4,000 Pennies

Putty Truck

Eight months ago, my box truck was clipped by a UPS truck, right? Their insurance needed a formal repair quote, fair enough.

I take the truck down to the dealer and ask him to quote the repair price, plus a few other things that needed repair. It took about 10 minutes, all told.

I ordered the parts and submitted the quote to the insurance company for payment. The check came in, I bought the parts, installed them myself (who else?), and life is good, right?

A few months ago, I started to get calls and invoices from the dealer for $40.00. I explained to the cashier, accounts department, and service manger that I payed their expensive price for the parts, so everything should be cool, right?

The kicker is their quote did not mention a $40.00 service charge!

Well, my poverty-stricken brothers, $40.00 ain't jack to me, okay? I go and get $40.00 in rolled pennies from my bank, unwrap them (nod to my personal acc't rep for that), and shovel 4,000 pennies into a brown paper sack.

I take my sack to the dealer and walk up to the cashier. There are two salesmen chatting up a 18 year old sweetie, who was covering for the regular cashier, right? She looks into the bag, jumps out of her chair and runs to get the real cashier. The salesbozos hightail it outta there.

The real cashier looks into the bag, looks up at da plumba, and calls the office manager who calls the service manager, who starts shaking like a crack ho on Monday morning. He is so pissed off, he can't speak for a few seconds.

I just stand there and watch him jump up and down, yell and threaten, and carry-on for a good 5 minutes.

My only reply to everything was, "There is the payment. Do you want it or not?"

At that point the office manager jumps in and offers to buy the pennies for her grandkids and that placates the service manager...until I ask for a receipt! He starts in with not giving me a receipt until the amount is verified, etc., etc., but the cashier is already printing out the receipt and hands it to me and I'm outta there.

4,000 pennies.

(Moral of story: Always write clear quotes detailing all charges and don't mess with Da Plumba.)

Dierks

As the kicker you should have asked for your bag back too!

SelfContract

Oh man, is this true!?... Someone please tell/confirm me it is true... because if this actually happened then :

1) I admire Da Plumba's courage;

2) His sense of humor shock!, and

3) Proper/clever way to conduct business! (Da Mafia's way)

concretemasonry

Putty -

Sounds like you got your revenge!!!

In most places, they do not have to take that much bulk change without a service charge.

How much more in time and money, than $40.00 did it really cost you to get the wrapped pennies, unwrap them, drive to the dealer and wait while they counted? You could have mailed a check for $0.041. At $50.00 per hour that is less than 30 seconds.

I assume you had better things to do (like find more business) unless it was a real slow day.

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Dick

Engineer, designer and consultant recently active domestically and internationally on construction and design in about 35 countries.

neolitic

The big time dealership "bid-ness" had plenty
of time to nit pick and nag over a B/S $40.
So he had time to shovel the B/S right back
in their laps!
Sometimes....

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Put your location in your profile!
(Sorry....it seems there really are dumb questions)

JamesNLA

Point taken

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"....And then we all switch places when I ring the bell"
-Adrock

Forry

Sheer admiration

Putty Truck

$50.00 an hour! Man, I charged that in 1990! Try 100.00-200.00 an hour flat rate not including tax.

I've gone to far greater lengths to prove my point at much higher cost, so the price wasn't anything.

Plus, this is a small community (by today's standards) and if you get punked here once, you are fair game forever.

ABLE1

Good job. Sounds like something I haven't had a chance to do. I love it!!!!


That must have really put a smile on your face.


Makes me proud to have read the story.

Congrats!!!!!!


Les

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ABLE1