[Mike Maurini]

Paid in advance!….I was once told, “Fast Pay Makes Fast Friends”

[Mike Clark]

Tim,

Just want to let you know I’m not in the industry and don’t owe you any money. Don’t knee cap me bro! Not sure how you Wisconsin brothers roll.

Years ago I started giving people a chance to cheat me on something small. When they did I knew what they were about. I had plenty of friendships worth less than $25.00!! Maybe i was worth 24.99 or 2 cents, but less than $25.00 anyway.

Recently I had a guy pay me $40.00 he claims he owed me. I had forgotten about it. So it ain’t all bad.

Sorry you are having the problem.

Later sir,

Mike Clark

 

[Tim Pappas]

Back in the SKUSA Promoto days, another team needed an axle.  We had one so I gave it to the team owner.  He never came back and paid so I tracked him down before he left and he said to invoice him.  I mailed him an invoice once a month for three months.  Still never got paid.  So I sent him a notice that since we obviously were sponsoring his team for the axle I expected him to run PTK stickers for the rest of the year and I included stickers with the notice.  Still nothing.

I won’t call him out because he knows who he is, but I still regularly see him and he is an EKN advertiser.  Never has mentioned anything about it and I don’t know how he does business normally, but as far as I am concerned he is a total slacker.

[Tim Koyen]

Good story Tim.  I have one of the biggest dealers in the 4 cycle world that owes  me about $800.  Not enough to go to court over, but I wonder how many other people he’s shafted.  Funny though, If I mention this to this other businesses, they say, “oh that guy, yeah, he’s bad news..)

[Mike Clark]

Tims,

What I find more and more is you ask about some body before dealing with them nobody has anything bad to say about them. If you say what happened after you get a lot of “I could have told you that”. I also have found over a period of many years that most people don’t have the guts to stick up for themselves. When you do you are wrong for it. I think people refuse to acknowledge see the strength in you in because it causes the think about weakness in themselves.

[Howie Idelson]

What’s the problem with naming names? Here’s one. David Jimenez! Pay up Sucka.

[George Sunderland]

I’ll follow.  Rick Fowzer from Manteca, CA.  The guy is a former karter, micro sprint, and  World of Outlaws driver.  Took me for several grand and never delivered Rotax stuff.  Then he declared bankruptcy with his towing business (don’t you know he probably never released a car from his lot before the owner paid in full) making it tougher for me and everyone else he ripped off to reach him.  To this day gives me the song and dance how he’s broke.  BUT, I just saw where he’s now sponsoring a kid from Ohio he hopes to be the next WoO star.  That aint cheap.  Got enough money to sponsor the kid, got enough money to make good on our deal.

[Tim Koyen]

Actually, as long as it’s true, I don’t see anything legally wrong with naming names.  Although I’d consider it a last resort for businesses.  I did have a guy a number of years ago that was into me for $4-5k and wouldn’t pay or take my calls.  After quite a long time, I called him out on bob’s 4 cycle forum.  He went nuts over it, but I got a ton of emails from other people he owed money to that were afraid to say anything.  One of our fellow karters was in Collections and offered to collect for me if I made him a deal on a KartLift.  Apparently it worked, because I got a good deal of my merchandise back.

Ultimately it was quite a sad story though, because my customer was having a bunch of health problems and ended up having a nervous breakdown and a short time later passed away.  Unfortunately this guy could’ve saved himself a ton of stress if he had only told me and his other vendors what was going on.  I know I would’ve called the dogs off until he could right his ship if I had only known, but he wouldn’t talk to me or anyone, then got mad when we needed to be paid.

I have a heart, but I’m not the March of Dimes.  I have bills to pay to vendors who also have bills to pay.  Kart stands don’t come like Manna from heaven, they come from steel, sweat, and vendors, all of which need to be paid for.

Time to make a few collection calls.

[John Savage]

Tim, you say “Actually, as long as it’s true, I don’t see anything legally wrong with naming names. ”

As long as you can prove (beyond any reasonable doubt or what ever the legal test is) then OK, but in my view its not worth it as if it goes legal you will be forced to spend money, and that’s money that at the moment you don’t consider it is worth spending because if you did you would be in court already with these guys you would like to call out.

