General rant

taylorlambert · #1 08/30/10, 02:06 AM

I cant sleep so heres my rant/question. Last year folks saw my home grown plants and bought my extras. They encouraged me to go into parttime plant raising. Well this year was a rough start but had several trays of plants to sell. This old man that frequents the gas station we take break at asked about some becausethe local store had sick plants.

I told him I got 50 cents per plant, with a 5 cent per cell pack discount for a returned cell. Well the old man asked me 2 days in a row about his plants. I had them one day and he couldnt takethem going fishing. THe next day same thing. I dont like to jostle plants around so I Plantedthem at work.

The third day he took 10 plants. He wdidnt want to buy 3 cell pack of 3 or 4 cell pack as he wanted 10 plants. So I gave him 3 cell packs and a loose one from a damaged tray. Well he didnt have the cash on hand. He wanted to give me a check that has to be cashed at the store for 3 dollars its not worth it. I just told him Id catch him the next day or so.

Well I was in the store the few days and he never showed with the money. But every time we saw him e had the same plants in his truck bed. I saw him he claimed he wasnt paying because his plants died. I told him my plants are gauranteed but no plant can live in 100 degree weather in a truck.

Ive not had many tail burnings but this one really gave me that extra sting with the plant insult. Ive had a few freebies in my excavationg business but I guess its part of it. Anyone here ever get a good sting.

MaineFarmMom · #2 08/30/10, 05:10 AM

$3 is a cheap lesson. Now you know to not do that again. I learned it with pumpkins.

Pelenaka · #3 08/30/10, 05:32 AM

Here's a phrase that has served me well - Cash only.
I was a certified day care provider on our last two duty stations. You'd think that your babysitter would not be one of the few people you'd jerk around. Especially when your military.
Money owed $80. The look on the AO 1st class face when I refused to accept his child into my home 9 minutes before he had to be on the flight line ... priceless.

meanwhile · #4 08/30/10, 05:40 AM

Ouch - that was not nice of him. We had someone rip off our younger son. Son had rooted hydrangea and forsythia plants to sell. He had good 2 year old plants and the person took 8 of them home, planted them and THEN told my son he did not want to pay the $5.00 per plant since he thought he should have a "deal" since my son was only 10 years old at the time. He paid my son only $3.00 per plant! Son learned his lesson and every time the man asks if he can buy more plants, son says all the plants are sold!

My son still tells the Tale of the time he was "Age Discriminated Against"!

nehimama · #5 08/30/10, 06:20 AM

Meanwhile, that's a nasty one to pull on a child!

Oops! Didn't mean YOU, Pelenaka! I was referring to the OP (Meahwhile). Should've made that more clear. Sorry!

Pelenaka · #6 08/30/10, 06:41 AM

Child was a 14 month old asleep in Dad's arms. 0450 or 4:50 a.m. I was one of 9 child care providers on base that was open at that hour of the day.
Clearly stated in our contract that I was to be paid on time, pick up on last day of a scheduled work week which would have been a Friday afternoon for that parent. My refusal came the following Monday. Had all weekend to drop off my paycheck. We had discussed it on Friday.
Missing $80 out of a weekly $240 combined total paycheck hurt. Still had to pay my car note. Still had to buy groceries.
Once word is out that your a soft touch then as they say your an easy mark.

~~ pelenaka ~~

Lyra · #7 08/30/10, 11:36 AM

Good luck to you on your new enterprise.

I have often thought of starting a side business but then I think about all the difficult and crooked people I deal with on a daily basis through my full-time job and realize that it isn't worth the hassle.

PotBellyPigs · #8 08/30/10, 11:54 AM

Actually, I didn't, but my wife got "stung" by a neighbor.
We had an estate sale(her father had died)and a neighbor man wanted one of the old chainsaws.
The price was $80.
My wife let the neighbor man take the chainsaw, with no written contract, just a verbal "I'll pay you later, for it".
She has not seen $80 or the chainsaw ever again......
I bet, she will never do that again.

fishhead · #9 08/30/10, 12:28 PM

I wouldn't worry about $3 and just put him on the do not sell list.

I had a bait dealer burn me for $880 last year. That's on top of all the work it took to harvest, bucket, and spending 8 hours seining under the ice on a 10 degree winter day.

Danaus29 · #10 08/30/10, 01:41 PM

Almost got taken for a $200 dirt bike. Guy that wrote the check wasn't listed on the check. Fortunately this happened when the banks were open so I called the bank and was told the account had been closed for a couple of years.

