Integrity.

[asphaltgambler]

Reminds me of a close friend a few years ago; similar situation. He worked as a commercial phone tech for one of the big companies. An aquaintence of his who owned a good size auto rod-resto shop needed to upgrade his entire phone system.

My friend agreed to to do it on the side for cash only and priced the job to include equipment at a very,very good price. The guy pulls the trigger and off he goes. I help my buddy do the basic cabling and terminating stuff for a little side cash for me as well.

Job is completed on time and all that is promised, is delivered. Auto shop guy kinda stalls a some on payment and then says that he feels that the job was "a little" overpriced. My buddy has no leverage now and concedes.........

At the end of that year he gets this tax form in the mail from this guy.................................1099 !! My friend calls him up, saying WTF man??!! You're killing me here. Auto shop guy says he "has to do this because it's a capitol invetsment and he can't hide that much cash expense.....................The total job ended up billing @$8200.00


Piece of crap................

[mikester]

Originally Posted by milt

As a contractor (in the building sense) it is against the law for me to remove or alter anything I have done on site. That is listed in the CA Business and Professional Codes, but it does seem specific to contractors since it's in the part that governs the contracting business. It might suggest a precedent though.

I see a couple of choices. First, I wouldn't accept a partial payment without something in writing regarding the balance. You could offer to reduce the bill for immediate and full payment and be done with it, but I would not take only half. I'd start at 90% thinking as 85% as a goal and I'd negotiate a percent at a time to let them know 50 % is way, way out of the question.

Following those efforts, I'd send a certified letter demanding full payment in 30 days (typical legal demand maneuver). No payment, small claims. I've sat in small claims court and verbal contracts are honored. All you need to show the judge are dates, times, facts and any receipts for expenses. When the judge asks the defendant if any work was done and they say anything but no, it goes downhill for them from that point on.

Make sure you are addressing an individual, not an LLC, partnership or corp. They may try to brush you off if they have such an entity, but they won't have much in the way of individual defense without a contract with you. I can't be totally sure about the last part, but you do have to know whom you're dealing with.

Obviously this isn't the same a 'building' and I wouldn't go to the trouble of removing any equipment. That is theirs - I didn't source that for them. I did however configure it so that they could use it.

At this point, it is a valuable lesson learned. I could go the small claims court route even with the verbal contract but I think with this particular job it would waste more of my time than it is worth. My partner has been out of town for the weekend so we haven't worked on resolving this (bastard went to vegas without me).

I'm confident we'll get paid - I just don't know how much.

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by mikester

Now he wants to cut my rate in half.

HALF!

This is why running your own business is such a pain and a bore, you have to deal with stuff like this all the time. If it's not one thing, it's another. It's like getting stung by bees, get stung enough times and the business dies.

[competentone]

Originally Posted by mikester

Integrity.

We had a verbal agreement...


We had an agreed upon rate....


All of this was verbal...

Now he wants to cut my rate in half.

...in the future if we continue this effort I'll get contracts together.

You have a contract.

He is trying to violate the terms of your contract.

A verbal contract is still a contract. It is enforceable.

It can be more difficult to prove your side without something in writing, but he is in the same position -- he has nothing in writing either.

You can bring him to court. He has to either admit that he is reneging on the contract, or he can lie to the court and claim you agreed to do the work for half your normal rate. If he lies, you need to be ready to provide the court with documentation (previous work) showing your ordinary rate.

Hopefully your threat of a lawsuit itself will get him to "see the light" and understand that a verbal agreement is still a contract.

[madmmac]

Ensure that you do a face to face.

Accept the half and give them a copy of the receipt of what they paid and the remaining total owed. Ascribe a due date to the remainder.

Maybe give them a verbal tutorial about what honesty and integrity are....just to remind them.

Ask them if this is the way that they would want their company to be known for?

[Danimal16]

Milt has it right. Small claims is a very valuable tool.

I play no favorites anymore. If someone tries that crap with me the first thing I don't want is their business and secondly I want to make sure that folks know I will fight for what is right.

You can approach him with your view that you had an agreement, that you trusted him, that times are hard for you too, you put other work off to take care of him etc. If he balks at integrity issues, he is fair game.

