dealt with it a lot. He said he files “theft of service” liens each time. A person cannot ever sell his home with any liens outstanding. He figures that will eventually force some payments with little effort from him. He said such liens are easy to file in our area. I would look into it if I were still in the market.
 
My dad always said when you toy with a guy's money, you never know how he's going to react.

Happened to me about 20 yrs ago, for $28k when I did remodeling full time. After trying to help them, they fired me through certified letter, locked my tools in their house, refused to pay, I was completely beside myself. That was everything I had.

I started to ponder....how long would they miss their toddler before they decide to pay up?

I seriously had to catch myself, and determine to just walk away from the ordeal. I couldn't let them (or me) shipwreck my whole life over some money

I've been beat only a couple of times since then, and I just walk away. Not worth letting myself get worked up
 
jmellc said:
I rarely had that issue, fortunately. I talked to an appliance tech who dealt with it a lot. He said he files “theft of service” liens each time. A person cannot ever sell his home with any liens outstanding. He figures that will eventually force some payments with little effort from him. He said such liens are easy to file in our area. I would look into it if I were still in the market.
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In my area it's not hard to file a lien, but you have to file it at the courthouse so it takes some time. It's only good for one year, but is renewable, which is more work. You can bring suit to force payment, but more time and expense. Basically, if they don't sell their house, it's difficult to collect. The best lien situation is people who are having work done so they can sell. Then your payment is almost automatic. You get a check mailed to you at closing by the title company. I did collect a $1000 payment recently that was owed for about a year. House closed just before I had to refile.
 
jmellc said:
A person cannot ever sell his home with any liens outstanding.
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Not true in Georgia:
1. If bank foreclosures

2. Bond around lien

The foreclosed house, my lien was no good.

A house I sold, Painter had lien I think $1000 or less (couldn't get him to finish and had to hire another painter) at closing, attorney said, "we can't close with this lien", I said "bond around it", it took 15 minutes and $35
 
Coppersmith said:
I very rarely have problems with people not paying me. Today I did. I had a job today to troubleshoot and repair a bedroom with no power. I had worked for this client a few days before on another job without problem. I'm there 20 minutes when the babysitter brings me a phone with the client on the other end. Here is the paraphrased conversation:

I gave brief thought to filing a lien just for spite, but I know the time and cost involved and decided to just let it go. Thankfully I was only there a total of 30 minutes and it was only 13 miles from my house. Could have been a lot worse.
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if you got paid for the first one, and the payment doesn't bounce or get reversed if it's a CC payment, i'd call
it good, and refuse to have anything to do with her again.
 
hbiss said:
How much is a cow worth these days? :cool:

-Hal
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Two more questions to follow up what Hal is saying. Are they branded? Is he a good shot with a rifle? If answers are no...and no....you may be entitled to cheeseburger compensation. LOL
 
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