client won't pay....

D

data farm 26

Been here a while
Location
the raft
In 10 years of business this is a first, so I guess that's a positive note but still, it's a tough pill to swallow. This fella thought that we were going to remove all of the "downward growing" branches from his mature crabapple tree so he's saying he'll only pay $200 of his $660 bill. I'm perplexed on how to deal with this guy, it seems like he's maybe having a mental health crisis based on the tone of his email and a brief phone convo from which he hung up in a rage. Yikes, maybe I'll just let it go. Have any of you folks ever had anyone try and stiff you for the bill?

PS, we had clear pruning specs and had agreed to the terms with his wife months ago. This is the first interaction with the man and his wife has vanished from communications... good cop bad cop scam? :ROFLMAO:
 
I’d likely just write it off as a loss.

Personally I wouldn’t bother with a lien over so little, but that’s me.
I’d try to meet with them in person first.

I’ve never been stiffed for anything that significant, just one hour consultations here and there and estimate fees. A friend of a friend didn’t pay for over 6 months once.

My first google review is from an estimate I walked on. I made a referral and the guy went all batshit yelling at me as I got into my truck and left. Poor interactions can have lasting effects.
 
I have never been stiffed like that . In my invoice I have a large blank space to layout the property and number all the customers trees then I write everything down to be done on the property so there is no confusion of what’s to be done. I know lots of people don’t write out an invoice, just boggles my mind.
 
Sometimes people are just not rationally with it. I got stiffed once on a cedar hedge where the back yard double sloped left--right and front-rear "you didn't cut it level" explanations, matching previous cut height etc on deaf ears. They even laughed at me. Red flags I ignored in my hunger for work was effed up butchery elsewhere in the yard. Another time "you didn't cut the branch off" me-"there it is on the ground and there's the fresh cut circle on the stem where I cut it off" customer stood there defiant, angry staring upwards at the next newly visible branch. I refer to this as keep cutting from the bottom up branches that can be seen pruning - a sort of customer mental disorder. Then there's the add-more-in as/after you work from the quoted price re-interpreted as "you didn't finish". Brother's in law of friends did that to me twice, one I curtailed one I got stiffed. Hard to have your customer spider sense working all the time.

In your case I call it a no-win, non-rational. You'll have to destroy the tree to meet his definition/evaluation. Then what if the tree dies? More fun interaction.
 
I've had a a couple no pays, and a few partial pays over the years. In the end we just wrote most of them off, because it is just way less hassle to do that then to pursue it too far. Even if I was in the right to go after them, I usually felt it wasnt worth getting bad mouthed by them to their family, friends, anyone who will listen, and maybe a bad review. Plus for most of them, we recognized they were in a tough spot financially.

I'll take a homeowner not paying any day over a fellow arboritst not paying though. That just feels like a extra slap in the face.
 
climbhightree said:
Even if I was in the right to go after them, I usually felt it wasnt worth getting bad mouthed by them to their family, friends, anyone who will listen, and maybe a bad review. Plus for most of them, we recognized they were in a tough spot financially.
Click to expand...
That and the stress, letting it go is frustrating as hell but definitely less stressful. Latest one who didn’t pay is a rich fuck building a second house next to their second/summer home. Do like Elsa…
 
I had another one where the wife effed off on a long leisurely dog walk when it came time to pay. After at least 4 hints like "I'll be done in about 10 minutes". Was working next door a year later husband comes over asking ironically for exactly the same hedge to be trimmed. I explained that he couldn't butcher it the way he wanted to without killing it and added "last time I trimmed it you didn't pay me". Should've seen the look on his face. He checked with his wife and came back out with the money owing. I excuse-ed my way out of any further dealing with them. They also had a years dead medium tree over their pool shack and used wood to build part of their brick fire cook/place - which burnt away propping the roof on the chain link fence. they declined the dead removal. ornamental fence plus pool liner at stake too. Sharp folks they were :)

Reminds me of another guy who suddenly had to go shopping. multi year customer too.

Karma comes back to these dick wads. I believe.
 
Years ago,
We had a guy come out with his Poulan pro, gauntlet gloves and goggles, right in the middle of our active work zone. After we shut down and asked him to step back politely, so we could finish, He argued that he helped as "part of the crew" and tried refusing a big portion of the bill... He eventually paid... just sharing a jogged memory. $400 will barely touch legal fees if this customer goes crazy on ya and things snowball.
 
I have 4 that won't pay right now. One is a multi billion dollar company known as West Fraser. One is an older lady that came out flashing a bible and telling me how honest she was and how much of a Christian she was. One was a business partner that owed me money when we parted company. The other is a tree service that hired me for a couple hours of bucket truck work on a storm tree. Close to 30k in total that I'll never see. But that's how human beings are sometimes.
 
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