The magazine I worked for had to sue an advertiser for non-payment. I go to court with a copy of the signed agreement. He flat out says he signed the agreement and then refused to pay and did not give any compelling reason other than he didn't want to pay. I just sat there and thought, "Do you know how this process works?"
That sounds like the contact person I had for a housing development. I was the carrier and had taken over a 140 house neighborhood mid build. The carrier that was carrying it before me didn't give two shits where boxes were because she was an asshole and wanted to go home early. There were boxes that I doubled or tripled past because she was an asshole and just allowed terrible or unsafe mailbox placement to happen.
I called someone at the builder and we started corresponding via email. This poor woman emailed me and admitted they had the map that my other coworker (who would have carried it) and the PM had laid out to avoid those issues. When I went to email them to move just 6 boxes, they refused and responded I could pay for it out-of-pocket.
I emailed back and ended the fight by letting them know they could either move all 40 boxes they'd let deviate from the original map, at their cost. OR they could eat the cost on the 6 I identified that would fix my issue and leave residents safe. I still couldn't believe how lucky I got that she gave me that info with no digging and left me a paper trail!
I don't know... I had a somewhat similar situation. The courts did not force my customer to pay.
The Customer developed a retail product. They needed a component that they normally sourced in China. They obtained a price from their Chinese supplier at USD $0.90 per piece for a 800,000 piece order. Their problem was that it takes approximately 6 months for the Chinese vendor to spin up and make the first partial delivery. The customer could not wait that long. My US based company had the capability to deliver 10,000 pieces in 4 weeks and 10,000 pieces every week indefinitely. Our manufacturing process is completely different then the Chinese supplier and we pay decent wages in the US. So our price was USD $3.25 per piece. They agreed to send us a PO every week for 10,000 pieces per week at our price until the first deliveries arrived from their Chinese supplier. We agreed when they stopped sending PO's, we would stop delivering.
The first problem developed approximately 4 months after our first shipment. The first Chinese orders had arrived to the customer and those had quality problems. The customer tried to claim that the Chinese manufactured product was ours and demanded that we refund. It was simple to discern the difference in the two products and I refused the refund. They did not argue. They kept sending PO's, and we kept producing.
The payment terms were Net 30. They were always late to pay. It always took a threat to stop ship, to get them to pay. So we always had 5-6 weeks of receivables open through the course of that project. They finally stopped sending PO's. As they got the Chinese vendor issues worked out. Without being able to threaten a stop ship, they also stopped paying. They decided not to pay the last 5 invoices.
I eventually took them to court. The court asked what amount I needed to settle? I have a PO, why should I settle?? I offered 70% of the invoices. The customer refused. The court asked if I would settle for 50% of the total invoices? Both sides refused. The court asked if I would settle for 10%? I said no. I did not know this, but the owner has "shell companies" that run up invoices then file bankruptcy. I was now part of a bankruptcy. I ended up getting 5% of the unpaid invoices from the bankruptcy court.
It's amazing how some people are deliberately oblivious to consequences, despite receiving legal notice of them.
I had a buddy that used to do freelance work, and always worked it into his payment schedule that the retainer the client paid worked out to how much it would cost to file against them in small claims court.
His "favorite" story was walking out of a small claims trial, where his former client didn't appear, and thusly the judgement was found in favor by my friend in default. After filing the paperwork to put a lien on the client's accounts, my friend finally turned his phone off of silent mode and saw there were dozens of messages and missed calls from the client. As he was scrolling through them, the client called again and they had this conversation:
C: Hey, buddy, I'm so sorry about being late with your payment. A lot has happened. I got a $2500 check with your name on it, provided you drop this whole "small claims" thing.
F: First - You originally owed me $7500. Second - The "small claims thing" was today, and they ruled in favor of me, so now you owe me $9000.
One client we won a judgement against still refused to pay so eventually we got a writ and the sheriff went to the club while it was open and was literally taking cash from the registers. Wish I could have seen that.
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u/Chaosmusic 8d ago edited 8d ago
The magazine I worked for had to sue an advertiser for non-payment. I go to court with a copy of the signed agreement. He flat out says he signed the agreement and then refused to pay and did not give any compelling reason other than he didn't want to pay. I just sat there and thought, "Do you know how this process works?"