National Screw Mark Day!

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Mark
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Location: Aberdeen, SD
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Hi,

You can tell today is Monday. Either that it's national 'try and screw Mark' day! I tell ya, I was born at night, but it wasn't last night!

I manage a mobile home park that has 210 units. I just had a tenant move up from Texas and bought an old home already in the Park. On the phone I told them that they owe $260 for a deposit and partial for September.

In a couple days he stopped by the office and said he had $260 in cash. At that moment we were busy as all get-out, and wrote out the receipt. While he was still in the office, we counted the money and realized he was $100 short. He verbally acknowledged the error, apologized and said he'd be back later today or tomorrow with the other $100. OK, fine, here in South Dakota we take a persons word.

So he left, and he also left with the written cash receipt of $260. Of course he never showed back up with the extra $100. Now its time to pay October's rent, and I said we still need the $100 from last month. He said it was paid and showed me the written receipt.

About then my blood hit a boiling level. So I reminded them of the details of his last visit, which he of course denied everything. I said we made an error -- an honest error by giving you a receipt for the wrong amount. They didn't seem to care. Then I really lost it . . .

I said I don't know what its like where you come from, but I said out here in the sticks of South Dakota, a persons words and actions mean more than what's written on paper. If you've come to our town to try and screw people, then you won't last very long around here.

Of course I couldn't shut-up there. I then said you seem to have shown your true colors, and I don't like them. If you want to enforce this written receipt, that's fine. It's legally binding. I then said I will cancel your lease with us, and you'll have 30 days to move your home to another court (all our leases are month-to-month cancellable for any reason by either party with a 30-day notice). I said I do not desire tenants who will screw you at any chance they get.

So I finally shut-up. They said they'd get back to me. The husband was the one who came in with the cash, but this time the wife did most of the talking. I'm betting the husband pocketed the $100 and hoping he could first double it at the local casino, then come back to pay me. Then when he lost it, he showed his wife the receipt and lied about the visit. Ggggrrrr.

Now another incident of trying to screw Mark. I sold a furnace pressure switch to a person from our website. After they received the switch, he writes and says he now doesn't need it, so wants to return it. Fine, we take returns as long as it wasn't installed and its in the original packaging. Well, he returns his old defective switch hoping we wouldn't notice and give him a refund! Not only could an 8-year-old tell it was installed, but the switches we send have a different manufacturer number on them.

I tell ya, some people.

Anyone else get screwed or about get screwed recently?

Mark
You can't fail if you don't try!
troyster
Posts: 166
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:42 pm
Location: terrace bc

Didn't get the shaft lately, but I did sell some electronics to a friends friend who said he could only pay by personal cheque. I was reluctant but seeing he was a friend of my friend I gave in and accepted the cheque. When I took the cheque too his bank to cash it, there was insufficient funds too cover it. Talking too the teller it seems this guy was well known at the bank for writing a lot of cheques and bouncing them. Seems he brings his pay cheque too another bank to cash and uses this bank for writing his cheques. Grrr. was out $200 but a lot wiser after that.
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Greg
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Or, like doing service calls on weekends for the park owner in exchange for rent, and then getting a nonpayment of rent notice? Greg
"If I can't fix it, I can screw it up so bad no one else can either."
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Mark
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Here in South Dakota we now have a law that if you pay for items with a bad check, you can be charged with a crime. Didn't use to be that way. However, that doesn't apply when writing a check to pay lot rent . . . .

It's amazing that banks even allow people like that to have accounts. I guess as long as he keeps paying his bounced-checked fees, he's a profitable customer!

Mark
You can't fail if you don't try!
lefties
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Joined: Tue Feb 27, 2007 1:48 pm
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Now thats what you get with the high crime rate of brown county!!!!
1997 commodore repo-1450 sq ft.
Ketta

Sorry, Mark. For both the flaky new tenant and the switch swapping bastid. I have done all I can to avoid working in retail because of people like that. From returned 'gift' microwaves in 'new' boxes which turn out to be carefully re-packaged with old mirowaves that the customers never even bothered to CLEAN (the smell coming from a 'new' box was a big clue), to a woman who bought a few yards of fabric at the store I work at (in the warehouse) two years ago and brought it back recently --in the form of ruffled curtains-- because 'it faded'. Well you stupid cow, that's what happens when you put up curtains without lining in a south-facing window.

I don't want to hate people or the things they do, so I avoid contact for the most part.

