Virginia woman sued for $750,000 over her 1-star Yelp! review

[Bump]

Originally Posted by Detoxing

The biggest issue i find when dealing with this is that for every 100 customers you do well with, the 1 customer who had the bad experience has the loudest voice.

We had a dickbag customer that we installed a front suspension on his car for, as well as paint and body. It was a $30K job and the car came out really, really nice.

The job ended up costing about $10K more than we anticipated on the estimate because after we stripped his car down, we found that it had more substantial rust than we thought.

All of this was discussed with the customer and he paid for the additional repairs beyond our initial estimate, even though he was uneasy about it.

After the work was done and he took the car home, he decided that we over charged him because some shop down the street from us (some ****ing hole in the wall) said they woulda done the work for half of what we charged.

So he sues us.

He tells the judge that we ripped him off because we charged him more than the original estimate and that our work wasn't good enough (bullshit, this car was immaculate and we had the pictures AND video to prove it).

He won the lawsuit for $15K.

Why?

Because even though the additional repairs were listed on the INVOICE and were paid for on the INVOICE, law requires it to be on the ESTIMATE first. Therefore, we over charged him based off of the initial estimate, even though he agreed and paid for the additional work.

On top of that, we're now on Rip off report because this dick bag went on there and spewed his bullshit story about how we ripped him off.

As a small business, we need a way to protect ourselves from this kinda bullshit.

ya, definitely see your point.

So can you do differently to make sure that never happens again? How does it work, you estimated 30k and that was in writing? Then after further inspection, you realized it's gonna cost 40K, so you call the customer and he agrees? No paper work on that?

The way you described it, it doesn't seem very fair to you at all. But something doesn't add up.

[ModSocks]

Originally Posted by Bump

ya, definitely see your point.

So can you do differently to make sure that never happens again? How does it work, you estimated 30k and that was in writing? Then after further inspection, you realized it's gonna cost 40K, so you call the customer and he agrees? No paper work on that?

The way you described it, it doesn't seem very fair to you at all. But something doesn't add up.

Initial estimate was for around 20K. After having to replace some frame rails and a large section of the 1/4 panel it upped to around 30K.

The initial estimate was the estimate he signed and agreed upon. Verbally he agreed with the additional work, and he signed his INVOICES.

Basically, we didn't have the 30K signed and agreed upon on the estimate, just the 20, so in the judges eyes we ripped him off by luring him in for 20K and then upping it to 30K. It wasn't the estimate he agreed on, even though he gave consent for the work and paid for it.

How do we protect ourselves? Make everything into an estimate first, both parties have to sign the estimate, and then run an invoice.

Lesson learned, but still pretty lame that we got screwed over like that.

And then he has the nerve to put on rip off report.

All because he had a change of heart.

[Rasputin]

YELP I think this is a bunch of BS on the part of business. Do your job right and take care of the customer.


Restaurants get shitty reviews in the paper all the time & I'm glad to find out about the shitty restaurants before I end up going there. They do the same on the interweb it's nice to read reviews & have expectations that way.


This is all that lady who sued McDonalds fault for her when she spilled hot coffee on her lap. Stupid bitch. America got dumber that day I am sad to say.