Well I have heard from several people over the years that it is good to get an outside opinion by basically having your business Audited to let you know where the money (and profits) are lacking, and where improvements can be made. Well I was in this mindset when a fellow from IPA happened to stop by my shop and I was convinced to let their "analyst" look my business over. He spent 3 days going over my company info and basically told me that we had absolutely no good numbers to work with.
This was due primarily to my bookkeeper not doing his job correctly, and me not educating myself enough to know better. So their lead man asked me when I wanted to start the project and I asked the question "Why would I start the project now if we have no good numbers, when your company deals primarily with numbers?" their man asked me "why would you want to wait?" and followed with statements like "it's their job to sort this stuff out" and "why postpone starting the project, it is just wasting more money the longer you wait." So reluctantly I began the project, yes estimated at 135 hours at $235 per man hour.
Well their people spent more time figuring out their bills and transportation needs than "fixing" my company, and yes I got the usual white binder full of GENERIC reports that are not even good for toilet paper (too rough) and to my dismay and I suppose also benefit they have collected over $20,000 from me which I sure could have used this winter. This means that I can sue them but they have no grounds to sue me. I currently have letters from their company agreeing that nothing was accomplished and their willingness to come back in and redo all hours already paid for.
The catch is that I would still have to pay for the additional hours that they did not get paid for the first time. Also they have offered me $8,000 in refund to sign a release and go away but that is not good enough. While they were here they made my secretary want to quit, and created a lot of tension that I had to sort out after telling them it was over after 2- 4day weeks and lets not forget the $20,000.
Some other points are that I have had a lot of correspondance with this company and they don't even know what they are doing. (4 different people making 4 different offers) I have been trying to find out if their company is even legal to do business in California and cannot locate any IPA business licenses in CA except a subsidiery company in Sacramento. Their "Agreement" states that "exclusive jurisdiction" lies in Illinois, but this is under the heading of "Conclusion of Engagement" and has nothing to do with breach of contract, or refunds for not providing what was promised.
Therefore I geuss I will have to sue them here in California for $20,000 plus legal fees. I don't believe that $8,000 would be worth letting them off the hook for, since there are so many options that I can persue currently.
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