For some reason the guy returning his faulty switch sets me off more than the receipt-waving flake. I hope he reads the forums. Heh heh.



*digs a hole and hides in it*
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Yanita
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Ketta, sorry I had to edit the last couple lines of your post....

Yanita
The difference between success and failure is who gives up first!
troyster
Posts: 166
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:42 pm
Location: terrace bc

Ketta, that reminds me of a Black & Decker weed eater I bought at Wal-Mart 2 years ago. When I bought it home and opened it up it had grass all over it. not good for a supposedly new weed snipper. Needless too say it was returned promptly. It seems there are people out there who will buy a weed eater or lawn mower to cut their grass then return for a refund then go to another store when time to cut again. pretty sad.
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Mark
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A friend of mine who use to be in real estate on the west coast thinks I was scammed and that I should report the incident to the police.

To me it don't make a lot of sense as to why you'd scam the place where you intend to make your home, unless they plan to pull a few more scams and leave quickly. Supposively they bought for cash the old home they moved into. So they do have an investment, unless the cash for the home came from another scam.

Anyway, my guard is up with these people as its all still shaking out.

Mark
You can't fail if you don't try!
troyster
Posts: 166
Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 5:42 pm
Location: terrace bc

The old saying locks are for keeping honest people out. I have a big laugh when I go to Wally World and those stupid alarms go off when someone walks out the doors with an paid item that wasn't scanned properly, but if you look around the toy section you will see empty boxes, where the kids have taken the toy out of the box so when they walk out with it the scanner doesn't go off. Its ironic that honest people are inconvenienced and have to produce a receipt and return too the checkout to reswipe the item while the thief walks out without setting off the alarm. and a friend who works there said there are more thefts from staff then there are from the customers. I recently tried to get a Nintendo Wii put on lay away but they wouldn't do it because if they take it out of the locked show cases and put it in the lay away dept , they are worried their own employees will rip it off.
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JD
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Being in business as long as you have, I am sure you have seen these types before. I know I have. But those are a couple of doozies to happen in one day like that.

This guy with the check must be an idiot! He has to live there and you are the park manager! For a hundred bucks, he will have to live a perfect life over there. And when word gets around the park, who will he sit with at the potluck? This is what he did, let him wear it like a like a sign.
☯JD♫
Today is PERFECT!

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Mark
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Here in South Dakota, it use to be you could just write a bad check at a store and take all the stuff you wanted. So why steal or remove tags when you could legally walk-out the front door and be untouched by the law! Luckily that law has changed. Now you can get charged with theft by bad check, or whatever they call it. Pretty serious stuff now.

I worked in retail management after college, so I definitely have my share of stories about merchandise being stolen. Catching an employee stealing gave ya an extra rush!

As for those security tags, they are pretty much a joke. When they do go off, the person at the door assumes you paid for the item and just waves you on through.

Plus there's a very simple way in which anyone can deactive (or reactivate) those tags, which I'll never publically reveal on the internet. I once privately showed that trick to a local store manager, and his eyebrows hit the ceiling. He hoped that his employees (or customers) would never learn of that trick.
Mark
You can't fail if you don't try!
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Harry
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Joined: Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:45 pm
Location: Citrus county Florida

Yep...Lots of villans in the world...that's for sure. Must be in our DNA.

Sometimes I feel like a screw magnet.

Harry
Aside from the roof leak, soft floors, rats, mice and bursted plumbing ........ how do you like it?
ImaDufus

troyster wrote:Didn't get the shaft lately, but I did sell some electronics to a friends friend who said he could only pay by personal cheque. I was reluctant but seeing he was a friend of my friend I gave in and accepted the cheque. When I took the cheque too his bank to cash it, there was insufficient funds too cover it. Talking too the teller it seems this guy was well known at the bank for writing a lot of cheques and bouncing them. Seems he brings his pay cheque too another bank to cash and uses this bank for writing his cheques. Grrr. was out $200 but a lot wiser after that.
In our part of the world if a person does this repeatedly one can take the check to the sheriff's office and have it "protested." The sheriff sends someone out to talk to the check-writer about bouncing checks and penalties for such action. The offender makes the check good or he can talk to the judge.

If he is a friend that is one thing. But if he KNOWINGLY passed you a worthless check his friendship isn't worth having. Once people find out that passing worthless checks is a serious offense they sometimes get themselves straightened out.

Our society is based on trust. I take your check and you take mine. We have to trust each other. 99.9 of people are honest. The ones that think they can play the system and get away with it need to be taught a lesson.
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