[pianotech] Looking for ideas

[pmc033 at earthlink.net]

Hi, Linda:
    You might make some excuse to return to her home and say that you need to return the action to your shop to make more repairs.  Just make up something.  Go there, pick up the action, and leave.  You can just be nice, apologize, and get out of there.  You have a right to keep it until you get paid.  It's called a "mechanic's lien".  I heard a story like this years ago, and that is what the technician did.  It worked (or so the story goes).
    Paul McCloud
    San Diego

----- Original Message ----- 
From: 
To: pianotech at ptg.org
Sent: 04/03/2009 9:18:12 PM 
Subject: [pianotech] Looking for ideas


I'm having my first experience in non-payment in my twenty-something years at this!  I have a contract the customer signed which specified a 50% deposit, 50% on completion.  I put on new hammers, and asked the customer to show me a few notes that she liked the sound of, so I would understand her concept and could make all the notes sound that way.  It was a normal, average, good Steinway sound (w/ the Abel natural felt hammers).  She wrote me a check the first time I finished the job, and I left.  She called an hour or so later to say it was just too loud, it wasn't what she wanted, and I must come back RIGHT NOW and make it softer.  So I did, but it was getting late and I told her I could make i softer but it wouldn't be even until I returned the following week.  She said to go ahead and do that.  I did.  THen she called a day or two later to say she'd stopped payment on the check and I must come the next day, Saturday (instead of in 4 days time, which was the appointment) to "fix it".  Nobody had ever stopped payment on a check to me before, and I was not happy.  But I went the next day, and worked all day on her piano.  She said it was what she wanted, that she would try it a few days and "if there was nothing wrong" she would mail me a check.  Another week goes by, no check.  Now she says ......yadda yadda yadda.

What have other done in this situation?  Looks like I got a real wacky one here.  Do I have to just sue her in Small Claims Court?
Please advise.  What happens if they award you the money in Small Claims?  How do you then collect it?
Thanks,
Linda Scott





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