I've had my shop now 12 years, and 6 of that it has been my "full time" job.
In that 12 years, this is the first time I have been burned by a non-paying customer. Well, they sorta paid.
In July of 2021 a company approached me to do some really strange work, in an industry that I have never done work in before. They spent several weeks trying to find a shop to manufacture the small quantity, very specialty work, in a VERY short lead time. Ie, 4 parts, completely bastard everything, worthless drawing, they don't know exactly what it is they need, but they needed it two weeks ago.
I have a policy that new customers pay 50% upfront and 50% on completion. That worked fine for them because they didn't have time to formally submit everything and get a PO made. They paid the 50% down with a CC and I got started. I got the parts done, early, (worked over July 4th weekend and on July 4th) and told them to make the payment and they could pick up the parts. To save the 3% CC fee they asked if they could bring a check. No problem. They bring a check for the full amount, pick up the parts, no issues.
Beginning of December they reach out and say that they need another batch of parts made. A different bastard part, same conditions. They say it has to be run through a PO this time. I submit a quote, but since they are a repeat customer, terms are now payment on completion. They say great. Even after some issues with their worthless drawing and specs I get the parts made.
Here is where I am an idiot, and everything falls apart. They are about 45 minutes away, and I happened to be driving by. So I dropped off the parts, saving them an hour and a half drive. The guy I deal with isn't there. No-one else knows anything about the parts. So I call the guy and he says yea great, leave them with so and so. It's a Friday afternoon, no-one is there to cut me a check.
Some of you are either laughing or yelling at the computer screen like a bad horror movie.
In some ways I lucked out a little bit. The companies AP department reached out to me for a W-9, so they gave me their own information. When the invoice got to be 2 weeks late I called and explained who I was and the woman on the phone was very polite and apologized for the payment not being made. Seems the guy who wrote the PO and ordered the parts marked them as delivered, but did not submit the invoice. I emailed her another copy of the invoice, and while on the phone she confirmed that she received the invoice. She said they would run a check the next batch and have it out to me.
2 weeks later I still had not received payment. So I sent emails out again and she responded that she had no invoice and even included a nice screen shot of her computer system showing that there was no invoice due. I had started to email her back that she was incompetent and I don't enter invoices into their systems, that's her job, and she confirmed she had the invoice so clearly she didn't do her job. My wife intervened and typed her a short and terse email in AP/AR jargon explaining that she was incompetent and didn't do her job, but in business speak. I got an email that afternoon that a check would be cut the next run(probably friday).
The following monday a check arrives in the mail. Hooray.
But wait....
There's more!
The check is for just over half of the invoiced amount.
I have found as I have gotten older my patience has rapidly evaporated. People's incompetency and general stupidity has pushed me to the point where I am 100% full boil instantly. I spend probably more time than reasonable double, triple, and sometimes quadruple checking my work. Verifying all aspects to guarantee that my work, or whatever I am doing is correct. When I make a mistake I am proactive, I take care of it before anyone knows it exists. When I fail to identify a mistake before someone else identifies the mistake, when that mistake is identified, everything in my life comes to a stop until that mistake is corrected.
Immediately upon looking at the check I am pissed, beyond pissed. I bent over backwards to get this company what they needed, I was a nice guy and went out of my way to save them an hour and a half drive, I did the work that half a dozen machine shops wouldn't attempt, and they screwed me. I already had my phone out trying to decide whether to call in a tactical missile strike or nuke the whole place into oblivion and walk away from it all together. My wife took the check from me and looked it over.
Thirty seconds later she says, this is a deduction, they deducted from your invoice.
WTF does that mean!
It means they think you owe them money, so they deducted that from your invoice.
Sure enough we sat down at the computer and looked up the two previous invoices for this company, and low and behold, they deducted the two previous invoice amounts from this invoice.
So, now, what the heck do I do? My wife once again saved my hide and wrote another email to the AP lady explaining that they had an unauthorized deduction without providing any backup or explanation, and further the deduction was not approved and never discussed and they would need to submit full payment.
That was monday. No one is responding to phone calls or answering emails. The "Operations Manager" who I usually communicate with is not answering his phone, AP lady is not answering her phone, and no one that I have email addresses for are responding.
My wife explained to me that the AP People are like robots. Stupid robots I asked? They just process the information. If the information they are given is incomplete or incorrect, it still gets processed. Hmmm stupid programmer then. No, they just work within the confines of their task. Some companies give their AP department a lot of room to look at and do things, other companies do not. She thinks once they look to provide backup, they will find that there is none, and make complete payment.
I do not think for a second that they will.
So my immediate thought is Small Claims court. Any thoughts, opinions, experiences? Is it worth my time? When they get a summons will they show up with a big shot lawyer? Maybe... at this point they are going to spend the money they owe me one way or another.
