money owed

[tellyv]

I stupidly let a customers car go with a huge bill, the guy has some money and big talk and seemed like a stand up guy, well 2 months later still no money he keeps giving me the runaround what can I do can I take the car back? mechanics lean? Need some help im in w.i. if that matters, I now some of you have been through this any help would be great. thanks telly

[Van B]

I'd be showing up on his doorstep. I'm pretty sure a mechanic's lein is out the window once you released the car. If you can somehow get it back in your possession voluntarily, you would have the upper hand legally.

[mtlinvtns]

That is the worst thing about this business that we deal with. You put all this hard work into something and all you get out of it is trouble. You can contact your local police station and they will point you in the right direction. I have a customer that only paid me for about a third of what he owed me and I haven't been able to get in touch with him, this was a car that went to sema. If the cops can't help there are other companies out there that can help, the only problem is that they take a percentage of what is owed. Good luck with the struggle.

[Tim Baillie]

You have to find out what your legal limits are, up here you only have 21 days once the car leaves.

If you have a signed work order, a bailiff might help you, or call a collection agency.

Find out what your suing options are as well, up here we have to take them to small claims court if it's under 25k

I have one issue, I got a bailiff involved and still lost my ass on it...............it's all a learning curve sometimes :)

[Blake Foster]

just call your local chapter and fix the problem!!! dirt bag needs to pay up, i love these guys who think money isn't an issue................ till it's time to pay up SUCKER!!
we have learned our lesson the hard way and now i don't give a s^&T who you think you are if you want your car back PAY the Friggin Bill
if i wanted to work for free i would but i am not going to build your car with my money!!!! F that

[tellyv]

He owes a ton of money, if theres no good legal way I'll personally break his legs and steal the car back, It would be worth going to jail for. As for restos and jobs like this I'm done!!! I'll do one a year and sell it for myself of coarse this will be after I get out of jail lol.

[jy211]

it's much much easier to hold the car until funds are paid. I had some football players try the same BS. Sorry, but until I am paid in full, I wouldn't release the car!

Your better off having all your paperwork in order about the car. Hope you had him sign off on the bills. They try small claims.

Good luck

[sniper]

Here is what a friend of mine did, while he is not in the car biz it still applies.

A customer owned him around $30k. He would not pay up. So my friend hired a debt collector. This collector like all only charged a percentage of the debt owed. He's like 6'9" 315, all business and is known to collect money without much of a fight. Anywho, the collector shows up to the guys house around dinner time and politely tells him that he will have the money by the end of the week or he'll be returning and he's not going to say a word. I am sure there were a few other choice words as well. Gives the guy a firm handshake and leaves.

The guy that owed the money called my friend and freaked out, asking why he had this dude show up at his house with his family there and all the other non sense. Longer story short, he paid 20k by the end of the week and did not have a problem after that.

Find a similiar debt collector in your area and have them take care of it.

[Fluid Power]

Here is what a friend of mine did, while he is not in the car biz it still applies.

A customer owned him around $30k. He would not pay up. So my friend hired a debt collector. This collector like all only charged a percentage of the debt owed. He's like 6'9" 315, all business and is known to collect money without much of a fight. Anywho, the collector shows up to the guys house around dinner time and politely tells him that he will have the money by the end of the week or he'll be returning and he's not going to say a word. I am sure there were a few other choice words as well. Gives the guy a firm handshake and leaves.

The guy that owed the money called my friend and freaked out, asking why he had this dude show up at his house with his family there and all the other non sense. Longer story short, he paid 20k by the end of the week and did not have a problem after that.

Find a similiar debt collector in your area and have them take care of it.


I had this same issue. We even had a judgement against the person (and company) in court. Collection on the judgement is another issue. I have this Italian buddy who played college football and is enormous. As a joke, I told him I would gladly give him a third if he 'collected' from this guy. About 3 days later, I got a call from this deadbeat and he brought over CASH and told me to not send the MOB after him...He even coughed up a little more since I had to pay "collection fees" Best $1500 I ever spent!

[rjsjea]

You are not talkin about "blackened 72 cuda" are you??

