So since June I’ve had a guy who owns a janitorial business but of course hates cleaning windows. Sometimes he’d pay me on the spot, other times he’d have to wait to get paid to give me mine. If he was a little late he’d always toss me extra.
Recently, he started texting me with “yeah I got you just give me a week. Hey man I promise I’m gonna pay you this friday” and I went to call him and lo and behold his phone is disconnected and I had no way to reach him outside of email. He emailed Monday saying again "this Friday I’ll have your money I promise " and I havent heard from him since, no response, no money. I fully understand peoples have lives, he’s got personal stuff going on he’s hinted at, cool cool cool but uh I need my money.
The heck do I do with this? He owes about $1700 for a few jobs
Do you have any documentation to prove to the Police that he owes you money? If so file a Police report.
I’ve got the texts promising he’ll pay and the email of him saying “I will repay the remaining balance next week” and I can see where he’s viewed all the invoices
Small claims court, get all the paperwork and get that started.
Let me explain !! It was inevitable
I highly doubt he owned a janitorial business. Maybe he did janitorial work , but he didn’t own a successful business if he did he wouldn’t of just disappeared.
It’s the nature of the beast when you own a service business. Everyone gets burned … anyone who says they haven’t is lying. Or they just did residential.
You can exhaust all your means of trying to get your money , especially if it was a lot . Small claims like Mike says , I just saw were said you have the texts. Good luck
Once he gets the notice that he is going to small claims court he might just Fess up. It happened to a friend of mine. They called and paid as soon as they got the notice. They know there wrong an didn’t want to waste a day in court
Does he have a google page or yelp ? If he does tell him you’re going to leave him a 1 star review if he didn’t pay you . You are free to put a review for your interaction with his business.
Stop subcontracting.
You’ve gotten good advice from others. Small claims does get your money back sometimes.
In Colorado, I’ve been told that there are attorneys who assist with these type of claims at the courthouse. Something to check if you go that route.
Did he take your costume too?
One thing you might be able to do is let him know that you’ll be filing a contractors lien on the property that was serviced. What this might do is put pressure on him knowing that the person that hired him is going to be upset when they find out someone put a lien on their property because he didn’t pay his bill. Assuming it’s a big business that was cleaned they would wanna take him to court. If you can find a way to present the situation to him that might motivate him to pay you
After this I will.
