What do you guys think?

Maintenance/Repairs
21

The guy was ticked his scam didn’t work.

If my card got rejected, I would be embarrassed and wondering what the heck happened. I would then go off and get the cash not expect you to front me the work with no collateral.

Based on your description of his reaction, it would seem they knew it wouldn’t go through and were ticked you stood your ground.

If he had been a long term customer, maybe. First time in your shop, forgetabboutit. Trust your gut, don’t look back and second guess your decision. I think you saved yourself a ton of stress and headaches trying to collect down the road…

22

I kinda agree with xami. give him one vehicle and keep the other. that way you will be made whole either way, and his inconvenience would be lessened.

if he was reasonable that would have been acceptable.

23

I’ve seen where the owner gave the guy his keys to come back the following day. But that customer was a good customer who he’s dealt with for years and years.

You did the right thing…And hopefully this guy won’t come back as repeat customer. You really don’t want that kind of customer.

24

The customer knew the card would be refused or he would have called the number of customer service on the back and possibly got the charges approved. Besides how are you to know that both vehicles were actually his?

25

that s true Volvo. it could have been an intricate scam where he was willng to lose the Silverado to get his other truck fixed. I don t think that way, so I have trouble understanding people who do. I wonder if the op took a peek at the glove box and registrations?

26

My dad was a long term customer of the Desoto/Plymouth dealer in our town. When I was in high school, I would pick up the car and they would send my dad the bill. Often, the car would be ready, but the bill hadn’t been calculated. However, this trust was worked up over time–we didn’t start out getting instant credit.

27

If any customer has only one card to present, and it gets declined, it is because all of his other card have already been declined. My mechanic will take my check even though he has a posted policy of not taking checks. I have been doing business there for 25 years, if it was the first time he had seen me, I wouldn’t have any right to get mad if he wouldn’t trust me. I think someone would have to have a VERY profitable business not to worry about losing 2000 dollars.

28

I cannot thank you guys enough for your time and supportive comments. I really appreciate your favour. I feel much better now and it’s all thanks to you guys.

29

OK OK, I’ll temper my comments. I guess it just depends on the face to face and the vibes the guy gives off. If you don’t trust the guy then all bets are off. I guess I’m just used to dealing with reasonably honest people.

I told the story before but when we were having our cabin built 200 miles away, we got a call from my wife’s cousin commenting on how far along the builder had come. I said how can that be, I’m not even done with the blue prints yet and haven’t signed anything. My wife had made a model, and the weather was good for November, and they were just building it the way they thought we wanted it. We had no problems at all with the whole project all the way through. Everyone was honest and cooperative. Course that was South Dakota small town.

30

I made the mistake a couple of times in the past of giving someone the benefit of the doubt on much less money than what is involved here and every time it led to me tracking someone down.

One incident led me to a semi-ghetto one Sunday afternoon over a measly 25 bucks and the 6 to 1 odds kind of looked like I might get a royal whipping at the least when things got a bit tense but I got my money. It’s the principle of the thing…

Another incident led me to taking a 150 miles round trip to collect from a guy whose bacon I saved one weekend after he got stranded and who gave me a fraudulent check on a closed account. This guy had just gotten his bachelor’s degree in law enforcement and had been accepted into the State of Oklahoma Highway Patrol academy. One would think reputable guy based on that, but…

He was stunned to see me at his door and a bit balky at first but after giving him an or else ultimatum of pay up or I’m headed to the DA right now he coughed up the money along with a service fee. The exposed butt of a 9 MM under my jacket may have had some influence on his decision too although I’d like to think that he just saw the legal light and was pondering his future career as a state trooper getting flushed down the drain.

What was funny was that as I was leaving I could hear his fiancee in a loud voice ripping him apart about giving me a bogus check.

It was a money losing deal for me but the principle thing had reared its head again…

31

Possession of the trucks is the only guarantee of getting paid. I think all states honor the mechanic’s lien. Even with two trucks Iin the shop, he will see no keys until the bill is paid in full. Unless an equitable deal is made beforehand. This guy was not going to be a customer unless he felt he got one over on you. They make the worst kind of customers. Trust me, I’ve dealt with the type before. You did the absolutely right thing for you, your staff, and the health of your business.

32

I was ripped off once by another graduate student when I was a graduate student. This was in the days of the mainframe computers and the computer on campus was down. A doctoral student told me she frantically needed her data analyzed because her dissertation was due. We agreed to the terms and I went to work doing calculations on a mechanical calculator. When the work was done, she refused to pay, saying that why should she pay for the job when it would only take seconds in the computer. I informed her that the computer was down and that is why she asked me to analyze the data.
I learned a lesson from this. I should have asked for at least at 25% advance before I started the work.
I was also ripped off by my university once, but I got even (sort of). I was asked by a colleague in another department to analyze the data for a study he was completing under a federal grant. I looked at what needed to be done and estimated that it would take half a day and that the going charge at that time was $100 a day. I did the work on my own time on a Saturday morning. I then invoiced the grants office for $50. I received a call that since it was an on-campus job, I could only charge $75 a day and I would receive a check for $37.50 even though I had a signed contract for 1/2 day @ $100 per day. Well, nobody is going to waste time to recover $12.50. However, a week later, I received a call from another institution asking me to do some consulting work. The rate was $150 per day for 2 days. That institution paid 5 cents more per mile for travel than what my institution paid. They also paid a better meal and housing allowance. I arranged to do the consulting job over a spring break. When I returned home after completing the work, I “leaked” the word back to my institution’s office of what I had done. I received a telephone call that in the future I was to arrange my consulting work through that office. I responded “Why would I do that? You would receive $150 each day that I worked, but only pay me $100 for each day. You would collect a nickel for each mile I drove my car. You didn’t arrange the job–the other institution made contact with me directly. Furthermore, I did this on my time and not the university’s time”. The response was “How do you expect our office to stay in business?” My answer was “I don’t”.
The extra 5 cents a mile that I received wasn’t all profit. It was a 500 mile round trip and I had a Ford Maverick at that time. The extra mileage allowance had to be used to cover my expenses for Preparation-H.

