Deal or No Deal?

I see it all over NextDoor. I see it all over Facebook. I’ve gotten messages from friends. “I need a [hairstylist/roofer/photographer/lawyer] that is good and isn’t going to charge an arm and a leg.”

Sometimes the more something should go without saying, the more it needs to be said: You get what you pay for. I know I’ve certainly ended up wildly disappointed (and sometimes borderline furious) with the end result of services or products I’ve gotten after getting what I thought was a good deal.

Being disappointed with services or products is one thing; being scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars is another thing. I’ve seen different versions of this all too often lately. Let me tell you just one story.

Client hires a guy to do a coating on the driveway. Thinks he’s getting a great deal. Client gives driveway guy $15,000. Driveway guy only does about half of the contracted work, badly, and then stops responding to the client despite multiple phone calls, texts, and emails.  I even sent a demand letter on attorney letterhead that driveway guy was in breach of contract to try to tell him that we meant business. We still had no response, but we didn’t sue. “Why?” you ask. Seems like an “open and shut” case, right? Well, that’s correct. I have very little doubt that we could have “won”, but that’s not the hard part. The hard part is actually collecting on the judgement. If the bad business is just truly bad at business, they’re broke. If the bad business is a serial fraudster, they will just move on to the next target. Either way, collecting the money from them can be next to impossible. “But aren’t these people criminals since they’re running around taking people’s money and not giving them what was promised?” Maybe. But, unfortunately, my experience with getting law enforcement involved generally goes nowhere. I’ve had clients swindled out of anywhere between $350 to $150,000 and only managed to get law enforcement involved once.

In every one of these cases that I’ve worked, there were red flags that would have popped up if the client would have just done a little bit of internet research. Some of those flags were: driveway finishing business changed business names every 2 years, roofing company had 2-5 registered LLCs in every state, bogus custom drum kit company had an entire Facebook group of hundreds of people who sent money, custom food truck outfitters had 10 active lawsuits against them.

So, if you think you’ve found a good deal, you need to do your due diligence. You might have found a great deal with an up-and-coming new contractor. Or you might get scammed out of tens of thousands of dollars and I might have to tell you that I probably can’t help you get your money back.