Being unjustly pursued for damages.

[Brian H]

"The first bad review" thread got me thinking about some of the extreme cases that we have been pursued for damages.

One I had a couple of years ago. We were sued by a customer for $6,000.00 to replace 6 dining room chairs. The chairs were nice fully upholstered chairs with a full skirt. The fabric was an off white cotton print.

She was suing us without an attorney for the full reupholstering cost because we were not able to remove the dog urine and resulting water stains from the backs of 4 of the chairs.

Because of the dollar amount, we had turned it over to our insurance company and they had an attorney assigned to help us. At first the judge was confused about who and or what had caused the staining and was really leaning towards the homeowner. Our attorney was the one doing the talking and she wasn't helping. I finally got frustrated and interrupted our attorney and just laid it out for the judge.

It only took a few more minutes of the judge questioning the customer before the verdict was rendered and the case was dismissed.

Anyone else got any good stories?

 

[GCCLee]

The look on your face lol, too see it would have been a Priceless WTF moment

 

[davegillfishing]

the reason we dont move appliances when we clean tile and grout...

we did a house and moved the fridge out as asked by the customer..about 2 months later we got a call asking for our ins info..i asked why and was told that
we broke their fridge..i pulled the ticket up on the computer real quick and saw the date we did the job..i asked if the fridge had worked ok after the cleaning..

they said yep, it just broke and we were the last to move it..i took a deep breath and told them i would send out a repair guy..if he said we broke it 2 months ago i would replace it..if he doesnt they pay his trip fee and leave me alone..
he laughed when he found out the story..said it was flat impossible that sliding the fridge out broke it..

straw that broke the camels back on moving appliances was the flood we were blamed for a week after we moved the fridge out..they said we broke the line and it took that long to flood the house

 

[Hoody]

When I worked for a company in Utah we did a cat 3 water loss on Christmas Eve night. Basement was full of stuff, including a fridge that stopped working a week and half before the loss. Because we were there working late on Christmas Eve( and well into Christmas morning) they had to do some last minute shopping, in light of that I made a phone call and asked if we could collect a little less than we normally do so they could go get some last minute gifts. Not a problem, great thinking on trying to turn a negative moment into a positive. The homeowner also commented on how a few nice flower arrangements were from her mother's funeral from two days ago, and she showed me the kind words one of her neighbors had printed into the card.

Well these people happened to have a fridge(dented, partially rusted) that stopped working a week and a half ago. The company I worked for had a policy that if it did not have to do with the loss, we were not to remove the item from the house, or even touch it for that matter. I noted this on our documentation, took photos of the fridge, and had the homeowner initial next to the statement I made that the fridge was not working, they unplugged it, they had plans to have it removed from the house before the loss, and even noted that I gave them the number of a scrap company that will give $30 for the fridge, and they will haul it out and pick it up. The fridge sat on top of two wooden pallets, and the cord never touched the ground, and the water level was barely an inch high.

Everything seemed fine while we were processing the loss, the follow up moisture detection visits, and even when they signed off on the work, not one complaint - until their insurance company gave them a nice big check. They sent a check, but not for our total invoice, and enclosed a letter stating that because of their broken fridge they were keeping $1500 as claiming the flood damaged it. We tried to call them to refresh their memory of the documentation, and in response we got "Well, your technician unplugged it and as a result we have all this spoiled food". Remember the photos ? Yeah we emailed them to her, with an empathetic tone, and apologized about all of string of bad luck with the loss of mother, her spare fridge/freezer, and then the flood loss right after, etc. I took photos of all sides of the fridge, as well as inside the freezer, and fridge and you can clearly see ice cream oozing all over, and down the fridge, and there's a date/time stamp on the photos. After we rebuttal with that, the lady absolutely loses her mind(understandable with all the stress shes been under and everything that has happened) and went on this rant and rave that to this day I am not 100% sure I know what the hell she was talking about, but I get it.....sort of.

Well, we just handed it over to the lawyer, he sent an intent to lien letter. SHE had her lawyer send a letter with some sort of lawsuit that had emotional distress damages, after we faxed all of our documentation to her lawyer he quickly dropped the suit. We finally get paid the $1500.00. I later found out that despite all the hassle, the office pooled some money together and had flowers delivered to her house with a card and all the office signed it.

 

[Spurlington]

It's hard to determine how another person may think or act whether it be in your face or behind your back .. makes it hard to trust people .. I heard a story of a customer giving the cleaner a vacuum cleaner and then called the cops on him ..

I've bought and exchanged services for items from my customers before .. always document with receipts of what you took, was traded for cash or services .. none of the head bobbing or knuckle bumping movements to seal any deal .. paper trail will protect you .. and if they want there crap back, you could offer a rede livery fee - haha