No checks, no cash me later, no lending of animal cages or carts at the swap meets. Oh, no reserves of animals either without payment. If you don't want me to put your name on your reserved animal or item don't ask me to hold it.

rambler · #11 08/30/10, 01:56 PM

Distant neighbor owes me for ~$600 of oats.

From, eh, 6 years ago.

I'm not holding my breath......

Good neighbor next door owes me about $3500 for straw & oats. We just never get together at the same time, to get it straightened out. He's good, I'll get paid, we just need to both remember the amounts from the past 3 years any more!

He's good for it, as dairy business was really bad last year, I turned hi down when he wanted to pay some last year, said wait, just wait.

Some you can trust, some you realize you can't.

Wish my lessons were $3 insteadof $600.

--->Paul

PrincessFerf · #12 08/30/10, 01:56 PM

Anyone who sells anything encounters people like this from time to time. Some people never mean to stiff the seller and genuinely forget. Others are just plain weirdos who don't have an ounce of logic or common sense in their melons.

I don't sell eggs anymore without payment ahead of time. I've been burned a couple of times in the past by co-workers.

The story above about the person cheating the young man out of money for plants is maddening. What a cheapskate! A 10-year old's effort is worth less than an adult's? Gimme a break!

Patt · #13 08/30/10, 02:43 PM

I can sympathise with the insult on top of injury. I kind of expect to have a bad customer occasionally it just happens but to insult me because you don't want to pay for something just irks me.

We sell our stuff through our local Farmer's Market. Everything I sell is baked within 24 hours before the Market. Well I had a lady buy a bag of scones, she let us know she thought the price was a bit high when she bought them but all the ingredients are organic and so I stand by my price. She came back the next week and complained loudly enough that pretty much everybody there could hear that the scones were stale and went moldy within 2 days so she wanted her money back. I asked if she had brought the remaining scones with her and she said no she had tossed them in the garbage. Well we refunded her money and made a new rule after that if customers had a problem with anything they bought from us they could return the remainder for an exchange or refund.

Never happened before or since that and everyone at the market was shocked since we had swapped stuff with everyone there at some point. They all knew it was hooey.

dave_p · #14 08/30/10, 03:50 PM

I'm not sayin' you should take care of things this way, but here's a funny story about how Waylon Jennings handled a similar situation when he was refused his pay.......

dp

taylorlambert · #15 08/30/10, 07:27 PM

Meanwhile that story really irked me about the guy ripping off your son. Ihave 2 words for him. Round Up I had one customer thats was from Memphis hired me to put in some tree s in his yard at the lake. He refused to pay me because the trees he picked out didn t suit him . I went back one night and round upped a house lengthed flower bed and all the trees.

Im not as po ed about the the 5 dollars as much as the insult of the plant quality.

Patt · #16 08/30/10, 08:16 PM

Iuka Mississippi! We used to go to the Library there, got some good books at their booksale.

debbiekatiesmom · #17 08/30/10, 09:41 PM

many years ago i worked at a sewing plant in cherokee alabama which was i believe very close to iuka, ms. horrible job!!

ann in tn · #18 08/30/10, 10:32 PM

I live in Mt Pleasant and my husband's family has a cabin near Iuka off yellow creek port. I don't know exactly what the address it but i can get to it blincfolded LOL

taylorlambert · #19 08/30/10, 11:40 PM

Patt Iuka still has a pretty good little library, Its changed a good bit.
DKM I cant imagine a sewing shop that wasnt horrible lol. THe only one left locally is in Dennis MS. I think I know the factory that was in Cherokee ITs about 15 miles from here.

Ann in TN My granparnets now my uncle has a lake house at GoatIsland near the port.
Spent alot of weekends one the beach there at the port.

I live at Midway about a mile south of the iuka city limits.

AR Transplant · #20 08/31/10, 12:10 AM

this is the worst kind of rip off that ever happened to my family. My dad had a small grocery store and died unexpectedly on a Sunday evening. Our family had no idea what to do with the inventory of his store. A boyfriend of my cousins offered to buy the whole inventory for his sister's store and mom said yes.

you guessed it, 20 years later and the guy hasn't paid my Mom a dime.

Every time my sister runs into the &**^%%$$ she says Hello Thief.

Special place in hell for a low life that rips off a widow who hasn't yet buried her husband.