[Brian Degulis]

I’m not sure about other states but here in FL small claims court is not expensive or complicated and no lawyers need to be involved. You generaly sue for what’s owed to you plus the court fees. Often just serving the deadbeat gets you paid.

Brian

[Aaron LaRoque]

If they can’t afford to pay 800 bucks, they certainly can’t afford to lawyer up and start suing.  Have you ever actually done that?  Its very expensive to hire an attorney and go to court, people always threaten to sue but very rarely does it happen because of this.  Not many attorneys are willing to take cases they don’t have a very good chance of winning and if a guy owes you money and you want to sue him because he called you out on a forum, the first question the attorney is going to ask you is, do you owe him the money?    I have been hearing a lot of this lately though in karting, people not paying their bills, sucks.  I could name two people who I know who owe others big money.

[Tim Koyen]

Yeah, I hear what everyone is saying.  When I started this thread, I never really intended to name names, as I think that sort of thing is more or less between the parties involved.  If I actually named some guy here and called him a deadbeat, I doubt that it would really increase my chances of getting paid (it would warn others though).

I’ve talked to a number of industry people about this type of problem and many of us are coming to the same conclusion, credit cards up front are the safest way to go, even between businesses who seem legit.  I started accepting cards or checks in advance on all my new dealers earlier this year and that’s how I’m going forward with anyone else new.  Cards aren’t without risk either, but it seems to be the lesser of the evils.  Makes me value my cash customers all the more.:)

 

[Roger Ruthhart]

I’m not naive, but we’ve been doing our event in Rock Island for going on 20 years. We’ve been stiffed twice and one guy eventually paid when his kart shop applied pressure. Don’t get me wrong, we’ve had credit card issues but karters always came through — except for one and as far as I know he’s long gone from the sport. Kart racers are basically good people… too bad we even have to have such a topic pop up, but I guess every sport has the occasional bad apple.

[John Savage]

Tim Koyen wrote:
Maybe we should just start listing them here so no one else falls into the trap?

 

 

The only problem with listing them on here is the time and money you would spend with your legal team

[George Sunderland]

Not dealers per se, but I’ve been ripped off in transactions with fellow racers and karters more in the past 2 years than the prior 40 combined.  Still the vast majority out there are good folks.   I’d like to THINK they intended to pay me or send me my stuff at some point.  I’m sure the bad economy plays a big part.  My take is it might not be worth it for me to take your butt into court but  karma will get ya somehow someway.  We all know karting and racing in general is a drug as bad as any.  And once, hooked, you need a fix no matter what.  Ability to pay for the fix is not always a consideration.

[Gary Osterholt]

Mr. Koyen,

The bad part is that a few ruin it for the rest of us.  Typically how it goes in karting or really anything in life it seems.  With the website business on the side, I hate playing bill collecter.  Most of the people I do sites for are friends and I’m really just trying to help them out.  But at some point in time business is business.  It amazes me when you shut off their website or email, they find a way to get in contact with you very quick.

 

[Brian Degulis]

It might having something to do with a bad economy but there’s definitely been a shift in attitude over the last 30 years and it’s gotten much worse in the last 5. Years ago you had deadbeats on the consumer side but business to business deadbeats were rare. Most wouldn’t let it happen because you understood what it was like to get stiffed and you didn’t do it to someone else. Today it’s more acceptable. The workplace today is much safer than it was 30 years ago but disability claims are up 40%. Half of the people in this country are getting some sort  of Gov. subsidy. Food stamps are at an all time high. People buy homes they can’t afford and when the economy tanks it’s the lenders fault. I grew up poor but my dad would have slit his wrists before taking the Gov. cheese. That was reserved for the woman with kids who’s husband died of a heart attack and she needed a year to sort it out. Disability was for the person stricken to a wheel chair not a guy with a soar back and a good lawyer. In this environment it’s much easier to rationalize not paying your bills. Today we glorify the takers and vilify the makers.

I don’t want to sound like some bitter guy ranting about the good old days because I’m not. Things are good today and most people still have a sense of honor and pride. I’m not sure if that will be the case 20 years down the road.</div>
 

Brian

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