How do you get over a customer like this guy?

[gdingee]

What do you do with a customer like this?

Recently I had a guy call asking if I could saw 30 or 40 black cherry logs and what I would charge to do it. Since my truck was out of commission, I told him they had to be hauled to me if he wanted them right away. I offered him a loan of my tandem trailer to do this. He lives about 15 miles away.

I also asked about length and size of the logs to which he responded several 8" to 12" tops and 8'- 12' lengths along with some smaller pieces.

Sometimes I charge by the hour ($45.00) especially when the wood is short and/or small, like the guys who bring the 30" pieces of Birdseye maple, etc. which I can do in a few minutes. I ask for few dollars and the pleasure of seeing such pretty wood along with learning how he will make some neat project from the lumber.

I usually charge $.22 fbm for 2" material and $.25 fbm for 1" material. I figure I am a decent sawyer and felt I would do this job by the BF rate since he said he had some good size logs. Like most of us, I am in this to make some $$ which is not say I don't put myself out to help out the customer for free. I offered my trailer free of charge, I offered to look over the trees before he cut them and help him buck them properly to maximize the value of the log, and of course he had my trailer to use to haul the material back home.

Customer arrives to pick up my trailer and I had to scramble around to find a ball for his truck. The guy had his nephew along to help and when the first load of logs is delivered I see one of the tires on my trailer shredded to pieces. I knew the tire was not in great shape but he had the trailer way overloaded with so much weight on the front of the trailer I wondered if the truck springs would hold!

The nephew is a bit of "bull in a China shop" if you know what I mean. It is another story, but he had worked taking away slabs and lumber on a previous job I had done for another family member. I figured- hmmm?

Regardless, the tire was in poor shape so no big deal. It needed replaced anyway.

Well, I unloaded the trailer and the back of the nephew's 1/2 ton truck of about 45 pieces of black cherry logs. Figure it out.......

There were perhaps 10 of the 8'-12' variety with tops of 5" to 6". Despite small size they were relatively straight though I could tell they would be difficult to clamp and there was enough sweep in most of them I knew there would be a lot of either slab wood or pieces with considerable wane.

The remainder were any where from 2' long to 4' long and generally in the 6-8" size though some were only 4-5" in diameter.

"O, these are just the tops and limbs, the big stuff is coming next".

No problem. It was a slow time for me. It was a day or two of work, what the heck.

I did tell him the wood would be difficult to clamp tight especially all the short wood so I could not promise nice clean cuts and also pointed out the problem presented by sweep which meant I slab heavy and leave little lumber, or be stingy and produce a lot of stuff that had wane. He was okay with that- he was retired, just wanted some craft wood, etc- he would find a use for it.

So I went to work sawing away to my heart's content. I had the trailer tire repaired, and he was back with two more loads this time with some decent logs- good size, straight and the 8-12' lengths, with a few more of the shorts.

15 hours later I had sawed out about 1500 mfbm of cherry lumber. For 8 of those hours I had help to take away slabs and stack the lumber by size and length for the guy. I paid the guy $15.00 per hour.

I called to tell him the material was ready, indicated the scale was about 1500 mfbm = $375 but I would have to have another $125.00 for the help because of all the shorts, etc.  If I had charged by the hour (which that uneasy feeling told me I should have done just as soon as he arrived with the busted tire and 2' stuff), it would have been a lot more.

Well okay he said, but the nephew could have come by to help. Anyway, the nephew comes by for the final load of lumber, which I helped load and strap down ( my straps) and even helped load on all the slabs, yep right down to the itsy, bitsy 2' pieces.

Well, while doing the sawing a neighbour comes by wanting to buy some of the nice cherry boards from the big logs. He wanted $200 worth of cherry so I gave him the name of the nephew who had told me the logs were actually his.

So mingled into all this the nephew makes yet another trip with my trailer to haul enough cherry logs to make what he figured would be $200 worth of lumber for this neighbour. I said he could figure on $1.00 to$2.00 per fbm depending on the quality of the cherry. He arrives with 7 logs- one beauty- 11" top by 9' long, then the "firewood"- the limbs, the shorts, etc.

I called the neighbour- said you better look this over, can you accept lumber from this stuff, etc. He said sure.

Just for fun I scaled the 7 pieces and arrived at 85 fbm. the big log had over 1/2 of the total volume. But, knowing how a WM can obtain an over run, I thought neighbour would get a fair deal for his $200.

So my merry heart sings again as I begin sawing. I did 3 of the little fellers just to ease into then loaded the "big" one. Did you guess what it contained? the first face revealed lovely grain. I opened a face on side two then on the next cut for a board "zip",  "zip",  "zip",  and just one more "zip". Four nails neatly severed.

