Last week I wrote a blog entry about a client that has yet to pay for work I completed half a year ago. Rather than just take my lumps and move on, as I have done in the past, I decided this time to take the matter to small claims court this time because:
- The company that is not paying appears to be quite good and not paying a lot of people for some time now,
- The people I have interacted with run me in circles, unanswered emails/voicemails, excuses galore, and rarely, if ever, what sounds like a sincere apologetic, “We're sorry, but we're having cash flow issues“ or something of that nature.
- I'm interested in exploring the process, although hopefully I'll never need to do this again.
That blog entry last week generated some great ideas, tips, and suggestions from those who left comments. In fact, to answer a number of questions raised by those comments, I started a separate page here on my blog, My Small Claims Court Experience. That page serves as a master index to blog entries focusing on this small claims court experience as well as providing a short history of what led up to this decision. Additionally, I am filing these blog entries in the Going Independent category.
When I was teaching my class back in January of this year I saw and said hi to another instructor who was also teaching classes at the facility that day. I had recognized him from the courts not far from my home where I play basketball a couple times a week. Anyway, I ran back into him on the courts in late May and asked him if he had ever been paid for his services - not surprisingly, he hadn't. We talked a bit and it turns out his father is a lawyer and is in the early stages of taking this issue to superior court. Long story short, I gave him my phone number and asked to have his dad give me a ring.
On Tuesday of this week I had my completed small claims court papers in hand and was ready to make one, or maybe two, stops. I was first going to show up at the non-paying client's site with the papers in hand and a message along the lines of, “I'm off to file this, why don't you save yourself the hassle and cut me a check.” If they chose to continue their current course of action my next plan was to, naturally continue on over to the courthouse and file the paperwork.
However, as I was literally heading out the door the phone rang and it was the father of my basketball colleague. We talked, he basically gave me his status on the matter. In essenance, he's still in an exploratory stage, so he's not 100% certain if this thing will move forward to court or not, but he wanted to hear my story and discuss matters. In any event, I decided rather than rushing to small claims court I'd instead wait to see how this matter unfolds. (Don't know how long I'm going to wait on this... probably not too long, but I don't want to chose one option - small claims court - and not be able to take advantage of a better option that might open up further down the road.)
In any event, I was searching through old emails I received from the company using Google Desktop Search, and stumbled across one that had been sent to my Junk Suspects. It was a sort of “I'm leaving the company to pursue other interests, wish you all the best” from a person I had interacted with early on in my experience with this company. What was interesting was that rather than use Bcc, this person sent this email to about a dozen folks directly through the Cc line. Aha!, I thought, this must be a list of past insturctors!
So I quickly whipped up an email, Bccing it to this list of people, explaining my situation and asking anyone who had been an instructor and had not been paid to reply and let me know. Sent that out late Tuesday night and, as of tonight (Wednesday), I've heard back from four people who are in the exact same boat - taught one or more classes, haven't been paid, some from back as far as late 2004.
This company makes me ill. While they may have “cash flow” issues I think their manner of operation is immoral and repugnant. They clearly have hired several instructors and not paid them, and then hired several more, likely not planning on paying. This company just gives me negative vibes. I did a search on their corporation name with the California Secretary of State and found that over the last decade there have been three corporations formed by the same person with very similar names - like Acme Training, Ackme Training, and Acme Technology Group - over the past decade, a new one every few years. I imagine that what happens is a corporation is started up, it's run trying to make a profit, obviously, but ends up running up a lot of debt - such as promising to pay for instructor services renderd - and then, if things don't work out, they fold up shop just to create a new, similarly named corporation. (This guess as to their business practices may be heavily influenced by the bitterness of not getting paid and having to deal with these folks, of course.) Anyway, it's disgusting how they can do this to independent trainers and just stick 'em with no payment for their services. Of the instructors I've heard back from all have opted to just take the loss and move on.
Anyway, so that's where I'm at now, just thought I'd keep y'all updated. Thanks for reading...
A complete list of blog entries related to this topic can be found at My Small Claims Court Experience and through Going Independent category. Your feedback is most welcome - please leave a comment or drop me a line.