Company was contacted to perform an estimate only for garage door repair. Upon arrival, owner, Tim Higgins, proceeded to the door and failed to notify or talk to anyone first. At first it seemed he was evaluating the door, only to find outhe was in the process of performing repairs. When questioned as to what he was doing or how much it was going to cost, he simply stated he wasnt done yet. Therefor assuming he was still evaluating the situation, we let him be. Then after about 20 minutes he was approached again and he still refused to state what he was doing or how much it would cost. Approximately 30 minutes later he approached and said the door was done and demanded a payment in excess of $400 without providing a copy of the invoice.in fact, he stated he would not give a copy of the invoice unless we signed it and he stated further he was not leaving until it was paid. He even further threatened to put the door back into its previous condition if we did not pay the bill.
After he left, we noticed that the door was not completely finished and did not operate correctly. He did not leave a
invoice. However, his attorney sent a demand letter for payment approximately one week later, again without a copy of the invoice. After responding to the attorney and demanding a copy of the invoice, we were immediately sued for the
amount owed and finally a copy of the invoice was attached to the lawsuit.
According to the invoice we were charge overtime for all work labor performed even though it was done during the day. It was also over charge for the amount of time charged as the total time was approximately half of what was billed. `
Obviously, this business makes its money by taking advantage of customers and was well aware of its practice to have an attorney on hand to initiate this process. This was a well calculated scam that has more than likely been done
many times before. Most attorneys will not take such cases because the cost to have them involved is more than what they are trying to get.in this case it is clear that this company was prepared for this type of matter and seemed very
fluent in the proceedings of how to take advantage of a customer.in fact, this proved that this business had a plan to get paid and were never going to do an estimate in the first place.
0 comments