I didn't get paid today.

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kwired said:
If one neighbor had all red cows and the other had all black cows you wouldn't have noticed any difference?
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Well yeah, I would notice that color difference..

Not sure if I would care or remember which one had which color cows unless I was close to them..
 
Hv&Lv said:
Well yeah, I would notice that color difference..

Not sure if I would care or remember which one had which color cows unless I was close to them..
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Well Hillbilly said different breed, so unless they were pretty close in looks probably not too hard to figure out which neighbor they belonged to.
 
Coppersmith said:
She did pay with a CC and I was worried about it being reversed.
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quietly go about your business, and on the off chance she calls,
i'd have too much work to be able to schedule her. she won't call.
you are done with her.

i've got a customer who isn't cod, it's payment in full BEFORE
i schedule him. we have never gotten to the ugly aspect of payment.
he gives my info to his customers, and i deal directly with them.
i think he knows better after the time i showed up at his shop, and
didn't leave until he cut a check. it took a year to get paid. $1,500.
a year of him dodging me. what a flake.

and THEY are all payment before delivery. i've discovered almost
every single one of his customers are as sketchy as he is. but i've
made $30~40k off of the bunch of them. i'm a whore, and there you are.

i've got one of his customers tomorrow morning, at 5 am in inglewood.
payment before i email the certificate. there are two levels of risk in inglewood.
this is the inglewood low level risk area. 5 am. i'll walk it and be out of there
in 20 minutes. i'll wait till i see that paypal has got money before i log onto the
state server and issue the certificate.

it's a sketchy world, the last two years. i never had payment issues ever
before cooties. now, i've got about $20k i'll probably never see. it is what it is.
 
I must be blessed. As of yet, I haven’t had an unpaid account stay open for more than 45 days, and that was for a major hotel chain. As a result I require a $1000.00 call out security deposit from that hotel chain. If i don’t go over that amount, I wait 45 days and return the excess money. Other than that incident I have not had to send an account to collections. Most of my clients are repeat clients and often give me Direct access to their accounts. In 2021 I had 432 service calls that were not from my usual clients. No issues with payment. I do make it clear with my customers that if that do not cancel the service call via text or email only at least two hours prior to the scheduled time, that they will still be billed for one hour. I also email and text the scheduled appointment to them at 48hrs, 24hrs, and 4hrs prior to scheduled service time.. I often put an authorization hold on their credit card for the first hour the moment I start to head to their home or job site.
 
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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:

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.
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That's kinda annoying but I wouldn't sweat it. I got screwed out of 15k once. That's above the Level of annoying. This was like 5 years ago and thoughts of sabotage are still intriguing....
 
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:

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.
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I was lucky enough to get more & more commercial work that I stopped doing all residential work. When I first started my business almost 50 years ago a lady called to have me look at a dimmer switch. Gave her the cheap price if only $15 total because it was my first or second call. Had the dimmer disconnected and her husband came in and said that was too much money do I put the bad dimmer back and did not receive a penny. Walked past the guys brand new top of the line pick up truck with all the bells & whistles. Felt like throwing up on it. Me & another sparky did at least 10 hours of work at a large machine/injection molding plant every week. They were great pay until he purchased a far away business then owing us each over ten grand each due to wiring in a lot new 500 ton presses and other equipment. I know he was incorporated. The other sparky gave a lawyer $500 twice to try to collect his money but never received a penny due to claiming bankrupie. Another learning experience.
 
Coppersmith said:
I think I would have just capped the wires and let him put the dimmer back himself. Job ended when he decided not to pay.
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Had a farmer call me (long time ago now) about an air compressor he was having trouble with. Nobody was there when I showed up to look at it. Ended up deciding to take the thing with me and work on it in my shop. Eventually figured out someone had been messing with it and miswired things. I had it straightened out and working.

Guy calls me and rips me a new one for taking it with me. Told him during that conversation I figured it out, but he kept ripping at me. I then said I will bring it back ASAP. Put the wiring back the way I found it, dropped it off and refused to ever work for this guy again, and so far haven't in like 15-20 years.
 
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