How to deal with a Customer?

[muddpuppy]

Here we go ..... got a call from a freind and his employer a Small business. on a Saturday....Running a POS (point of sale)System. Issue the main machine is rittled with viruses and Trojan apps. OS XP Pro SP1 on all 3 machines Norton AV Expired 2 months prior.

I was told this needs to be working asap, After updating and cleaning threats almost have this thing up and running. Then the Threats hit again. I stopped the bleeding at this point told them I would contact the software vendors Monday get all info needed to backup nessasary data then we would wipe drives and start over. They agreed I called them on that Monday. After sharing all info with the customer and go forward plan. they agreed and the plan was for me to pick up the machine to proceed. I show up and they found someone to do the job cheaper he has the computer. We settled on a price for my time they wrote me a check. I cashed it they stoped payment. I am out that $$ and fees........ What would you do?

[muddpuppy]

Also all attemps to contact customer fails they return nothing. This is just side work for me I am not a business.

[CJH]

Small claims court. You have the cancelled check as proof of payment for services rendered.

Pretty crappy deal.

[DTro]

Yep, small claims court is really your only option. Then when you do get a judgement you will have to deal with collecting the payment. Sometimes that is worse then collecting it the first time.

You can get it collected legally by a collection agency, but they will charge you 50%.

Frusrated yet?

[muddpuppy]

Yeah I was looking at that but I hate to be that guy. In the end I still loose. Plus court fees etc.

What's that saying No good deed goes unpunished

My bank reversed my fee and I didn't bounce any checks due to this.

I am thinking the best way to deal with it is report to the BBB and Attorney General’s Office. Write it all off on taxes as a loss to a personal business. But I hate to give up and be taken advantage of as well.

Thanks for your thoughts

[Dbl]

Unfortunately while I won't condone what happened to you it is really a problem you created. Did you speak ahead of time with the client what your fee structure was? Did you come to some form of agreement on how you would be charging for the job? Did you come to some form of agreement on how they would be paying for the job? I learned a long time ago that friend or not these are items that need to be agreed upon before you lift one finger.

It is the unfortunate side effect of being good at a skill but not being as good at business skills. This is one of those "I got burned and hoped I learned my lesson" type of jobs. Do not let your desire to earn some side money negate basic business practices, partial payment up front for services, a suitable form of payment when services have been rendered. You could speak to your friend, but that may not end up well for you either. This might just be a move along and forget type of situation.

[muddpuppy]

dbl

I see where you are comming from. As it started out as a quick favor for a friend. I did explain to the owner that this was no quick fix I left it to him to settle up at that time or we could move forward and I would let him know monday what the cost of moving forward would be. My fault for trusting in people. FYI we are not talking tons of money here $200 thats $15 per hour for my time invested. the going rates are $99 - $180 per hour for onsite business services. So I gave them a great deal. I should have kept the details to my self and been less trusting and helpful. From here on out I will be completly upfront before anything and never accept another check. Because whether you are up front or not people are people and no matter how prepaired you are shady people are just that.

[upnorth]

This is why I only side work for friends and family, same with rod-building.

You could be a real jerk and walk in during a real busy time of the day and have a conversation with the manager/owner about how they treated you. And be just loud enough so that his customers can here your complaints about how he does business.

[Big Dave2]

This is why I only side work for friends and family, same with rod-building.

You could be a real jerk and walk in during a real busy time of the day and have a conversation with the manager/owner about how they treated you. And be just loud enough so that his customers can here your complaints about how he does business.

Or you could inadvertainly let the company name of this S.O.B. slip on a certain heavily used outdoors message board HSOforum so a bunch of people can boycot them.

[nofishfisherman]

Not sure what else you could have done. Agreeing to terms before hand probably wouldn't have helped since they just stopped payment of the check.

Your best bet would be to go talk to them in person and bring and ask them why they stopped payment. Ask them if they have a habit of not paying their vendors/employees/contractors.

I'd at least talk to your "friend" and ask him about it.

