Unfiltered Story #313214

Depressingly, it seems that the company I encountered pulling their scam in both the early 1990s and the early 2000s is still pulling the same tricks now.

The first encounter occurred when one of our managers came up to the accounts, and told us to watch out for an invoice for the metal rods used in a welding rig. He had had a rep come in and persuade him to order a few rods. We were a truck workshop rather than a bodyshop, so while welding was occasionally relevant, the manager had only wanted a single pack of the rods. When the delivery arrived, it was ten packs. He had phoned the company and been told the delivery was what he had ordered and they would expect payment.

Sadly for the idiots, they had left one copy of the order form with the manager, so when we disputed their invoice and they sent through the form showing a zero neatly squeezed in next to the original 1, we sent back a copy of our form without the zero. They threatened to sue, we told them to come remove the entire order, and that we would enjoy explaining the situation to a judge. They took the rods away.

A decade later, they came back around. By now, the original company I worked for had gone bust, split up, staff heading in all sorts of different directions, but myself and my boss were still working for the same section, just with different owners now. A different manager again orders, but this time the original order lists ten individual rods. What turns up this time is ten packs of fifty. So not only are they still trying their old tricks, but rather than ten times our order, it’s now fifty times as much. However, the manager had felt slightly unsure, spoken to the accounts, and we had recognised the company. The delivery is refused, and sent back. They still threaten to sue, we tell them to go ahead, and they abandon their efforts again.

It’s now another two decades later, and you can still find countless complaints, comments under their listings on business websites explaining how they behave, but presumably enough people back down and pay to make it all worthwhile. After all, if you supply fifty times whatever is ordered and only ten percent of people give in, that’s still five times better than honestly selling to them all.