33

I agree with those who said that this was a scam from the very beginning.
The rush-rush nature of the repair request–coupled with the customer’s other actions–makes it clear (to me at least), that he knew his credit card to be bogus and that he never intended to pay for the repairs.

And, as was already stated, the OP didn’t “lose a customer”.
He merely turned away a deadbeat whom he wouldn’t want to have to deal with again in the future.

I cannot find fault with the OP’s actions.

34

@Gilillo, you did the right thing. It wasn’t your fault the guy couldn’t pay for the work. If he doesn’t come back, it’s all on him, not you.

35

@Bing has a valid point about using the word “policy,” but putting a mechanic’s lean on a car costs you time, which costs you money.

I wouldn’t have used the word “policy” because that offers no explanation of what your action means, and it offers no explanation of the reason for the policy.

First, I’d hang a sign that says something like “payment is due upon delivery of services” or something like that. Then, when you have this problem, all you have to do is point to the sign.

When delivering bad news to a customer, it’s important to explain the reason for your decision in a way that keeps the discussion pertinent to the customer, with something like, “I’m sorry, but if I had known you weren’t able to pay for the work, I would have declined the work.” That puts it on the customer that it is his failure to pay for the work that is the issue, not your policy. The customer’s inability to pay is what the two of you should be scrutinizing, not the policy.

Whenever someone says something like, “that’s the policy,” I’m tempted to ask, “What does that mean to me? Explain the reason for this policy and how it applies to me in this situation.” When you’re delivering bad news to a customer, it’s best to avoid that question by getting straight to the point.

36

After reading all of the comments, I object to the assumption that this guy knew his credit card would be declined. It’s easy to lose track of your available balance and credit limit. Maybe it was a scam, but it sounds to me like it could have been an honest mistake.

37

I don’t have a problem with using the policy as your reason. That’s why there’s a policy - so that you don’t have to wrangle with the morality of each situation where a customer can’t pay.

Frankly, people can be rather… Unhinged these days. As such “I’m sorry, but policy says I can’t give you the truck until you pay me” is less likely to cause a nutjob to react violently than “I don’t trust you to pay me, you can’t have the truck.”

I don’t think OP needed to give a reason. If the “customer” can’t figure out that our society exchanges currency for goods and services, it’s not really the responsibility of a mechanic to give him a 1st grade economics refresher.

38

The problem with using the policy as your reason is that following the rules for the sake of the rule is a child’s level of reasoning. People who have reached an adult level of moral development scrutinize each rule or policy and decide for themselves which rules and policies are morally valid and which ones aren’t. This is what we do every time we surpass the posted speed limit. We’re deciding, on our own, that the speed limit on that road is too low, or that speed limits are arbitrary rules. So saying the policy itself is your reason for something is to treat your customer like a child. It’s better to explain the reason for the policy, and why the policy makes sense, and to do that, you don’t even need to mention the policy itself, or even say the word “policy.”

Adults who are capable of higher reasoning don’t follow rules for the sake of following rules. They choose for themselves which rules are just and which rules are unjust, and treating your customer like an adult is more likely to elicit him acting like an adult.

I worked in customer service for a long time. I also worked in accounts payable for a company that declared chapter 11 bankruptcy with $550,000 in debt. When delivering bad news to anybody, especially a customer, the more respectful you are to them, the more respectful they will be to you.

Now, I recognize that some people are more likely to fly off the handle than others. These people exist on a different part of the “reasonableness” scale than I do, but even in the heightened range of the “reasonableness” scale in which these people exist, being professional and respectful will encourage them to act more reasonable than they would otherwise.

I’m just putting this out there for those who are interested in learning the best way to deal with angry or difficult customers. If you don’t have the patience or fortitude to remain calm in a heated exchange, this approach might not be for you. As I told a lady at Subway last week, customer service isn’t for everyone. Not everyone has what it takes to be good at it.

As soon as you say the word “policy,” the policy becomes the topic of the conversation, and you want to avoid that. As I said earlier, it’s best to make the customer’s inability to pay the issue of discussion so you aren’t putting yourself in a position where you have to defend the policy. You and the customer shouldn’t be scrutinizing the policy. You and the customer should be scrutinizing the customer’s inability to pay the bill. Or better yet, you can scrutinize the customer’s lack of understanding that hat our society exchanges currency for goods and services, but if you do that, it’s best to keep a respectful tone.

39

“After reading all of the comments, I object to the assumption that this guy knew his credit card would be declined.”

I reject that reasoning because there was just too many “red flags” to ignore. Two vehicles, a request for hurried service, credit card conveniently declined and then getting mad because the vehicles were not released without payment. All of this was planned because it was a scam from the start…including the credit card declination.

40
All of this was planned because it was a scam from the start....including the credit card declination.

I wouldn’t doubt that one bit.