You never know there may have been some sort of crazy mix up and the didn't intend to stiff you. $200 probably isn't worth a court case or collections but it is certainly worth a conversation with the business and your friend.

[LwnmwnMan2]

Go talk with them.

If that doesn't work.....

Get a lawyer "friend" to write them a letter stating there will be a theft of services if the amount is not reimbursed for the stopped payment.

If that doesn't work, go file papers at small claims court. Once they get the paperwork in the mail, they call.

If that doesn't work, follow through with it.

$200 IS worth your time. It's 15 hours @ $15 per hour.

I don't understand people that say "oh, $200 - $300, what the heck".

$20, sure, but not $200. That's a new Wii for the kids or a decent netbook comupter.

GET YOUR MONEY!!!!!!

[muddpuppy]

Nofish, My buddy wants to keep out and I don't blame him. I will give some thought to visiting in person. Once I am at a point of being able to keep a cool head about this. At this point it's not about the money really but more of my pride. To me it's like getting punched in the gut and kicked in the face. How do you not retaliate. I am just having a hard time swallowing this and not sure how best to handle it.

1. I am out no money only my time. Do I spend my own money go to court to prove my point. Only to still have to try and collect.

2. I could out this Business on several forums, Cost him business maybe.. But he doesn't know it's me

3. be a pain in his rear for a while and walk away.

4. just give up, be the better person. Yet unwilling to help others in fear of this happening again.

Thanks to all for letting me vent and sharing your thoughts

[nofishfisherman]

Its a tough situation for sure. I've had a similar experience while trying to help out a guy on another fishing forum. I did some design work for him in trade for a vexilar he was getting rid of.

Well I did the work and in the end he decided that he didn't need the designs any more and wouldn't honor the trade. He didn't care that I had put several hours of work into his project. Not much I could do about it other then tell the guy how I felt.

Now when I do freelance work even for a trade there is a contract involved and whenever possible I get money up front.

I would not approach them about the money until you cool off, you will need to go in and approach him as a professional, if that doesn't work then you can let out a little bit of crazy on him.

The reason people say $200 might not be worth fighthing for is that it will take more time and possibly more money to fight this through the courts. If you need a lawyer thats not free so you may end up paying him a couple hundred bucks just to get your $200 back, in the end its a wash and you just wasted more precious time. Don't get me wrong I'm all for making things right and holding the business responsible but you'll have to decide what its worth to you.

[CAMAN]

I could be wrong here but doesn't the defendant pay the court costs if they lose?

:edit:

Found this on the MN Judicial HSOforum

"If you win a judgment, you are responsible for collecting payment. As you try to collect the judgment, you may have out of pocket expenses for filing fees, transcription costs and other costs, which can be added to the amount you can collect."

http://www.courts.state.mn.us/selfhelp/?page=1688

[LwnmwnMan2]

I could be wrong here but doesn't the defendant pay the court costs if they lose?

Correct. You can add in all fees associated with having to go to small claims court, including incidentals within reason.

You already have a stopped payment to show that they had agreed to pay.

I would talk to them in person. I've never had a problem talking to people in person, I'm a guy that's too easy going.

However, the two times that I actually had to go to small claims, 1 time as soon as they got the paperwork in the mail, they got the cash to pay immediately, $2500.

The second time was a guy that worked for me, that owed me $600 for a car that I bought for im. He paid off 1/2, then quit and didn't pay for 8 months.

I went to court, got a judgement, had him served, and after about another 5 months of trying to track him down, and sending a garnishment of wages form, he paid. This was after the additional fees and charges added up to another $300, ontop of the $300 that he still owed.

Again, talk to them in person, make sure it wasn't just a mix up.

Then if that's not the case, then tell them that unless they pay, you have no other choice but to take them to small claims court.

[Jeremy airjer W]

The BBB is nothing more than an outlet for people who cant understand normal thinking. Being in the automotive business we hear the BBB trip at least once a week. I haven't heard of any of the BBB resolutions going further than us sending in our account of what happened.

