Treat your client like crap, offer poor service and get paid anyway!

Superior Shine

Superior Shine

New member
I recently hired a "graphic artist" to create some post cards for me.



I first told him I liked his samples and I would be sending him a deposit but after I thought about it for a good while I decided the cards (as they were) wouldn't work for me.



I contacted him to make changes and he fought me every step of the way. I wanted a tag line on the front, I wanted my logo, I wanted what I did (mobile auto detailing) on the front.



One day I had enough of his attitude and decided not to use him. I told him to drop the project.



Well he sued me in small claims court and won $830. :bawling:



As policy I tell all my clients if you don't like my work you don't have to pay for it. In over 20 years in the auto detailing business nobody has ever asked for their money back.



When somebody hires me I am flattered that they have decided to spend their hard earned money on my service. I realize that I have been trusted to deliver a service to them that at a minimum must be satisfactory.



If they told me they didn’t like my work I wouldn’t charge them.





Welcome to the new era of poor service.



Your hard presed to find decent service let alone good or better in hotels, restaurants, anywhere......I am pretty much sick of it
 
Superior Fine said:
I recently hired a "graphic artist" to create some post cards for me.



I first told him I liked his samples and I would be sending him a deposit but after I thought about it for a good while I decided the cards (as they were) wouldn't work for me.



I contacted him to make changes and he fought me every step of the way. I wanted a tag line on the front, I wanted my logo, I wanted what I did (mobile auto detailing) on the front.



One day I had enough of his attitude and decided not to use him. I told him to drop the project.



Well he sued me in small claims court and won $830. :bawling:



As policy I tell all my clients if you don't like my work you don't have to pay for it. In over 20 years in the auto detailing business nobody has ever asked for their money back.



When somebody hires me I am flattered that they have decided to spend their hard earned money on my service. I realize that I have been trusted to deliver a service to them that at a minimum must be satisfactory.



If they told me they didn’t like my work I wouldn’t charge them.





Welcome to the new era of poor service.



Your hard presed to find decent service let alone good or better in hotels, restaurants, anywhere......I am pretty much sick of it
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Did you have a contract or an oral agreement? It sounds like you may have if you gave him the go ahead. Lesson to be learned here is to make sure you are in agreeemnt before you give the go ahead.
 
Growing up in Michigan I was use to a certain level of decent customer service. I just moved to South Florida and service here sucks bad!! It's more like "buyer beware" than "the customer's always right". I hate it. No mater how much you complain, they just don't care.
 
did you actually sign a written contract once the deposit was paid to confirm the go ahead and was willing to pay compensation, should you decide not to do it? if not im pretty certain theres no way the designer should have won in court on what is IMO, seen as an "oral contract" as it is not legally binding since theres no evidence of the agreement taking place.
 
K_Csaxo said:
did you actually sign a written contract once the deposit was paid to confirm the go ahead and was willing to pay compensation, should you decide not to do it? if not im pretty certain theres no way the designer should have won in court on what is IMO, seen as an "oral contract" as it is not legally binding since theres no evidence of the agreement taking place.
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Oral contracts are legal binding contracts in many states.
 
apologies there, no offence but IMO that law seriousley needs a look into having it changed. i thought courts were all about "evidence"? unless the conversation was recorded and was shown in court. oh well, im really sorry to hear of your ordeal.
 
the issue is he paid a deposit and gave the go ahead. if the GD artist dumped x amount of time and money into the project. The courts will see that is time that needs to be compensated for.



It sounds fubard untill you put it in your perspective.



you 4 hours into a full detaill it's half done. the customer walks in and sees polish on his car. They freak out and drive out. Should you still be compensated for your time. I'm not asking weather or not you take the compensation, but weather it is the correct thing for the owner to pay for what was done.



it makes me wonder if this GD guy is not actually the designer of the samples you saw. It is fairly common for hacks to rip off work of quality GDers. much the same way some steal photo's of suposed car details they have done.
 
Grouse said:
it makes me wonder if this GD guy is not actually the designer of the samples you saw. It is fairly common for hacks to rip off work of quality GDers. much the same way some steal photo's of suposed car details they have done.
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Easy now. You're going off in a direction that has absolutely no proof for that conclusion to be made.



:eek:
 
you 4 hours into a full detaill it's half done. the customer walks in and sees polish on his car. They freak out and drive out. Should you still be compensated for your time. I'm not asking weather or not you take the compensation, but weather it is the correct thing for the owner to pay for what was done.
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That is pretty much what happend but include that the detailer was scratching the finish and doing a poor job.





Yes I am sure he made the samples.



I did give him the OK -IF- this or that were done.



He brought our email exchanges to court and the judge drooled over those. The judge didn't care over 1/2 of our communication was over the phone.



Basicly, I hired him and he turned out awful work. I had to pay him anyway.
 
Pay him and be done with it I guess. It's a bummer, but the negative word of mouth he gets from you will more than offset the money he won. As every detailer in this forum knows negative word of mouth spreads much faster and further than positive which is why we need to do a GREAT job every time. If he is local (I assume he is?) I think it is a big mistake for him to sue you for the money given the fact that you'll now disparage (rightfully) his service to just about everyone you meet. If I were looking for a designer and you told me this story....well, that says it all doesn't it.
 
Good advice, thats what I will do.



At least it is tax deductable!!! LOL!



I want to post the bad postcard but it is in adobe. Anybody know I can post a pic from adobe online?
 
you mean the file is like "postcard.psp"? if you had adobe or someone may have, you flatten the image and save it in a different name as a jpeg. or if there are no layers simply got to file then "save as" then change it to a jpeg. obviousley give it a new name so that you always have the original at hand.
 
94BlkStang said:
Easy now. You're going off in a direction that has absolutely no proof for that conclusion to be made.



:eek:
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I did not mean to draw that conclusion but simply to point out that the GD industry is rife with theft. It is almost as hard to patrol as the photo industry.
 
Superior Fine said:
Good advice, thats what I will do.



At least it is tax deductable!!! LOL!



I want to post the bad postcard but it is in adobe. Anybody know I can post a pic from adobe online?
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If you want to e-mail it to me I'll post it, kevin@gtaindetail.com .



I'm not suggesting you go on a mission to discredit this guy; but if I were in a similar situation I have to admit I would probably be pretty vocal about my displeasure. Industries like his (and ours) are not only about the quality of work done but customer service. To me $800 would not be worth the negative "press".
 
well im glad the "power of the public" has finally come back to us, so the big players out there cant be so smarmy about ripping people off as they will be discredited on the web! im sooo glad this was invented. bar the viruses of course :D
 
too bad for the lawsuit that sucks, the printing company i originally worked with did subpar work but thats all i wanted, then i asked for my trifold to be printed regularly on one sheet of paper so that i could fax it to local businesses that had requested it, they charged me 25 dollars for a black and white regular piece of paper that i could have printed at home for three cents. i had mentioned i needed more cards and they printed 500 and tried to bill me for them, i no longer wanted to be involved with them and i wanted better looking work so i obviously didnt go get them, wonder if theyll try to sue me :nixweiss
 
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