If he has a license, wright letters to the licensing agency, it may not help you out but it will impact his admin burden. If he has some type of insurance, file a claim. Now these things may not put the cash in your pocket but the cost for him to fix it will far exceed his agreed to price.

Remember that a small claims filing will show up for others to be aware of. It works and if anything it establishes your integrity to do what is right for you, your workers and your family. You gave your time. You can't get it back and he stole it.

[Danimal16]

Originally Posted by madmmac

ensure that you do a face to face.

Accept the half and give them a copy of the receipt of what they paid and the remaining total owed. Ascribe a due date to the remainder.

Maybe give them a verbal tutorial about what honesty and integrity are....just to remind them.

Ask them if this is the way that they would want their company to be known for?

+1000000

[kach22i]

Originally Posted by Danimal16

Small claims is a very valuable tool.

A small claims judgment is a stepping stone to a counter suit pushing it into regular court for the next five years and tens of thousands in lawyer fees.

People who get off screwing other people use this loophole to get the victim to settle for nothing and just walk away in frustration.

They have deeper pockets than you and are willing to go the distance, they do it to everyone they can. Avoid these people.

Yes, some people would rather spend $20,000 on lawyers than to pay a bill of $2,000............it's the principal of it. They crave the conflict and seek the battle.

Sick world.

[nostatic]

This is why I don't talk hourly rates. A job costs what a job costs. I learned this at an early age. When I was about 16 a friend of my mom's wanted me to pull two tree stumps out of his back yard by hand. He had started digging but determined it was too much work and hired me. He was a good business man and a pretty nice guy to boot. He said $100, figuring I'd take a day or two to get them out. I said, "OK." Two hours later I was finished. He paid up. My mom said I should give some of the money back because I made "too much" for the amount of time. I called him up and he said he wouldn't take any money back as we agreed on a price that was fair.

So if I am consulting, I try to do it per job. It shouldn't matter to my client how much time it takes me - either short or long. I need to deliver something. The only time I deviate from that is if they want me "brainstorming" in which case I'll quote a day rate.

In this case, take the money and don't look back. What goes around...and DON'T sabotage the network. They can come after you for serious damages...

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Originally Posted by kach22i

A small claims judgment is a stepping stone to a counter suit pushing it into regular court for the next five years and tens of thousands in lawyer fees.

People who get off screwing other people use this loophole to get the victim to settle for nothing and just walk away in frustration.

They have deeper pockets than you and are willing to go the distance, they do it to everyone they can. Avoid these people.

Yes, some people would rather spend $20,000 on lawyers than to pay a bill of $2,000............it's the principal of it. They crave the conflict and seek the battle.

Sick world.

The Wal-Mart phenomenon.

They're well-known for spending MANY times the amount of a potential settlement in litigation and similar stalling tactics in a (successful) effort to establish a reputation as a company that WILL NOT settle, no matter what the amount.

I don't LIKE Wal-Mart, but I have to admit as far as this particular tactic goes, it's very sensible (long-term thinking) and it's saved them from being the target of many, many lawsuits. A lot of people would love to sue Walmart but they don't because they know they'll be run through hell on earth with their legal department for YEARS before they ever see Dollar #1.

It's screwy to think that such inherent biases towards those with deep pockets would be built into the system (since they can "buy" continuances, engage in all kinds of motions and stalling tactics, etc.) but there it is...

[masraum]

Originally Posted by nostatic

This is why I don't talk hourly rates. A job costs what a job costs. I learned this at an early age. When I was about 16 a friend of my mom's wanted me to pull two tree stumps out of his back yard by hand. He had started digging but determined it was too much work and hired me. He was a good business man and a pretty nice guy to boot. He said $100, figuring I'd take a day or two to get them out. I said, "OK." Two hours later I was finished. He paid up. My mom said I should give some of the money back because I made "too much" for the amount of time. I called him up and he said he wouldn't take any money back as we agreed on a price that was fair.

So if I am consulting, I try to do it per job. It shouldn't matter to my client how much time it takes me - either short or long. I need to deliver something. The only time I deviate from that is if they want me "brainstorming" in which case I'll quote a day rate.

There's a book about Networking (the type that Mikester and myself do) called "From Serf to Surfer". It's a how to about how to become a Consultant. In the book he does exactly this. He has an hourly rate that he charges, but only he knows that rate and it can change if he wants. He bids his work out at a fixed prices. It makes sense. He said that he often gets business despite a higher bid because so many businesses know that someone charging by the hour can drag something out and blow their bid out of the water with time overages.

