Would you take $3000 or write a Bad Google Review?

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Would you take $3000 or write a Bad Google Review?

Account Closed
Eastern Michigan · Member since 2018 · 83 posts · 144 votes

Hi All,

I need some perspective because I am fuming and I want to make the right decision.  

The Backstory: We have had a basement waterproofing company who was awful. They did both my house and a rental we have that is currently occupied with tenants. They were supposed to take 2 days for each job but repeatedly just didn't call or show up.  Every day I was told they would be there the next day, every day I had to call them (repeatedly because they don't answer their phones), only to find some new reason they couldn't/wouldn't be out that day. For reasons not worth typing I  typically obtained this information past 1 pm at the earliest and frequently later. This went on for a week and a half. Meanwhile I'm asking my tenant to stay home because someone has to be there when they are there.  My tenant bend over backwards to be sure someone would be home the whole time. It was incredibly embarrassing to repeatedly tell her that they again needed to come the "next day" and see if she could be home. 

The Discount: After the initial no call no show I wrote a pretty terrible review about them on google. The manager called me nearly immediately and offered me $2500 of the jobs (combined) to take the review down.  That seemed fair enough, since at that time they had only missed on day that they were supposed to be there. 

Fast forward a week, they have still not completed the rental and are saying they can come out on Sunday to get it done. Job was supposed to be done the previous Friday (like a week before that Sunday, not 2 days).  I tell the manager I think it would be reasonable to discuss the amount off we are getting. He agrees and says once the job is done we can talk. 

Now it's the next Friday, I'm chasing the company down to get the final inspection on the rental done and request to talk to the manager to finalize the discount we're going to get.  

The NDA:  The manager is immediately incredibly defensive, says they went above and beyond sending guys out on a Sunday to finish the job and he doesn't think any additional discount is needed since it was just an "inconvenience" for me. I pointed out that it was not above and beyond to finish a job they promised to finish the week before and it's not just an inconvenience but it affects my business as now I have created bad will with my tenants and need to compensate them for their excessive time wasted on this. 
I told him I wanted half off the job.  This sent him over the edge, he started  yelling and said he would give me $500 more off and that was it then threatened  to take away all of the discount unless I sign an NDA.  He said that the amount was "a lot of money" and he is not giving me anything else.  

Between the 2 jobs my total bill is about $25K, so I really don't feel like a total of $3000 is a lot of money, but then again when I think of what else I could buy with 3 grand it really is. 

My Dilemma: So here's my dilemma, I'm pissed and I don't like being threatened so I want to just write the terrible google review telling everyone to stay away from this company and that they pay  people to keep the bad reviews off of google. BUT... $3000 is kind of a lot of money, it would buy the cabinets in a small flip I'm doing for example. 


So BP, what would you do??

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Greg M.
Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 5k+ votes
4y

I'd have fired the company when the kept failing to show up. 

I'd take the money and remove the review. $3K  is a lot of money. Then I'd tell my tenant they should post a review about how they repeatedly stayed home and the company never showed up and should be avoided.

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  • Theresa HarrisPro Member
    Member since 2019 · 15k+ posts · 11k+ votes
    4y

    I'd find another company.  If they are willing to bribe you and then still fail to show, what does that say about the company?

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  • JD MartinBusiness Member
    Moderator
    Rock Star Extraordinaire · Northeast, TN · Member since 2015 · 10k+ posts · 16k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Ron Brady:

    @Account Closed Two thoughts.  First,if I were to share this dilemma with my wife, she would, matter of factly, say "I did not know my husband could be bought."  That resonates deeply with me.  We'd walk away from the $3,000 in a heartbeat.  Not because we can afford to walk away from that time of money and not because we are ticked off.  We would do so because we believe that our word is the most important thing and that when we say something we do it and believe it in.  Writing an accurate review, positive, negative or neutral, is for us, the only option.

    Second thought.  While we question how no one else runs their real estate investing, we have to admit that for those who wrote here that you should take the money, this is a clue as to how they think and how it differs greatly from how we think.  It helps us contextualize forum advice across a myriad of issues, which is to say that all of it amounts to the two cents of others.  For us, the framework one uses to approach any investing/business issue matters to us and we start from the above framework.  You may have already made your decision, but if not we hope this framing helps you make it.

     I was one of the people who said take the money, based on the context of the original post:

    1. She had already taken down the original review, written the day after they were a no-show for the first time and the manager called and offered $2500 to make it right. Whether you want to call it "bought" or "giving the guy another shot", the tone was set at that point.

    2. After her aggravation with the way they did business, which mostly revolved around not showing up when they said they would be there, she tried to shake them down for 50% off the job, which anyone in business would tell you is far beyond anything close to reasonable.

