Have you done a great job for a customer, and then later they ask you for 50% or more of their money back?

Yes, you did what you said you'd do, 5 hours later the husband calls, and yet somehow there's no other middle road other than the client saying: either give me 50% of my money or I will "yelp" you...For those who don't know "Yelp you" means I will bad review you on yelp airing out how terrible of a job and person you are...

The client was not interested in a re-do nor a re-visit immediately...I actually think I was scammed! 

Has this happened to you?
510 Comments 8.9k Views

Answers (1-10)

Let them leave a bad review so I can respond to that review and show pictures/conversations that show they were happy at completion.

Yelp is a professional extortion organization and we refuse to do any business with them. You always want to answer the complaint honestly and promptly- the one time this scenario player out with our door replacement Company the complaining client history on Yelp was nothing but extraction of cash from everyone they did business with and we were vindicated for anyone willing to look. The fact that Yelp turns a blind eye to customers using their service to extort money  is because they themselves behave that way. Yelp and bad clients can have each other. 

Wow, I hope no business ever has to go through this. But if you did, these are the steps I would take: 

  • Invite them into your office or offer to go to there home to review what the “specific reason” is that they are upset. Bring with you copies of the contract that they signed and your terms and conditions. This you could use to show what your contract says and what they signed.
  • When in person, I would greet them politely and ask them to tell you and show you what the concern/problem is. Do not mention yelp. 
  • Depending on their concern I would offer to fix, repair the work within reason and per your guidelines/ contract. Explain also that you appreciate their business and you take their concerns seriously and want them to be 100% satisfied. 
  • Good luck and I hope that no one has to go through this. 

    Gina

    We had it happen to us.  The customer loved our exterior work, then two days later, he said we left his gate open and someone stole his bike.  We had pictures of the gate closed.  He demanded some money back and threatened a bad review.  We did not give him any money back.  He did post a bad review but we provided a rebuttal and left it at that.  Accepting that you can't make everyone happy makes things a bit more tolerable.

    Business from Keller, TX
    Answered on May 8th, 2018

    I call their bluff every time. "Please feel free to conduct yourself in the way that you feel is most becoming of who you are as a person. I too will reach out to YELP! and my attorneys and conduct myself accordingly. Just a word of advice though, you signed a contract." Thank you for the opportunity to beautify and protect your Home. If your Name is strong and your reputation precedes you this is a hollow threat. 

    No thankfully. There are times that I can or have a feeling about a person or a project and don't take it on.   We have never been asked for any refund but we do have one bad review from somone we did not even do work for... so go figure.   With many, many 5 star reviews one bad review does not hurt a solid firm doing high quality work. 

    Since we offer a 100% satisfaction we've had some who were not "satisfied" even though we do walk throughs after the job is finished to make sure they are satisfied. We've had calls from even those who were "satisfied" wanting a partial refund. We do what we can. Then we usually come up with a compromise. After that, we "fire" the customer. We will not service them again. 

    The type of customer that does that,is the type that goes thru life sueing any time opportunity arises .most times they are not getting along with niegbors familyetc..I can spot someone like that many a times and will refuse service as we will be to busy...it does not matter most times in regards to quality of work. years back I bid a job to decline shortly afterwards after being informed by a neighbor that reason house was still in a frame state was due to owner not paying contractors ..this house was 3 years in process and he had a stream of different contractors adding little at a time...I was not going to be the next victim

    This has happened to us in the past, my direction with this is I will negotiate to the 50% I will take my losses and I will never do work for this customer again there are customers that are predatory this way.I have run across this maybe 6 times in last 10 years its easy to keep count because its rare. Many companies will fight this and win if they have right contract. This does not appy for bigger contract jobs like repipes remodels etc.. 

    Yes this has happened to us recently and her issues were never with the work we did it was with an HVAC company that was supposed to pull their furnace before we cleaned the ductwork.  We listened to her complaints and spoke to the technicians that were on the job and we decided that her complaints were not justified.

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