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Utter gall
This takes hutzpah to a whole new level. Large commercial site I’ve been working on for over 20 years as they expanded and moved things around. Good client. Earlier this year they split it in three, as A, B, and C. I set the new corners, filed the record of survey, and updated the survey. Investor is buying A and B so I updated again for them, with some topo on A, invoiced $1,800 and sent them a pdf. Then came the check is in the mail, although it never actually arrived. Then they wanted a fee for just B as they are no longer buying A, so I gave them that proposal. Still no check in the mail so I told them I was voiding the invoice, voiding the proposal, and they could find another surveyor. Me knowing full well of course that for anyone starting from scratch on B (and showing a good part of A because of the shared drives) it would be $$$$ at least, and weeks to accomplish. Investor has now asked if they could have the AutoCAD file. I’ll give you a guess on my two letter response.
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7 Replies
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Well, at least you cut your losses early.
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I shouldn’t take pleasure in this sort of scenario, but I absolutely do…
Many commercial sites we are contracted for ALTAs with full topography, and our engineering division does the design. After the ALTA is done, we and the engineers jump through all the hoops with boundary line adjustments, binding site plans, ROW vacation documents, etc. etc.
Then it comes time to go to construction, and we spend some time coming up with a very good price on staking, including running tight construction-grade control prior to mobilization.
Client says we’re way too expensive, kicks us to the curb, goes with “another surveyor”, and then has the gall to call up and ask for us to set control for them….because they really don’t have another surveyor, but their contractor says they “do all their own layout”. Sometimes that means contracting it out to a local bargain-basement surveyor, but either way they know next to nothing about how to run quality control.
No, no we are not going to run control for you when you didn’t want to do it as part of the ALTA package or the civil engineering package. (“Too expensive” as usual.) We’re certainly not going to run control without a contract, and we really don’t want to after we gave you the opportunity in our own proposal(s), and you turned us down. Go pound sand.
I don’t always hear about the SNAFUs on site after we get ditched, but when I do, it’s lovely. You reap what you sow, and get what you pay for.
“…people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.” -Neil Postman -
An employee in the office sees jets fly over and looks up who they are. Well a frequent flyer is a jet with for an EV company making a big splash “bringing in new jobs” to the county. They had us and others do some work then stiffed everyone. There wasn’t any property to lien and our last invoice went unpaid which put us in company with a bunch of other vendors. Was about to write it off and then they needed something else from us. Said we’d only do it if they cleaned up payment and paid in advance for the next project. Got the old invoice and interest, never got any advance payment, never did anymore work for them, but still see the jet flying in. How do you fly a private jet into the local airport then can’t pay for work you want done? The EV industry reminds me of the oil mining industry that cropped up a couple of decades ago.
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I think you just answered your own question 😀
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That one gets me is where a third party calls me asking for a cadd file and when I say no or request a fee they contact my client to try to get them to put pressure on me.
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Ha, just had an email from the controller of the deadbeat client, apologizing for their failure to pay my invoice and offering to wire the funds tomorrow. I told him snail mail will be just fine.
Translation: We discovered just how expensive a new survey by another surveyor will be, it will take weeks, and we will miss the closing deadline, so we better settle with him and do it quickly.
Me: Hence my rejection of a wire transfer in favor of dragging it out with snail mail, and when they ask me to go ahead with the update on just B it will now be double the previous proposal, payment in advance, and I’ll start when I’m sure the check has cleared. I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck and can read between the lines.
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To bring you up to date, they did indeed finally send a check…wait for it…and the check bounced. I didn’t think they would be that dumb, nor did I consider they would think me that dumb. My wife says any future payments from them will be $50 bills in a shoebox, delivered by FedEx.
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