    3. The contractors at that point agreed to give her even more money off the job, but because of the previous take-down and shake-down likely did not trust her to keep her word not to write another review and thus wanted an NDA. In fact, if the contractor had agreed to the 50% shakedown, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

    I'm guessing, based on your post, you would have placed more value in saying "Sorry, I'm going with another contractor" on day two and writing your review than you would have valued the $2500. The original poster felt differently. In the context of understanding her acquiescence could already be purchased, the only reasonable advice is to take the $3k and not sign the NDA. That was my advice - but also that she might consider her own responsibility in this dilemma - allowing them to do the job anyway after the no-shows, wasting her tenant's time instead of her own time because she did not/could not be there in place of her tenant, writing a nasty review after the first no-show. 

    The price is immaterial in the grand scheme of things. Either you can be bought or you can't. (I've learned that most people, and most things, in life, have a sales tag - it's just determining what the amount is). What if the company offered her $30k to not do a review? $300k? $3 million? Life is too full of uncertainty and shades of grey to speak in absolutes. 

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  • Ron Brady
    Rental Property Investor · Burlington County, NJ · Member since 2019 · 540 posts · 771 votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @JD Martin:
    Originally posted by @Ron Brady:

    @Account Closed Two thoughts.  First,if I were to share this dilemma with my wife, she would, matter of factly, say "I did not know my husband could be bought."  That resonates deeply with me.  We'd walk away from the $3,000 in a heartbeat.  Not because we can afford to walk away from that time of money and not because we are ticked off.  We would do so because we believe that our word is the most important thing and that when we say something we do it and believe it in.  Writing an accurate review, positive, negative or neutral, is for us, the only option.

    Second thought.  While we question how no one else runs their real estate investing, we have to admit that for those who wrote here that you should take the money, this is a clue as to how they think and how it differs greatly from how we think.  It helps us contextualize forum advice across a myriad of issues, which is to say that all of it amounts to the two cents of others.  For us, the framework one uses to approach any investing/business issue matters to us and we start from the above framework.  You may have already made your decision, but if not we hope this framing helps you make it.

     I was one of the people who said take the money, based on the context of the original post:

    1. She had already taken down the original review, written the day after they were a no-show for the first time and the manager called and offered $2500 to make it right. Whether you want to call it "bought" or "giving the guy another shot", the tone was set at that point.

    2. After her aggravation with the way they did business, which mostly revolved around not showing up when they said they would be there, she tried to shake them down for 50% off the job, which anyone in business would tell you is far beyond anything close to reasonable.

    3. The contractors at that point agreed to give her even more money off the job, but because of the previous take-down and shake-down likely did not trust her to keep her word not to write another review and thus wanted an NDA. In fact, if the contractor had agreed to the 50% shakedown, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.

    I'm guessing, based on your post, you would have placed more value in saying "Sorry, I'm going with another contractor" on day two and writing your review than you would have valued the $2500. The original poster felt differently. In the context of understanding her acquiescence could already be purchased, the only reasonable advice is to take the $3k and not sign the NDA. That was my advice - but also that she might consider her own responsibility in this dilemma - allowing them to do the job anyway after the no-shows, wasting her tenant's time instead of her own time because she did not/could not be there in place of her tenant, writing a nasty review after the first no-show. 

    The price is immaterial in the grand scheme of things. Either you can be bought or you can't. (I've learned that most people, and most things, in life, have a sales tag - it's just determining what the amount is). What if the company offered her $30k to not do a review? $300k? $3 million? Life is too full of uncertainty and shades of grey to speak in absolutes. 

    All fair points JD! And I definitely concur that most people most of the time do have a price. That’s why I love and married my wife—she consistently asks us the tough question and bluntly. We’ve never been offered $3M so, we can’t imagine how we’d react, so we don’t judge. I’d hope we’d say no, but we cannot know that today.

    We offer no judgement on how each person invests—that’s the beauty of real estate and the free market. We would have gone back and forth with the contractor privately 3-4 times, after which we’d feel obligated to alert other potential buyers to our challenges. It’s how we do business.

    Your comments are great food for thought and continued success to you in your investing!

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  • Bud Gaffney
    Rental Property Investor · Boston, MA · Member since 2019 · 2k+ posts · 1k+ votes
    4y

    @Tiffany Roberts take the $$$!

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  • Jonathan R McLaughlin
    Rental Property Investor · Boston, Massachusetts (MA) · Member since 2016 · 2k+ posts · 2k+ votes
    4y

    @Tiffany Roberts there is no moral issue here, this is simply a legal settlement without lawyers where the parties to the settlement agree not to disparage/ hold harmless.

    It would be a real issue to take the money and then write a bad review, as some have suggested, you might very well find yourself being sued and you would be very vulnerable.

    Text of the NDA matters, personally I would agree to not writing a negative review (discount for not writing something? Awesome!) but wouldn’t agree to personal silence or non-disclosure of settlement.