It was a pretty cool book that covered everything. I just wish I had the money and balls. I'm doing pretty decently now anyway.

[Por_sha911]

1) Take the money and cash the check at his bank immediately.
2) Send him a bill for the remaining balance. If they don't pay, its a write-off tax wise.
3) If you don't want to go to small claims court, wait for the first callback to service it and tell them no problem, I'll be there if you hand me a check for the balance when I walk in plus have advanced payment on future work. Then show up with a contract for future work.
-Don't undo what you've done. "You can't out-stink a skunk"

Oh, and as far as integrity is concerned, the days of a handshake contract are gone! Sad to say that its no longer about what is fair, its about what they can get away with. Before anyone gets too high and mighty (myself included), how many people cheat on their taxes? How many pay sales tax on things bought online and shipped from out of state? "For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it."
Unfortunately, people want to pick and choose which laws or moral codes they want to obey or violate. This is a product of situational ethics. There is no moral standard of right and wrong...

[Zeke]

It's only a write off against gains. At least I never put myself on the books for money I didn't receive and then deduct the difference. What's the point?

Now, if the Mikester bought parts, but he said he didn't.

[mikester]

Ha! So, my buddy who was in Vegas for the long weekend sends me a message today that these guys have called asking for some more help.

1) They haven't paid us for the work yet.

2) they want to stiff us

3) They apparently haven't returned any of our calls (to be fair - it's a holiday weekend)

Ha! My buddy said something about offering them a discount...??!!

I'm going to have to talk to him about that.

[KaptKaos]

Your buddy is doing it wrong.

No new work until old work is paid in full. Obviously, this assumes that there are no "reasonable" issues with the old work. Regardless, that can be corrected and should still be billed at full rate.

Anything less and your partner is either getting you both screwed or is screwing you.

[mikester]

So, 'discounted' means that my partner decided that a long term relationship with these guys was worth keeping. He offered to discount the job by 2 hours. Considering the way these guys have responded to us after the job was done I am NOT inclined to keep them as a customer but like I said - friends of a friend (my partner).

I'm not okay with this but don't want to risk my friendship over this one off job for some extra fun money.

I'll let it go and just not pursue any more work through this avenue and share with him my lessons learned here.

Lessons learned:

1) Always work with a contract.
2) Always work with a contract.

I let those two slide here since it was just a 1 off job for extra money, still my time is what I was charging for - time away from my kids and such and blabity blah blah.

3) Always bid the job, not the hours.
4) Always secure a retainer.
5) I'm not interested in giving my time away for free.

Anything else I'm missing here? Good advice too guys - thanks.

[KaptKaos]

Have your partner take the "discount" out of his share.

[jeffgrant]

Originally Posted by mikester

3) Always bid the job, not the hours.

Be careful with this one. I've been a consultant for 15+ years, and there are some aspects of some jobs that HAVE to be done on time and materials basis, not a "spec" or set-price fee.

I'm sure you're aware that in IT, ***** happens, so if you bid the job, and it goes sideways, you'll eat it.

Most of my jobs are a mixture of T&M and Spec.

While I do a lot of systems architecture work, I've been involved in a few network setup and config work. There have been a couple of failover situations that seemed pretty simple, in theory, but resulted in absolute nightmares due to various things like vendor incompatibilities for standard protocols (BGP), etc.

We took an extra 2 weeks to get one config tested and implemented as we had to get the vendors involved (F5 and Cisco) and write some patches for us.

I'm glad I didn't have to work for free to get it done.

Sure, it sucks that the client had to pay the extra, but sometimes that's what happens.


$0.02

[Halm]

Originally Posted by KaptKaos

Have your partner take the "discount" out of his share.

I wasn't quite sure how to reply. I think this is dead solid perfect.

[sammyg2]

Originally Posted by mikester

I do see your point. I really don't understand why they would agree to my wage and then try to renegotiate after the fact. I was open to negotiation in the beginning.

Dorks.

i'm thinking the same thing. They agreed to pay for a product. Then they said they didn't want to pay for it in the way they agreed. IMO that means they don't get it. Back it all up and wipe it out if they won't pay what it's worth.