We have a uniform contract with Budget Uniform in Gardena Ca for the past five years, our 5yr contract comes due Nov 5. We recently started to see some unusually high invoices mainly in the extra fees.
We asked the route driver to have the sales manager contact us regarding the high charges, we had not heard from the manager for three weeks, even after repeatedly asking the driver to have the Sales manager to contact us.
We then stop signing the invoice, hopefully they will then call us. The driver asked us to sign an electronic tablet, we were told, "you are not signing the invoice rather just to let the company know that he was at our shop".
We found out later that he had lied to us and this was indeed an electronic invoice. Finally the Friday before a holiday weekend the manager called, I was out of town and asked for him to call me after the holiday.
That Monday another uniform company came by and quoted us. They was 30% less, in tough economic times 30% is a lot. We then emailed Budget Uniform to cancel our service, if they can not call me regarding my invoices I don't want their service.
The sales manager as at our door the next morning and told us that our contract had renewed for another 5yrs, We needed to give written notice of cancellation 90 days prior to the termination date.
We had missed the date by 7 days, the same 7 day they decided not to call me, hum... A bit dishonest! And a terrible way to run a service business... Why would they not call me to re-negotiation the new 5yr contract, instead they wanted to trap me into another 5yrs!
They now want $30,000 in lost revenue, this is after we had rented uniforms for 5yrs and paid our bills on time. Mind you we have not received any new uniforms during the entire 5yr contract.
So what damages...
I hope this help other small business owners,
Albert
Santa Ana Calif
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