[tellyv]

You are not talkin about "blackened 72 cuda" are you??

no thank god, I called yesterday and gave him the riot act went over there and I actually got 10K from him so its a start maybe I wont have to sue him. Never again will a car leave not paid for!!!!! Here it is 66 chevelle, it was a complete basket case most of its all aftermarket crap.
http://i263.photobucket.com/albums/ii154/tellyv/chv1.jpg

[MODO Innovations]

I had a guy at a swap meet tell me he had this issue once before as well. His business is not dealing with cars but I think the same would apply. He was dealing with another business so if your customer has a business this would work as well.
The guy went to a sign shop and had a banner made that read, "XYZ... company doesn't pay their bills." He tied the banner to the side of his truck and parked across the street from the business at lunch time. Within 10 minutes an employee of the company asked him to come in and talk to the owner. He went in and sat down with the owner. The owner asked how much do I owe you? The guy told him the amount he owed and added the amount for the banner on top of that. The non paying man asked, "so you want me to pay for the banner too?" He said, "if you want it so it can't be used again, yes."
Walked out of the office with cash in hand, THEN took off the banner and took it to the receiptanist.

I don't know if it work in your situation or not but it might me an option.

[byndbad914]

Others have offered suggestions to fix. I am surprised you didn't take payments along the way. Even building an engine I would require half up front just to cover parts. Then after the parts were in I required another payment of half the remainder, so when they show up they only owe me a couple grand at the most.

So for the future, do just that.

When I had my tube chassis built for my car, it was the same deal - the guy that did the work required half up front, another quarter at half finished, and the last quarter to remove it from the shop. Makes a $10K bill a $2500 bill at the most (as he is never potentially out of pocket on the money 'til the end) instead of having $8K dumped into tubing and labor costs and have me not come thru on the whole $10K. He would have "lost" $500 if I didn't pay the final amount, but he would have also had my car.

Then while you hold the car (in my case engine), you have it clearly stated in the original quote that they have 2 weeks to pay after final assembly or you start charging storage. That really tends to motivate people when you start tacking storage fees onto the bill.

Cars are harder than engines since a title is involved... with engines after 6 months I had the quote say I had the right to ebay the engine no reserve and whatever amount was earned above what they owed me I would reimburse to them, up to the amount of the original quote. That meant if I quoted $10K, they paid $7K and didn't come thru at the end, I just needed to sell it for $3K to break even. Did it one time, sold the engine for $6K (which the buyer got a smokin' deal on!!), reimbursed the original guy $3K since I was only owed $3K and told him where he could put that $3K when he started crying. Cost himself $4K to never get the engine.

[tellyv]

When we started he was keeping up, then he left for florida all winter and the checks came but not as often, then you know how it goes I need my car for spring so we dumped all the other projects and 4 of us worked on it for about 2 months straight and him being a big talker we let the car out and here we are. At least I got a big chunk of it today and I sure did learn a lesson.

[Porterbuilt]

I have found it best to take labor deposits. Depending on the scope of the build the deposits may be large or small sums. I make all my customers pay for parts before I order them, and I take anywhere from $2,500 to $10,000 deposits on labor. Once the labor deposit has been used, we get together to go over the progress and then get another deposit. I started doing this after I ended up in your situation once. Never had to wait for another dollar.

Glad to hear you got your money.

[byndbad914]

When we started he was keeping up, then he left for florida all winter and the checks came but not as often, then you know how it goes I need my car for spring so we dumped all the other projects and 4 of us worked on it for about 2 months straight and him being a big talker we let the car out and here we are. At least I got a big chunk of it today and I sure did learn a lesson.
I hear you and BTDT too. Similar story, had this dude talked big about all the money he makes as a partner in a small private equity company (and having an MBA and knowing PE guys - they make BANK when they are on) and he did make money hand over fist apparently and I had considered/talked about working for him.

Then he told my friend he would buy his old late model/SW Tour car to go road racing in NASA. Friend sold it for $6500 to him and he wanted a one year contract to pay it off. Claims he turned close to a million on the year before and wants a contract to pay $6500. He probably had it in his pocket frankly, but he screwed my friend around for the whole year and then some and finally paid him for the car only after mutual friends pressured him to not be an ahole :rolleyes: Needless to say I quit talking about working for him - not cuz I couldn't have done well but screw working for someone with ethics like that.

The people with the biggest mouths and bank accounts also seem to be the biggest aholes. And they don't start that way, but man, money has really changed a few of my friends in the past. Weird deal, but I NEVER trust anyone flaunting cash.

[bill amsley]

been there done that! tell your cust you would like to do a little touching up before he pays up , make him feel like your doing him a favor. then you will have the car back ,only to be released after full payment, this time. trust me it works the guy is thinking "i didnt even pay for it and hes going to give me more" a greedy scum bag falls for that every time.