I dug out what remained from the four nails. I only had two boards off. The blade did not seem to be too bad, I'll at least clean the other two sides. Hopefully I got all of the nails, but it cannot do any more damage on this blade and gamble on a fresh blade.

It cleaned up beautifully, I put on a new blade and sawed around the log leave the "nail" side until the very last. I was on the final cut when right at the butt I struck a wire staple running horizontally- it cleaned about ½ of the teeth- needless to ruining the blade.

Well, the neighbour is there loading the lumber pleased as could be with his product and the nephew is there loading the slab wood onto his truck.

I shut the mill off and remove my second damaged blade. I tell the two men, "I spent 1 ½ hours sawing and removing nail @ $45.00 per hour and I have two ruined blades @ $30.00 each. I'll settle for $125.00 for my work."  I indicate, "neighbour, I figure you have fair value lumber for your $200."

Neighbour paid nephew $200 happily went home to sticker his product. Nephew says, I'll be bringing uncles $$ to you as soon as he transfers it to my bank account and off he goes.

A  couple days later nephew's wife stops by with the $500 in cash and asks for a receipt. I asked what about your husbands bill with me- he owes $125.00, have him call me.

NO call comes of course so when I call him, he tears a strip off me. First, he doesn't owe me anything- Neighbour owes me for sawing the logs- he wanted the lumber so he should pay for sawing the logs! Furthermore, he had no idea there were nails, cannot imagine how they got there, and he is not responsible- I should have know there were there. And to cap it off, he accused me of cheating uncle cause I quoted one price to saw the logs then add another charge on top. He basically told me to "F..k off" and slammed the phone.

I've given away way more than $125 on many occasions in time, money, volunteer work, etc. It's not the money, but yet it is. It has angered me for many days now despite every effort to forget about it all and learn a lesson.

A long story, but it feels good to get out.

[Chuck White]

Regardless of who you're sawing for, use a contract.

In the contract, specify that damaged blades will cost the customer $xx.00 each.

Anything that cost "you" more than normal time, will be paid at a rate of $xx.00 per hour.

A good contract can get right down to the nitty-gritty!

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

You get those ones and you get them in both ends of the game  ??? : just brush yourself off from the exp and count yourself lucky its only $125 dollars your outa pocket Mate   :( ;) ;D
ive been rolled for thousands   more times than id care to remeber over the years  :( >:( and i myself am sick of dealing with idiots  :( :'(  im all inhouse from here on in and doing everything myself I log it saw and deliver it you pay and im happy  ;) :D ;D ;D 8)

You cant rely on anyone else to do the rite thing by you its becoming all to rare these days  ;)

Regards Chris

[Slingshot]

 
Reminds me of back several years ago when my Father-in-law was having a fence installed
between he and an obnoctious neighbor. The neighbor watched every move the fence
installer made and came out one time and informed him that while installing the fence he had
better not make one step on his side of the property line. (imagine putting up a chain link
fence all from one side)

The installer's reply to the neighbor was, "The one thing that makes this world such a great
place to live is that there are so few people in it like you".


________________________-
Charles   

[Chuck White]

Hey Slingshot, I like that installers "come-back"! ;D

[gdingee]

 :D :D sure is good that most people are not like this guy.

too bad when one has to blame self for such stupidity done by others. I said to the guy- I sent business your way that put 200$ in your pocket. He thinks my neighbour bought the logs from him for $200, hired me to saw them and should pay me another $125 for the sawing job and blade damage.! That is 325$ for logs the local hardwood buyer would not even look at. The logs were worth at best $50.00- and that is overly generous.

I could have bought the logs, sawed and eaten the cost of damaging the blades then sold the lumber for the $200 price still had $90.00 in my pocket for my labour.

Is he the greater thief or am I just the greater fool for being taken advantage?  :-\

[Kansas]

Out of all the sawing and things we do, custom sawing generates most of the complaints and less than 10 percent of the business. A number of times I have considered ending custom sawing. You simply can't control what people drag in to have sawn up. Biggest reason I haven't pulled the plug on it is that is how we got started. And really, the great majority of the customers, we don't have trouble with. I don't bother with a contract. The amounts aren't enough, at least for what we saw, to go after someone in small claims court. And it has been my experience if someone doesn't want to pay the bill, they aren't going to. Either someone is honest or they are not.

