Non-Payment

[tommyo]

I have been in the tree biz. for 8 years now! Never had a costomer or Contractor not pay the bill for stump grinding.I ground out a stump for him at his house 3 months ago.He is a Building contractor and I have done work for him in the past with no problems with payment.I have called him 8 times.Leave messages and taped another copy of the Bill to his front door.Im getting steamd There are a few things I would have done 15-20years ago that would have maked me feel a little better.What do you do in this situation?

 

[MiracleRepair]

Talk to his current customer, act concerned, Ask if they have seen any contractors talking to him about not paying. Current customer will almost always get paranoid and hit him up about it. That will usually make him pay up, since no one wants bad word of mouth while doing a job.

 

[tommyo]

Paid

Today,I drove by his house, the wife came to the door. She looked serprised,oh your the stump guy,let me write you a check, she said sorry you had to chase your money down.:taped:Hope it dosn't bounce. What are some of the things you all have had to do to get paid?Thought I may have to dump 3 tons of pine rounds in his driveway.Hope the check clears.

 

[imagineero]

I've never had to face this situation luckily...

But a few guys I've worked with have. Have seen most of the silly things that people do to try to get their money back including property damage, theft, threats etc. Knew one guy who would just drop by the non-payers house whenever they weren't around and drop a load of palms in their drive. You have to pay to dump palms in aus, and the rate is $150~$200/tonne. It doesn't take many truckloads to recoup the money lost by not having to pay the dump fees. Even a big tree removal job usually only needs 2 truckloads of palm dumped to make the money back. Not very nice, but it is effective.


Shaun

 

[surfspc]

redic

Thats insane. I cant believe people would do that. But I guess if you dont have the money your only optiion is to just avoid the situation. Im sure he was low on money and couldnt pay you. But, everyone needs to get paid. Its not your fault.

 

[lone wolf]

i have been in the tree biz. For 8 years now! Never had a costomer or contractor not pay the bill for stump grinding.i ground out a stump for him at his house 3 months ago.he is a building contractor and i have done work for him in the past with no problems with payment.i have called him 8 times.leave messages and taped another copy of the bill to his front door.im getting steamd There are a few things i would have done 15-20years ago that would have maked me feel a little better.what do you do in this situation?

do not trust builders!

 

[surfspc]

do not trust builders!

Serious, what a joke

 

[Walt41]

do not trust builders!

I would not lump all builders together but rather I would take the time to talk to a builders subs before I got in too deep with a builder, the subs will tell you who pays and who does not.

 

[flyboy553]

There are ways,...

Quite a few yrs ago, I owned a septic tank pumping business. I went to a guys house, pumped 2000 gallons of sewage out of his tanks, and then he told me he had just been injured at work and couldn't pay me until his work comp started coming.
That sounded believable and even though I really needed to be paid right away, I could wait a week. Well, time went by, and each time I would stop to be paid, no one answered the door, but there would be empty boxes in the yard that had held a new dishwasher, new cupboards, new fridge, all kinds of stuff.
So one day, driving by with my truck full of sewage, I stopped in, started to back on to the lawn, and the guy came running out. What are you doing, he yelled. I said I was bringing his s*it back, since he wouldn't pay for it, I didn't want it, and didnt want to pay to get rid of it.

He said I couldnt do that cuz it would run all over his basement. I said, well, you best find 100 bucks real fast then, eh? he went in the house and came out with cash, that rat bastard! lol

I'm sure stump chips wouldn't bring that same sense of urgency, but to this day I still chuckle at that idiot!

Ted

 

[MJB]

Glad to see you finally got paid!

I am new to this site and new to the field and recently started my own LLC and am already in this kind of situation. My girlfriends neighbor and family friend pleaded to me how broke he was and all this other non-sense so I agreed to do him a FAVOR and prune his trees in exchange for him taking us out on his boat fishing for salmon on Lake Michigan. (His boat is up for sale but its expensive and not selling) yesterday he approaches me and says one of the motors on his boat is broken he'll give me $300 bucks though. I said thats nice but it was about a $500 job I'd meet you in the middle at $400 since you can't make the fishing trip happen. He put his foot down and said he would make the fishing trip work he won't give me over $300. What do I do? I have to keep the peace and not let it ruin my girlfriends relationship with him but I feel like he just strung me along for 2 months and now is hoping he can tell me what my service is worth. I have a feeling I'm going to be walking away with the $300 and a bad attitude towards doing "favors" for anyone anytime soon.

 

[mattfr12]

only happened to me once and i learned a valuable lesson from it. while elevating branches off of a guys house and his garage he asked me if i could swing the boom over to his gutters and knock the leaves out and i said sure why not. so at the end of the day i do it and get all the leaves i can out of his gutters. next thing i know he wont pay me because i didnt completly clean his gutters. the ones in the front of his house still had some leaves in them.

i had to wait over a year to collect that 500$. get all your job descriptions signed by the customer.

 

[tommyo]

Good storys, look back and laugh

 

[ChippersTreeSvc]

only happened to me once and i learned a valuable lesson from it. while elevating branches off of a guys house and his garage he asked me if i could swing the boom over to his gutters and knock the leaves out and i said sure why not. so at the end of the day i do it and get all the leaves i can out of his gutters. next thing i know he wont pay me because i didnt completly clean his gutters. the ones in the front of his house still had some leaves in them.

i had to wait over a year to collect that 500$. get all your job descriptions signed by the customer.

Thats very true. Always get the customer to sign the contract.

 

[mikewhite85]

Had a single mom with a rundown house pay me half at a job's end in March. I have called her a few times since with no response. She only owes me about 400. I think I will let it go.

 

[loadthestove]

I have been in business (starter/alternator rebuild shop) for 23 years in april.You can only imagine some of the stories I have heard.

On personal vehicles not leaves until paid in full.on some of my commerical accounts I have become the owners worst nightmare,nothing drastic just make a pest of myself until paid.

I recently quit taking any personal checks.In Ky if they bounce you have litte recourse.take them to court and get a judgement ,,which is useless.
I only accept cash or debit cards.Early On I was quick to learn,,If a person decides to beat you there is nothing you can do.
Sad thing is the people who have the money is the worst,the working class will almost always pay.

 

[Sdh1218]

I work at a AUDI dealership in the service deptment. The rich people are the worst for wanting a discount or for free. Some are driving $90k cars and ##### that they have to pay for a quart of oil. And once you give them something for nothing they expect it every time.

 

[Ayatollah]

There is a contractor here in Sac that has a history of beating people out of money by finding all sorts of "issues" that are "actionable" in court.

The cement delivery guy drove over my lawn and it needs repair...

The product you delivered was inferior...

Usually the claim of substandard comes after you start leaning on him to pay the first agreed upon price for several months, or years. And if you don't agree to his reduction in price, off to court you go. He surpassed 60 lawsuits in this county this year since the late 80's. And you don't want to know how he acts in court, but you should because heaven help you if you run across someone like this. He destroys lives, relationships, and businesses for fun and profit.
I've posted his information on a website forwarning the next impending victims:

MJB Bixby Construction Co. Lawsuits - Public Document Distributors

 

[COUNTRY6543]

I have used a mechanics lean. If you have completed a service and were not payed then you can place a lean on the property. They can not sell or refinance the property until it's payed. I am sure there is other things it does but not sure. I have only had to use it once and when they found out there was a lean placed on the property, bill was payed within a couple days. Lean stays forever so you will get payed someday.