[ironworks]

To some guys it is not about the money it is about the fact that they can boss you around with their money. The guy who bought the 6500 car on terms just wanted to have it over someone. He probabley was over the car before he made the 2nd payment. I have had the customers that just want to big the big shot in my shop and when someone comes in with the bigger and badder project, things go south on their build. But there is nothing more amazing then a great set of customers that work into life long friends and respect you for the work you do and are excited about the car. In my seven years of owning my shop, I have gained some customers that I truly wish had trillions to burn, and I'm sure they also. But I have had guys that I wish would just run out of money and take them and there dumb car home.

I think the key is open communication and do not sugar coat anything. These cars are all expensive. The build is not very motivating at certain points in the project and can be fustrating for the customer, but the devil is in the details. I have learned if the customer does not really care about seeing the build progress, either in pictures or in person. They probably are not to passionate about the build, they just what a car. At that point they should have just bought a car already built. Then I have other customers that you cannot send enough pics to, and that want to come by and see the details and how it is working. They are excited and they make my job fun. I have had customer that was local that just came by ALOT, just to check to see that we were working. That is lack of trust and he should go somewhere where he trusts someone but they get offended when you send them down the road finally.

OK rant over.... For now

Rodger

[comp-spec]

To some guys it is not about the money it is about the fact that they can boss you around with their money. The guy who bought the 6500 car on terms just wanted to have it over someone. He probabley was over the car before he made the 2nd payment. I have had the customers that just want to big the big shot in my shop and when someone comes in with the bigger and badder project, things go south on their build. But there is nothing more amazing then a great set of customers that work into life long friends and respect you for the work you do and are excited about the car. In my seven years of owning my shop, I have gained some customers that I truly wish had trillions to burn, and I'm sure they also. But I have had guys that I wish would just run out of money and take them and there dumb car home.

I think the key is open communication and do not sugar coat anything. These cars are all expensive. The build is not very motivating at certain points in the project and can be fustrating for the customer, but the devil is in the details. I have learned if the customer does not really care about seeing the build progress, either in pictures or in person. They probably are not to passionate about the build, they just what a car. At that point they should have just bought a car already built. Then I have other customers that you cannot send enough pics to, and that want to come by and see the details and how it is working. They are excited and they make my job fun. I have had customer that was local that just came by ALOT, just to check to see that we were working. That is lack of trust and he should go somewhere where he trusts someone but they get offended when you send them down the road finally.

OK rant over.... For now

Rodger

Right on the money Rodger


I ask any new customer to come by the shop check us out see the cars in different stages and see if they feel comfortable with us and our work. If you're not sure after that I don't want you to drop the car off because like Roger said these cars are all expensive. The build is not very motivating at certain points in the project and can be frustrating for the customer, and then there's times they will be extremely happy ( HOPE ALL THE TIME)
Then we talk payments.
We never get to deep in dept with customers. We'll stay up on labor and parts with the big jobs. They get expensive fast
then there's always the COLLECTOR

[ironworks]

I'm a quick learner and when you stand to close to fire you get burned. I have a few scares. But scares build character.

Another thing is every project built in any shop goes over budget. Everyone has grand ideas and short strokes on what it will take and all it takes is just little bit more of this and little bit more of that. If you say that enough times pretty soon you have spent 10 grand.

It amazes me that well over 50% of building hot rods professionally has nothing to do with anything that is done in the shop. If you want to make money building hot rods, go get a real job. If you cannot see your self doing anything else, you must have the passion, but passion does not help you run a business, WELL.

[byndbad914]

...It amazes me that well over 50% of building hot rods professionally has nothing to do with anything that is done in the shop. If you want to make money building hot rods, go get a real job. If you cannot see your self doing anything else, you must have the passion, but passion does not help you run a business, WELL.
Werd - you hit it right on the head. First thing any good business school will teach you is the reason why most businesses fail is because the person starts it thinking it is 100% technical and they are really good at what they do.

Reality is it is about 10-15% technical because 85-90% of the time you are so busy with all the other BS that you spend 10-15% of your time overseeing people you have hired to do the technical work to keep them on track. So you hope to hire people that are 100% technical so that 10-15% you spend in guidance doesn't kill you ;) Hence, as I am sure you have found Roger, you have a bunch of hopefully good employees you HAVE to (not want to or hope to but HAVE to) be able to give a brief descript of what you want and then turn and walk away and not look back until they are done and need the next assignment. That is sooooooooo soooooooo sooooooo (I can do that fifty more times) hard to find. BTDT and then the good ones require too much hourly to make it worth while (and rightly so if they are good at what they do).

