Small tech business ends up getting $6,500 from client who avoided paying his $2,500 bill for 8 years by texting his wife: ‘He ended up paying… in cash!’

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  A man wearing a headset working in IT laughing at something off camera while sitting at a desk with a computer.}}

• “Petty for me.. not so much for him...”

  "One time I owned a tech company that did tech services all over my city (~ 800k people).

  One client has us come out and do a complex server update to his office server - new drives, migrate, move all data, blah blah.. it was (15 years ago ish) - $2500.

  And he just blew off the invoice.. for years.

• Here's the thing… We had a very well-developed documentation system - we recorded every single computer serial#, every part was serialized and noted, etc.. It was well done - and this was no exception.. We had it down to the last serial # of the hard drives installed in that server...

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  Room of tech employees typing on desktop computers and laptop computers.}}

• Anyway, the guy was an ss.. turns out his server was PRIMARILY full of *orn for himself to watch... His wife was mayor of the city. I thought about making hay out of it, but my better angels prevailed - sometimes better to not rock city hall, when you're a small biz trying to make it...

• I let it go, even though we really needed the money.Just flagged his account so we wouldn't lose more to him.

  Some 8 ish years later somebody hauls a server into our facility for data recovery.

  The tech comes to me - "hey that server serial # is red flagged for payment - -what's up?"

  Turns out the dude had brought that same exact server in, with a crash on the same exact drive we had installed years prior.

  And it was the same dude.. except he had put his wife's name and cell# as contact point on it - perhaps he was trying to avoid us recognizing him?

• So I had the tech go ahead & do a quick look at the drive - sure enough - it was loaded with *orn. 

  And yes, it was the same serial# of the exact server AND the exact drive we had installed years prior. So technically, it was our drive.

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  Older man, angry, looking at his laptop computer, screaming on the phone.}}

• So I texted the wife's cell: "We've been able to analyze and check the drive - most of the videos & images appear intact. Please contact to confirm. Can send samples if you want - just need email address."

  The dude showed up in person just an hour later, sm0ke coming out his ears.. Livid that we had contacted his wife...

• He ended up paying cash for the recovery (over $2500, as it was a clean-room recovery).

  AND he paid an additional 15% annual interest on the late invoice (our state allows up to 1.5%/month or 17.5% annual on late payment invoices). I think his total bill was around $6500. and I didn't offer a single discount."

  -Informal_Ad_9610

• And THAT is why you do not mess with people who work in tech. Especially IT people you hired to work on your stuff. That should be common knowledge, but I guess it's not…

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