Worst one I ever had was a guy hauled in some shorter cherry and osage orange logs to have slabbed into 3/4 inch material for wall covering. They didn't want the boards edged. He was doing this for his son. We did the job, hit one nail in the hedge. He personally wrote the check. Two days later he showed up with just the hedge. Claimed we gave him lumber out of someone else's logs. My guess is he took it home, and the son, or his wife, didn't like the color. I did notice he didn't bring back the cherry. I hadn't got around to cashing the check yet. I got so mad, I wound up throwing the check back at him and telling him to never show up again. I may have got a bit vocal. All the mill workers shut down and went around the back and hid.

[Tom]

We all run into people like this now and again.  You have to stand up for yourself, but it isn't worth arguing with them and taking up a month of your time, as well as a years of good will out of your company.  I found that it was better to take what they paid and then decide that I didn't have to work for them again.  I actually had the pleasure of telling a jerk that, one time, after he kept badgering me to saw more wood.  I had not only allowed him to take advantage of my good nature, but taught him how to figure the wood.  He used that new knowledge, as an expert, to try to cheat me out of expenses and services.   After a couple of months of calling me to do another job, he finally asked, "are you going to cut this wood, or aren't you?"  He shouldn't have said that if he didn't want to know, because I told him.  I started out with "no", and then, when he pursued, I told him why.   It made me feel good.   I also told others, who asked, what a scam he is.  I have never had anyone disagree with me about him, but have had several laugh and say, "It's about time he got his come-uppence."

So, always remember that the one thing that benefits you as single proprietor is that you don't have to go back again.

[Tim/South]

Those people are out there.
Dealing with my one bad experience toughened me up right quick.
Mine was an older guy who had figured board footage as half of what it was.
(10 foot 2 x 6 was 5 board feet according to him). He was adamant that I was double charging him.
Normally I get along with the older crowd better than any age group.

On the plus side, I had a guy call about some cherry. He brought 3 very nice cherry logs. I did not know cherry grew that big.
He wanted to watch and help if he could. He was 78 years old and still got around well.
When I loaded the last board he asked how much he owed?
I had not kept up with the BF or the time. I told him just to give me something for my time. (My son hates it when I do that. I know an honest man).
It was about dark and the man opened his billfold and told me when to stop.
He was counting out $100 bills. I stopped at two and he was certain that was not near enough, said he had other sawing done before, not nearly as nice work and paid more.
He stopped by a few weeks later to thank me again.
And brought me two quarts of honey.

Some people are diamonds, some are coal.

[Slabs]

Reminds me of back several years ago when my Father-in-law was having a fence installed
between he and an obnoctious neighbor. The neighbor watched every move the fence
installer made and came out one time and informed him that while installing the fence he had
better not make one step on his side of the property line. (imagine putting up a chain link
fence all from one side)

The installer's reply to the neighbor was, "The one thing that makes this world such a great
place to live is that there are so few people in it like you".


________________________-
Charles   

Kinda like "Will Rogers never met you did he"!

[Dan_Shade]

My minimum log length is 5', and I'll charge more for the job if there are a bunch of short ones.
I also avoid sawing anything less than 8" diameter.

It's OK to say no, and it's always wise to know what you are getting into before saying yes.

[zopi]

yeah...contract..contract...contract...specify minimum lengths and diameters...don't care if it's your best friend...

After my best friends divorce, I told him that I guessed it would come out like it did when I met her mother...he asked why I didn't say anything about it...Told him that his friendship was worth more to me than that....

I would recommend you not to allow others to make side deals on the place....tell the perp..errr...customer that you can pass along a message/phone number and they can make the deal..I got into a sticky one like that once...

I picked up a nice big straight ERC last fall..wife told the guy I'd share it with him (heck yeah! ERC!) He wanted a few mantel pieces out of it...I explained that with my work schedule I would probably not get to them for a couple months...no prob...

Saw him a few days ago and he thought I had skipped with his logs..."Nope, I won't do people like that"...I sawed out his share this weekend and hauled them into town and stickered them in the driveway for him...saw him today and he was completely blown away with the product..(I sawed for max figure..)  He's out hunting logs for me now and claims he'll be a repeat customer...says he might have some pecan coming my way...and I LOVE pecan...and the slabs make such good BBQ!

Two guys up the road are giving me six giant pines and a little red oak...all easy tree drops, the limbs will go in my neighbor$$ shop stove, and there is enough in the six trees (if I sc-eyeballed-aled them right) to reside and do all the structural work to my carriage house...

Three years with a mill, never gave more than a little elbow grease for a log, and have cut several thousand dollars' worth of lumber...and I am seeing the beginnings of folks coming to me about lumber...I have GOT to get a hydraulic mill in here...