It's that whole I can charge $75/hr shop rate to get the job to begin with v. the $120 I really want to charge, attempt to convince the best employees $25/hr ($50K/yr which ain't sh!t to raise a family on in CA) is "killer" pay, have $30-$33/hr in him after taxes (don't even think about having bennies), have material costs for the build that average in, overhead costs and depreciation on equip to factor in, etc etc and pretty soon you are down to where he makes $25/hr and you make $10 :rolleyes: So it gets a whole lot easier to just go get a job again and be really good at what you do technically for $25/hr while the poor bastardo cutting the check is going broke.

So you spend a few years eating Ramen noodles and working to get a reputation to get more biz to get more employee headaches to get more biz to get more employees until you have 7 employees making you $10/hr and it starts to make sense.

Hence why at the age of 27 I sold my hot rod, went back to school, got my BSME and I got a "real" job as you put. And I still dream about having my own biz now and again (bet you didn't know you were living the dream :thumbsup: hahahaha when payroll shows up ev'ry Friday and nobody has shown up that week to pay a chunk of their labor bill) but then when I get up out of my chair and go home after 9 hours, have every other Friday off, and make more in 40 than I would in 60, I just don't miss it (most days).

But man, when you are doing what you love, 60 seems like 30 when 40 seems like 80 in the corporate world ;) Everything has it's evils, it's just which evils you can stomach easier.

Geez, I really get going sometimes. You clearly are carving out a niche, and you guys do some really nice work for sure :yes: so I wish you all the best it realizing the "dream", but you are very right in saying it isn't for everyone. And most everyone wants their own biz including my history, and you can never understand the trials and tribs 'til you've been there. Careful what they wish for, right!

[kwhizz]

Bingo..............The Truth is that most Car Guy's are Terrible Businessmen....They want to make a "Statement" and make "Cars".......never understanding that they are "Really" there to make "Profit".........Very few get their level of thinking to that point...........

Ken

[tellyv]

I built my shop for collision repair and I always had 1 customer resto and 1 of my projects of coarse I had big dreams of going all custom and getting out of the b.s. of insurance work, but after all the sh** I know at least the insurance companies checks dont bounce, and I almost get paid for my materials, and usually you can make at least double on their labor rates. So if I take some more customs or restorations in they will be billed weekly or bi-weekly, if I order the parts we will either mark them up 25% or charge them an hourly rate for doing all the leg work with the parts being paid up front before ordering or they can order their own parts. I also think the kinds of cars I want to build are way to expensive for where I live, so I'll keep building them and selling them untill I hopefully get a good enough name where maybe I'll get the better paying customers who want to get a custom car built. I'm not giving up I'm just going to do it my way for now and build the kind of cars that I want to build. So in that keep in mind my 72 cuda, 6.1 hemi, alterktion front, air ride air bar, wilwood brakes will be for sale after columbus next year!!! thanks for all the response's Telly Violetto:thumbsup:

[ironworks]

Bingo..............The Truth is that most Car Guy's are Terrible Businessmen....They want to make a "Statement" and make "Cars".......never understanding that they are "Really" there to make "Profit".........Very few get their level of thinking to that point...........

Ken

I have been wrong many times before, but my thought is that if you can master the business side of things as much as the technical side is when you truly get to build the really kickass cars.

[RECOVERY ROOM]

I'm a quick learner and when you stand to close to fire you get burned. I have a few scares. But scares build character.

Another thing is every project built in any shop goes over budget. Everyone has grand ideas and short strokes on what it will take and all it takes is just little bit more of this and little bit more of that. If you say that enough times pretty soon you have spent 10 grand.

It amazes me that well over 50% of building hot rods professionally has nothing to do with anything that is done in the shop. If you want to make money building hot rods, go get a real job. If you cannot see your self doing anything else, you must have the passion, but passion does not help you run a business, WELL.
Girls dig scares..(heard it on a movie)And yes you do have to love working on hot rods,because if you don't its a job.The one's that are good, are the one's that care and are willing to sacrafice in the beginning.Nights,weekends,are all part of being self employed.Just ask the wifes and families.