Land owner education...

[mrcaptainbob]

Had a logger come in to remove some black walnut and cherry. What a bad experience.
One of his contractors told me to be careful of this guy. After doing some checking around, I found few places refusing to do business with him. Great. Called the local Extension service, received some excellent advice, followed through with it and managed to come out fairly well. The first bid the logger told me was 4K and my share (60%) would be 2400. Four days later, after my mentioning my getting my own bids, it was noted to me "You misundersood! That 4K was YOUR share. OH! Did you think I meant ...".  Many other lies along the way. Too long a story to go into. Just venting, I guess. Found this area is rife with dishonesty in this industry. What a bad experience.
ANyway...thanks for listening...(Looking?..Reading?..)

[Phorester]

It actually sounds like you had a good experience rather than a bad one.  The bad experience would have happened if you had not done your homework.  Selling trees should be handled as any other business endeavor, and sounds like you did it that way.  Too many people treat it too casually and they loose money or get a bad job because of this casual approach.  It's a business deal and should be treated as a business deal.

But don't let your experience sour you on loggers.  Logging is like any other business, it has it's share of thieves too.  And we always hear of the bad ones more than the good ones.  There's more honest loggers than the other kind, just like doctors, plumbers, mechanics, etc.

[rebocardo]

> One of his contractors told me to be careful of this guy.

Probably thought you were a nice person that did not deserved to be worked over.

In the end, I hope you did not use that low life. I think it was a good experience, you got to keep more of your money  8)

[mrcaptainbob]

For sure it was a learning experience. And you're right about bad
mixed with the good. There's always fly specks in the pepper. I found
it was more a matter of using the correct process, something I didn't do
until after I signed the contract. Fortunately, there were more good people
involved along the way than the two, maybe three poor performers.
Will most likely sell off some more timber in the future, but will certainly use
the 'process' as recommended by the Extension Service.