In that 12 years, this is the first time I have been burned by a non-paying customer. Well, they sorta paid.
In July of 2021 a company approached me to do some really strange work, in an industry that I have never done work in before. They spent several weeks trying to find a shop to manufacture the small quantity, very specialty work, in a VERY short lead time. Ie, 4 parts, completely bastard everything, worthless drawing, they don't know exactly what it is they need, but they needed it two weeks ago.
I have a policy that new customers pay 50% upfront and 50% on completion. That worked fine for them because they didn't have time to formally submit everything and get a PO made. They paid the 50% down with a CC and I got started. I got the parts done, early, (worked over July 4th weekend and on July 4th) and told them to make the payment and they could pick up the parts. To save the 3% CC fee they asked if they could bring a check. No problem. They bring a check for the full amount, pick up the parts, no issues.
Beginning of December they reach out and say that they need another batch of parts made. A different bastard part, same conditions. They say it has to be run through a PO this time. I submit a quote, but since they are a repeat customer, terms are now payment on completion. They say great. Even after some issues with their worthless drawing and specs I get the parts made.
Here is where I am an idiot, and everything falls apart. They are about 45 minutes away, and I happened to be driving by. So I dropped off the parts, saving them an hour and a half drive. The guy I deal with isn't there. No-one else knows anything about the parts. So I call the guy and he says yea great, leave them with so and so. It's a Friday afternoon, no-one is there to cut me a check.
Some of you are either laughing or yelling at the computer screen like a bad horror movie.
In some ways I lucked out a little bit. The companies AP department reached out to me for a W-9, so they gave me their own information. When the invoice got to be 2 weeks late I called and explained who I was and the woman on the phone was very polite and apologized for the payment not being made. Seems the guy who wrote the PO and ordered the parts marked them as delivered, but did not submit the invoice. I emailed her another copy of the invoice, and while on the phone she confirmed that she received the invoice. She said they would run a check the next batch and have it out to me.
2 weeks later I still had not received payment. So I sent emails out again and she responded that she had no invoice and even included a nice screen shot of her computer system showing that there was no invoice due. I had started to email her back that she was incompetent and I don't enter invoices into their systems, that's her job, and she confirmed she had the invoice so clearly she didn't do her job. My wife intervened and typed her a short and terse email in AP/AR jargon explaining that she was incompetent and didn't do her job, but in business speak. I got an email that afternoon that a check would be cut the next run(probably friday).
The following monday a check arrives in the mail. Hooray.
But wait....
There's more!
The check is for just over half of the invoiced amount.
I have found as I have gotten older my patience has rapidly evaporated. People's incompetency and general stupidity has pushed me to the point where I am 100% full boil instantly. I spend probably more time than reasonable double, triple, and sometimes quadruple checking my work. Verifying all aspects to guarantee that my work, or whatever I am doing is correct. When I make a mistake I am proactive, I take care of it before anyone knows it exists. When I fail to identify a mistake before someone else identifies the mistake, when that mistake is identified, everything in my life comes to a stop until that mistake is corrected.
Immediately upon looking at the check I am pissed, beyond pissed. I bent over backwards to get this company what they needed, I was a nice guy and went out of my way to save them an hour and a half drive, I did the work that half a dozen machine shops wouldn't attempt, and they screwed me. I already had my phone out trying to decide whether to call in a tactical missile strike or nuke the whole place into oblivion and walk away from it all together. My wife took the check from me and looked it over.
Thirty seconds later she says, this is a deduction, they deducted from your invoice.
WTF does that mean!
It means they think you owe them money, so they deducted that from your invoice.
Sure enough we sat down at the computer and looked up the two previous invoices for this company, and low and behold, they deducted the two previous invoice amounts from this invoice.
So, now, what the heck do I do? My wife once again saved my hide and wrote another email to the AP lady explaining that they had an unauthorized deduction without providing any backup or explanation, and further the deduction was not approved and never discussed and they would need to submit full payment.
That was monday. No one is responding to phone calls or answering emails. The "Operations Manager" who I usually communicate with is not answering his phone, AP lady is not answering her phone, and no one that I have email addresses for are responding.
My wife explained to me that the AP People are like robots. Stupid robots I asked? They just process the information. If the information they are given is incomplete or incorrect, it still gets processed. Hmmm stupid programmer then. No, they just work within the confines of their task. Some companies give their AP department a lot of room to look at and do things, other companies do not. She thinks once they look to provide backup, they will find that there is none, and make complete payment.
I do not think for a second that they will.
So my immediate thought is Small Claims court. Any thoughts, opinions, experiences? Is it worth my time? When they get a summons will they show up with a big shot lawyer? Maybe... at this point they are going to spend the money they owe me one way or another.