As far as what they did its called theft of services. We (I) used to deal with them all the time when I drove tow truck.

[upnorth]

I think the keep a list of complaints and I am not sure that list can be accessed but us normal folk or not. OK just went to their site and you get business ratings, so if a business gets a lot of complaint it looks like the get poor ratings from BBB.

[BobT]

Does the BBB really have any legal power to do anything or are they really nothing more than a rating system?

[MuleShack]

The BBB is nothing more than an outlet for people who cant understand normal thinking. Being in the automotive business we hear the BBB trip at least once a week. I haven't heard of any of the BBB resolutions going further than us sending in our account of what happened.

As far as what they did its called theft of services. We (I) used to deal with them all the time when I drove tow truck.

They are running on name alone.

The BBB...what a joke...They call you up expecting that you fall for their line because of their name and then basically try to strong arm you into advertising with them. They charge you by the number of employees and either gross sales or gross labor you pay out. I only took their call once and then told them to *(&%^(*&^ off because they are like extortion.

Back to the topic...Once you have the check, and won in the court (because most likely they wont show up) by default. Then you have to wait 30 days for them to appeal. After that you take the next step by paying $30 or $50 for sherrif to deliver subpeona with set of instructions instructing them to provide bank account # etc. IF they fail, judge can issue bench warrant. You already have checking account #...judge should issue payment directly from their account on the 3rd go round.

I always have problems getting the account information from the people who I have taken to court with my business...they just dont show up and wait for the warrant.

[muddpuppy]

Thank you all for the Support.

The BBB is yes more of a joke but they do post a star rating for businesses. The fun part is if the business is not enlisted with them you can fill out all the forms and then the business will get this random complaint in the mail. Then they will start getting sales like calls to join the cult. It’s more of a (PITA) for them maybe scare them to pay.

I sent the business a notice of collection giving them 30days to make good or all discounts would be pulled and I will fight for full hourly onsite fees for services rendered. It’s a waiting game now and they choose not to communicate. This will wind up in court and I feel bad for them as everything is very well documented and I have all their info Personal and business. They are playing the odds that this will just go away and it’s not.

[lotsofish]

Sorry to hear about this.. I had something like this happen to me once. I took them to small claims, they didn't show up, I won on default, but I haven't been collected yet either. It's a mistake you learn from.

Maybe it's me, but I would have a hard time trusting someone running a POS system on an XP system, that's wide open to the world no less.

Maybe you can recoup some of your losses by mentioning how you would have been hardening the system and lessening the chances of the same thing happening again because some cashier is checking out the latest myspace themes on the cash register. But cash the check first.

[upnorth]

That is the vendor that is the issue with running a POS on XP. I have worked on a couple POS apps that run on XP as a matter of fact they run the whole system, server and all on XP. The person running the business should have at least a rudimentary statefull Firewall between there system and the internet. And not a linksys or dlink wireless router/firewall is not going to cut it.

[muddpuppy]

Upnorth you are correct. The POS requires XP Pro Along with Credit card app. Nothing but DSL and Linksys 10/100 5 port. I explained the cost etc. with getting this done right and they didn't want to spend the money. They took what I said in a summery and relayed it to some one else who said they could do it for a fraction of the cost. I just found out they got what they paid for! LOL how bitter sweet

[upnorth]

If he stores any customer financial data and no network security he is leaving himself pretty darn open to a law suit. Not sure how big some needs to be before PCI security standards need to be implemented but he still needs some sort of security appliance between him and the internet.

[fisherman-andy]

A POS system should never have a virus or trojan. Its main function is to operate sales & receipts & customer data and should not be use for anything else.

Obviously who ever is using the POS is going to end having the same problems all over again. Internet security software such as firewalls, spyware removers, anti-virus is only able to protect so and so much. The most power factor here is user knowledge. Not only is this small business in need of proper protection but also the proper consulting. It the end you get what you pay for...