    At least you want to be able to say “ we settled a dispute on this project and agreed not to have further public comment. I am not using them again”

    Do you want the settlement or not?

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  • Justin Hoggatt
    Investor · Morrison, CO · Member since 2015 · 221 posts · 177 votes
    4y

    How much do you still owe?  Maybe I missed that part, but if they haven't finished the job and you're still fighting them to get there and get it done, then the $3,000 seems like a mute point right now.  I would take the money, however, at some point the money still isn't worth it if you're still having to deal with them for weeks on end.  Sometimes it's easier to cut your losses and figure out the next best solution.  I personally wouldn't sign an NDA with this company since they sound so shady.  I would, on my own morals, take the review down if I was handed $3,000, but as others have mentioned, make sure someone else wrote another one as well.

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  • Darrell Brown
    Rental Property Investor · San Antonio, TX · Member since 2019 · 31 posts · 22 votes
    4y

    @Tiffany Roberts Hi Tiffany. I won't weigh in on the merits or demerits of your case. I am sure both sides have some points. I do think a lot of these comments sound like contractors. ;)

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  • Amanda Thompson
    Property Manager · Boise, ID · Member since 2021 · 119 posts · 48 votes
    4y

    @Tiffany Roberts ohhhhh so hard.

    I would probably write the review. My ethics would force me to. Your ethics may be different, and in no way "wrong" or sub-par to mine. But honestly the satisfaction of throwing up a middle finger to that guy on the internet would be worth it. It's not necessarily the late/no shows but the way you were treated. 100% WRONG. Businesses should not be allowed to get away with it. Make sure you put in your review that he wanted to pay you off and sign a NDA!

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  • Joe S.Pro Member
    Investor · San Antonio · Member since 2020 · 3k+ posts · 3k+ votes
    4y

    I find it unique that people are saying their ethics would compel them to write a negative review. Just stop and pause and think about that. Someone indicating that their moral compass and their ethics is leading them to write A public slander against someone that aggravated them. 



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  • Bruce WoodruffPro Member
    Contractor/Investor/Consultant · San Diego / Phoenix · Member since 2021 · 12k+ posts · 15k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Darrell Brown:

    @Tiffany Roberts Hi Tiffany. I won't weigh in on the merits or demerits of your case. I am sure both sides have some points. I do think a lot of these comments sound like contractors. ;)

    Some of us are Contractors...and  we have met customers like this before. Although I do believe the OP was mistreated, she also did certain things wrong. Yes I'm probably biased...my experience is that Contractors get screwed over by customers more than the reverse... :-)

    1Reply
  • Bruce WoodruffPro Member
    Contractor/Investor/Consultant · San Diego / Phoenix · Member since 2021 · 12k+ posts · 15k+ votes
    4y
    Originally posted by @Joe S.:

    I find it unique that people are saying their ethics would compel them to write a negative review. Just stop and pause and think about that. Someone indicating that their moral compass and their ethics is leading them to write A public slander against someone that aggravated them. 

    That's a good point, Joe....Write the review or don't but don't call it ethics.....

    2Reply
  • Mike F.
    Investor · Denver, CO · Member since 2015 · 570 posts · 521 votes
    4y

    Ethics bought for $3K.

    Sad in society a person can be bought for so little. Pay the bill, post the review. Be a good role model if you have kids or family. Whoring out your ethics for cabinets really???

    If you can't do the right thing without an incentive what does that say about you?

    Think about your experience with this company. Would you have avoided the whole terrible experience if you had read a review you wrote similar to yours prior to hiring them? How many more people will have an experience similar to yours with this company because you can be bought off? How much pain and time wasted would you have saved if this company's reviews were legitimate? This is a very tough time for many businesses to perform as they have in the past or would like to with the issues of staffing. Many businesses are having a very hard time providing their services as promised, however, the lack of communication and follow-up and explaining the situation to you shows their lack of caring about maintaining good customer service. However, they have figured out the 'game' that they can buy off many problems rather cheaply, they tested you and you took the bait.

    This is the same disgusting screw the next guy mentality like 'cash for keys' promoted by low snake in the grass 'investors'. 

    I've seen how brazen people have become, a tenant long ago who we would not renew their lease due to chronic late payments, aggressive and passive-aggressive tendencies, outright continuous lying and more, actually put me down as a reference on the application of the new place she wanted to rent. My jaw hit the floor when the new potential landlord called me up. This is the mentality of people being created by rewarding these behaviors, she was convinced I would lie to the next landlord so as not to jeopardize her leaving my property peacefully, she was convinced enough to use me as a reference believing I would pass the buck down the road and screw the next person by giving her a good reference. Unbelievable.

    Do the right thing Tiffany, you'll feel good about it later.

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