Very rarely, but that’s just a couple of bad eggs.

Good People

Great customers combined with our high success and satisfaction rates, integrity, professionalism, sensible pricing and clear communication, deliver a non-payment rate of virtually zero for us. Operating ethically actually generates goodwill that typically shields us from would-be non-payers and undesirables. I also carefully filter enquiries and avoid assisting those who I think might be problematic. That said, I’ve had two non-paying customers in a decade, maybe three now given the most recent one in 2024.

Non-Payers

The first was a crooked real estate agent, let’s call him JVS… I repaired his turntable, but he failed to respond to emails about collecting it and my final warning after 12 long months stated that I would sell his turntable to recoup funds if he did not collect and pay for it immediately, no discussion. He suddenly wanted to collect his equipment..!

The collection was a drama, with a crying baby, a screaming wife with strange blue contact lenses and an odd, sweaty man attempting to wiggle out of paying the additional charges he’d accrued over 12 months of abandoning his equipment. Luckily I had witnesses happy to support me if needed. The guy is lucky I didn’t sell his deck after three months and is now on the blacklist.

I have some other very interesting stories about JVS because it turns out it isn’t just me he messed around. I’m sitting on those, for now.

The second non-payer asked me to service and repair his turntable as a high-priority job. I did that for him and had his deck running perfectly again, but he neither responded to attempts to contact him nor thanked me for fixing his turntable. After the mandatory warnings, we sold his turntable for considerably more than he owed. Another completely unnecessary waste of time and energy. Hello Mr John Messina!

The third is a gentleman who asked me to repair and refurb his Mitusbish pre/power amplifiers, to a maximum of $1000. I came in comfortably under that limit but when I sent the invoices he disappeared, ghosting me and has never replied, nearly 6 months on. I’m selling these two absolute classics, so keep an eye out for them in the store.

Hiring me and then leaving me in the lurch isn’t a great way to garner goodwill. I just hope it was worth burning the bridge.

Takeaway

There are some in this world who, no matter how much you try to help them, won’t or perhaps can’t do the right thing. My colleagues and I have a simple policy for dealing with people like this which places them on the aforementioned blacklist. I treat everyone kindly, professionally and respectfully, even the people in the examples above. They will however not be able to utilise our services again, which is their loss of course.