money owed

[sniper]

Here is what a friend of mine did, while he is not in the car biz it still applies.

A customer owned him around $30k. He would not pay up. So my friend hired a debt collector. This collector like all only charged a percentage of the debt owed. He's like 6'9" 315, all business and is known to collect money without much of a fight. Anywho, the collector shows up to the guys house around dinner time and politely tells him that he will have the money by the end of the week or he'll be returning and he's not going to say a word. I am sure there were a few other choice words as well. Gives the guy a firm handshake and leaves.

The guy that owed the money called my friend and freaked out, asking why he had this dude show up at his house with his family there and all the other non sense. Longer story short, he paid 20k by the end of the week and did not have a problem after that.

Find a similiar debt collector in your area and have them take care of it.

[Fluid Power]

Originally Posted by sniper

Here is what a friend of mine did, while he is not in the car biz it still applies.

A customer owned him around $30k. He would not pay up. So my friend hired a debt collector. This collector like all only charged a percentage of the debt owed. He's like 6'9" 315, all business and is known to collect money without much of a fight. Anywho, the collector shows up to the guys house around dinner time and politely tells him that he will have the money by the end of the week or he'll be returning and he's not going to say a word. I am sure there were a few other choice words as well. Gives the guy a firm handshake and leaves.

The guy that owed the money called my friend and freaked out, asking why he had this dude show up at his house with his family there and all the other non sense. Longer story short, he paid 20k by the end of the week and did not have a problem after that.

Find a similiar debt collector in your area and have them take care of it.

I had this same issue. We even had a judgement against the person (and company) in court. Collection on the judgement is another issue. I have this Italian buddy who played college football and is enormous. As a joke, I told him I would gladly give him a third if he 'collected' from this guy. About 3 days later, I got a call from this deadbeat and he brought over CASH and told me to not send the MOB after him...He even coughed up a little more since I had to pay "collection fees" Best $1500 I ever spent!

[rjsjea]

You are not talkin about "blackened 72 cuda" are you??

[tellyv]

Originally Posted by rjsjea

You are not talkin about "blackened 72 cuda" are you??

no thank god, I called yesterday and gave him the riot act went over there and I actually got 10K from him so its a start maybe I wont have to sue him. Never again will a car leave not paid for!!!!! Here it is 66 chevelle, it was a complete basket case most of its all aftermarket crap.

[MODO Innovations]

I had a guy at a swap meet tell me he had this issue once before as well. His business is not dealing with cars but I think the same would apply. He was dealing with another business so if your customer has a business this would work as well.
The guy went to a sign shop and had a banner made that read, "XYZ... company doesn't pay their bills." He tied the banner to the side of his truck and parked across the street from the business at lunch time. Within 10 minutes an employee of the company asked him to come in and talk to the owner. He went in and sat down with the owner. The owner asked how much do I owe you? The guy told him the amount he owed and added the amount for the banner on top of that. The non paying man asked, "so you want me to pay for the banner too?" He said, "if you want it so it can't be used again, yes."
Walked out of the office with cash in hand, THEN took off the banner and took it to the receiptanist.

I don't know if it work in your situation or not but it might me an option.

[byndbad914]

Others have offered suggestions to fix. I am surprised you didn't take payments along the way. Even building an engine I would require half up front just to cover parts. Then after the parts were in I required another payment of half the remainder, so when they show up they only owe me a couple grand at the most.

So for the future, do just that.

When I had my tube chassis built for my car, it was the same deal - the guy that did the work required half up front, another quarter at half finished, and the last quarter to remove it from the shop. Makes a $10K bill a $2500 bill at the most (as he is never potentially out of pocket on the money 'til the end) instead of having $8K dumped into tubing and labor costs and have me not come thru on the whole $10K. He would have "lost" $500 if I didn't pay the final amount, but he would have also had my car.

Then while you hold the car (in my case engine), you have it clearly stated in the original quote that they have 2 weeks to pay after final assembly or you start charging storage. That really tends to motivate people when you start tacking storage fees onto the bill.

Cars are harder than engines since a title is involved... with engines after 6 months I had the quote say I had the right to ebay the engine no reserve and whatever amount was earned above what they owed me I would reimburse to them, up to the amount of the original quote. That meant if I quoted $10K, they paid $7K and didn't come thru at the end, I just needed to sell it for $3K to break even. Did it one time, sold the engine for $6K (which the buyer got a smokin' deal on!!), reimbursed the original guy $3K since I was only owed $3K and told him where he could put that $3K when he started crying. Cost himself $4K to never get the engine.

[tellyv]

When we started he was keeping up, then he left for florida all winter and the checks came but not as often, then you know how it goes I need my car for spring so we dumped all the other projects and 4 of us worked on it for about 2 months straight and him being a big talker we let the car out and here we are. At least I got a big chunk of it today and I sure did learn a lesson.

[Porterbuilt]

I have found it best to take labor deposits. Depending on the scope of the build the deposits may be large or small sums. I make all my customers pay for parts before I order them, and I take anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 deposits on labor. Once the labor deposit has been used, we get together to go over the progress and then get another deposit. I started doing this after I ended up in your situation once. Never had to wait for another dollar.

Glad to hear you got your money.

[byndbad914]

Originally Posted by tellyv

When we started he was keeping up, then he left for florida all winter and the checks came but not as often, then you know how it goes I need my car for spring so we dumped all the other projects and 4 of us worked on it for about 2 months straight and him being a big talker we let the car out and here we are. At least I got a big chunk of it today and I sure did learn a lesson.

I hear you and BTDT too. Similar story, had this dude talked big about all the money he makes as a partner in a small private equity company (and having an MBA and knowing PE guys - they make BANK when they are on) and he did make money hand over fist apparently and I had considered/talked about working for him.

Then he told my friend he would buy his old late model/SW Tour car to go road racing in NASA. Friend sold it for $6500 to him and he wanted a one year contract to pay it off. Claims he turned close to a million on the year before and wants a contract to pay $6500. He probably had it in his pocket frankly, but he screwed my friend around for the whole year and then some and finally paid him for the car only after mutual friends pressured him to not be an ahole Needless to say I quit talking about working for him - not cuz I couldn't have done well but screw working for someone with ethics like that.

The people with the biggest mouths and bank accounts also seem to be the biggest aholes. And they don't start that way, but man, money has really changed a few of my friends in the past. Weird deal, but I NEVER trust anyone flaunting cash.