But you can sure bet that before a dollar changes hands or a mill starts up, particularly custom sawing...I'll have a contract, and written instructions as to what the customer wants...

[Tronvik]

I have heating and air/refrigeration company . Sawed for a few customers,had one near to well ask me to saw a old pine 6x12 x2feet long and a piece of magnolia 9" x 3feet long. When i finished with the pine i dropped of at his house and his response  was there should have been more boards. I reminded him the size of the board before and had the boards matchbooked stacked! No offer to pay and i was so mad i left let my fustration out with his mag log and my stihl o66 !!! He still asks for his cut mag log from time to time.The next customer had a f--- Bush magnet on his refrigerator, lets just say his pecan log to mantle piece never saw my mill.

[Warren]

Never ceases to amaze me.  Folks who look like they would not have the slightest idea of what a "good saw log" would look like, will bring in some of the nicest, long, straight, fat logs.  Other folks who grew up in the country around trees and logs and saw mills will drag in stuff that would not make a good Fence Post expecting it to saw out nice, wide, pretty boards...

As far as this jerk stiffing you for the saw bill.  It's tuff to do, but my experience it's better to walk away from it and chalk it up as experience.  If you keep stewing over it, it is only going to bother you.  The other guy made it obvious that he is not going to loose any sleep over the fact that he beat you out of $125.

Just my $0.02

Warren

[zopi]

Oh...forgot...wait and watch the slob...what goes around comes around...I have put him on my bad karma list for you...because my karma ran over your dogma...:D

[Brad_S.]

IMO, You have the right idea in using this as a learning experience and move on from here. Other than venting, not much you can do if you didn't outline your costs for cutting small stock or blade damage up front. Here are some things I learned along the way that are relative to your example:
Hardest thing to learn in business is how to say "NO". I would have either said it the moment I saw the short, small stuff (and explained why it was a bad idea to cut it) or immediately renegotiated the deal based on the new variables presented in the form of ugly logs.
Make sure cost structure is known upfront. I never used a contract but I verbally outlined all costs when the initial inquiry was made.
Don't agree to a final set price until you see the product.
If presented with logs with severe sweep or crook, cut them through and through and let the owner use a skill saw and straight edge to edge them the way he wants to.
Don't play middle man.
Never lend equipment out.
Never lend equipment out. (It's worth saying twice.) BTW, if your insurance agent ever found out you did that, you could possibly face cancellation.
The good news is that after dealing with a character like that, you start to get a "spider sense" that tingles when you meet up with another of his ilk. Listen to that little voice in your head when it says "Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!". :D

[SwampDonkey]

Graydon, I can imagine what a saw guy runs into on occasion. Doesn't matter if it's a sawmill or a brush saw. :D  ;)

But, I have also been on the other end of the "bash me, I'm not numb enough" stick. ;) :D With a crew of family members wondering why the rest of the logs in the pile were not sawed to finish the job in 1 and 1/2 to 2 hours instead of leaving at 4:00 pm and have the logs lay for 2 years on the ground to spoil. Basswood and maple doesn't stand up to weather too good on the ground 2 years unless your after the spalt look. :D I got stung bad and never did see my elm, ash and cherry. : The guy had some oak he got in and I am "guessing" he didn't know elm and ash from oak. I peeked in his barn on the way out and seen the elm, never said nothing. Get me the H out of here. :D

[BBTom]

I learned a long time ago to hold lumber as ransom.  If I saw at the farm the finished product does not leave the property until I am paid. 

I have switched to $60/hr with a 4 hour minimum for any job that I take the mill to plus $1/mile if over 25 miles.  I got caught in too many of those small short log jobs that cost me a days work for a few bucks.  The customer now seems to always have plenty of help and the logs are always lined up ready to go.  They seem to be surprised at how much we saw in a days time, and I don't have to spend an hour trying to measure all the lumber at the end of the day.   I don't care how much they throw in the scrap pile or how close they want me to edge the boards.  I am getting paid the same.   I have found that everyone ends up happier.

[thecfarm]

Just one of those guys that what he has is worth $500 but if you have it,it's only worth 100.Whatever he does is right and you are wrong.Not worth it to bother with.Don't let it bother you.Easier said than done,I know.We all have been at the wrong end of the stick with people like this.Just a hard lesson to remember next time. But some people would of replaced the tire or paid half and paid for the blade and understood what you were saying. Hard to tell,until it's past the fact.

[Warren]

Just one of those guys that what he has is worth $500 but if you have it,it's only worth 100.

Hey TheCFarm !

You got those guys up in Maine too ?    I thought they were just here in Kentucky....

:D :D :D

Warren