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I once showed up to collect my car, didn't have enough money to pay them. They gave it to me, and I brought them the money my next payday.
However, this took place in Germany.
When I worked I could not get to the shop before closing. So they left the keys on the floor and I paid some time when it was convenient. Sometimes the next day sometimes a few weeks later. They also offered me their work van if I needed it to drive to work but I never did that. Supporting a small indie shop pays. This in a smaller city in Canada.
I've worked at marinas, and there is a sign in most of them that says "No cash, no splash", in other words your boat is not going back into the water until you settle up your bill. Plus, they will charge you daily storage fees for each day you drag your feet on doing that.
Same with having a car repaired. Of course the repair shop will not hand you back your car until you pay, otherwise they would never see or hear from you again.
not true... if you own the store/parking lot and someone leaves their car you can certainly boot or tow it and then that company charges them to get the car back... only requirement (in Nevada) is to have a sign to where the car was towed.
The real question is, why would someone who owns a $50,000 vehicle put up a fight over $150?
OH, let's see … some of the excuses/rationalizations I've gotten:
1) I don't have the money to pay the bill for the work I authorized per your estimate.
2) You ripped me off. You said it would take 2 hours to do the work on my car and the electric clock was only 1 hour off, so you must have only worked on the car for 1 hour. I'm not gonna' pay you at all just because I'm insulted/offended that you'd try to pull this stunt on me.
3) You overcharged me. I found a source for an aftermarket part which is a fraction of the price of the part you installed. I gave you that option in my estimate; either buy the quality part I know works properly or take a risk on a lesser quality item which in my experience doesn't work properly or last. I'll warrant my work with the quality part, but will not warrant the work with the part I know doesn't work properly.
Or, I found the part on-line for so much less than you charged me. Well, that's great. Will that supplier diagnose the car and repair it, too? There's more to installing many parts than just "swapping out" the parts. You needed your car repaired as quickly as possible, and I either had the part in stock or readily available locally. You didn't have the time to wait for the less expensive part to be shipped in and you authorized the repairs per my estimate.
4) Shmo down the street said he could do the work for much less than your quote/estimate which I authorized. You ripped me off. Never mind that Shmo hadn't seen the car to diagnose it so didn't know the extent of the work required to repair the car. And maybe Shmo gave you a loss leader price to do much less work than I quoted to do the scope of the work properly.
5) the real "take the cake" excuse to not pay me: I installed the part that you supplied and asked me to install. When you came to pick up the car, the new part wasn't to your satisfaction. For example, install a "hidden behind the grill" radar detector with a minimal dash mount readout that doesn't sit on top of the dashboard like a portable unit. You accepted the work per the estimate, and drove away … only to discover that you didn't like the performance of the radar detector. So you stopped payment on my work … a billable hour per estimate on your brand new 'benz 450SLC. (the radar detector incident was by an internationally famous university professor/lawyer who was a UN consultant, US resident envoy from his native country, and a much sought after guest speaker on international relations throughout the USA/Europe/Middle East)
And so on. Not to rag on a particular group of people here, but when I look back upon the years of my storefront retail automotive repair shop, there was one group of people who had the highest rate of giving me bad checks … either NSF, or they even stopped payment on the checks before they were given to me: Attorneys. A few of them even played games with NSF checks, where they'd give me another check that was NSF to cover the first (and sometimes, second) NSF check. I've even had them stop payment on a check because … in their letter of explanation after the fact, alleging … "the rear license plate was damaged in your shop, it was askew and the license frame mounting screw was missing". I'd diagnosed electrical problems with the car and replaced the alternator, and the car was never near another while in my possession and control.
They know that it will cost you more to obtain a judgement, let alone collect on it … if at all … then the project was worth. Rule 11 flim-flammery comes to mind.
Um no it's not... Quoted, per your link...
Can I recover my pet upon receiving the letter?
Yes. You may recover your pet from the veterinarian/boarding kennel after the letter has been sent, but before the relevant time period has expired. New York law requires that the veterinarian/boarding kennel must return the animal to you during this period upon request, even if the bill remains unpaid. You will, however, remain liable for the unpaid bill.
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