Had a run in with my equipment rental company today.

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Chris

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In my business I rent equipment all the time. Last year I was spending in the upwards of a new car value every month on equipment just to get an idea of the money going out to them. This morning I get a call that on a Backhoe I had out on rent last week came back with a small dent in the grill. I had it rented for a week and only used it for trenching and didn't use the loader bucket for anything and it was only me that ran it. I called it off Last Thursday and they picked it up this morning. Thats when I got the call.


Here is my response to them via email. I don't deal well with petty things. They want $550 to fix the grill by pulling it off straightening it and painting it.

XXXXXXX I took a look at the pictures. I am not arguing that the small dent in the grill may have happened while I had the machine on rent but on this rental I personally ran the machine and never once used the front loader bucket for anything. We had our own equipment out there to move dirt, I have no idea how it could have happened, maybe your driver that picked it up did some damage.

I am not sure if you are just trying to get me to pay for someone to go out there and push that little dent out or if I need to send one of my guys down to push it out or what?

I am not sure if you realize what equipment is used for on jobsites. People don’t rent these things to cruise down Hollywood Blvd, we use them for what they were designed for and that is work. If this is how XXXxxxXXX works I am not sure I want to do business with a company like this.



This hits me as a surprise in that the last 20 years I have been in this business I have never been called about something like this. Sad that something like this may end a business relationship.


Now he really didn't like my comment about realizing what equipment was used for and told me it was like a slap in the face and then apologized a bunch and said he would take care of fixing it.

I told him I have no problem paying for any damage I do but first this is normal wear for a machine like this and second I didn't do it and there are no before pictures that say I did.

It really was a 30 second fix of popping the hood and pushing the expanded metal back out, no creases or anything.

In the meantime I guess he is known as a hard *** around the office and I have been getting calls all day from his coworkers that know me thanking me for the email back to him because most are too worried about business to stand up for themselves. Worst part is he CC'd everyone in the office when he sent me the email so I was nice enough to hit reply all.:D
 
That's just crazy. What kind of "manager" risks pissing off a big customer over something so petty? If you decide to take your business elsewhere I'd be sure and let someone above him in the rental company know why.

Where I come from major customers get every benefit of doubt in situations like this, and they would never be called out without a very good reason. Even if we felt the customer was in the wrong we'd eat such a small expense rather than risk losing the customer who spends big bucks with us.
 
some companies do that crap on the bigger accounts, they figure some ditsey secretary will just say,,oh ok

I ran into that with insurance, I changed insurance companies

I got a call from progressive, telling me I owed them a fiffy dollah cancellation fee.

I told the guy.

Show me my signature, on a document, agreeing to pay you $50.00 when I switch companies

never heard from him again
 
They have been calling and coming by my office more in the last week than they have in the last year. Don't want to lose that business.
 
If he's just a manager for a large national company, he was most likely trying to score points with upper mgmt, by bringing in some extra profit. But if it was his company, I'd have to say he was an idiot. How long have you been doing business with him?
 
He is a manager for a large name brand company.

I heard he likes to push people around. I don't like to be pushed around.
 
He sure missed out on a sale. I have been in the market for a new backhoe but after that I looked elsewhere and found a nice used one for much less. I was working with a different guy at the same company on the brand new unit the week before all this.
 
I'm glad you got it straightened out, Chris.

I'm also glad you didn't let Progressive push you around. There was a local insurance company here that had a scumbag lawyer write letters and send them out to people to threaten them with a lawsuit if they didn't pay a cancellation fee (which was nowhere in the agreement). My family gave notice of cancellation when they switched companies and got a letter from the lawyer. Called the lawyer (who my parents knew) and told him that he needed to stop sending those letters since it was BS. Also told the insurance company that they were full of it and they should stop lying to people. But I guess it worked for them because a lot of people were intimidated and paid. I despise bullies like that.

At least the other employees that work that that jerk at the rental company realize he's a jerk and aren't siding with him. Bad managers are some of the main reasons why good employees leave jobs.
 

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