How NOT to do Business Part II

In my last blog I wrote about how I had a bad experience with a business. When I hung up the phone on Friday I thought that was the end of that bad experience. I wrote in my blog about it and called it a day. I basically filed it away and figured nothing else would come of it.

I was wrong. I'm very rarely wrong but when I am I can admit it. This afternoon around 4:30pm my office phone rings. I pick up the phone without even glancing at the phone and give my usual greeting. I'm shocked to hear the voice on the other end, "Jenny, this is "stupid guy" from "stupid company" and I'm calling because..." His because would leave you floored.

This guy decided that he wanted money for doing mock ups for me. I'm sorry but what?! Yep. He explained to me that his company only provides free art work IF they get the job and that since we chose not to go with them we owe him $300.00. Excuse me? He didn't even do any art work. My graphic designer (God bless her, always working on last minute projects for me) created all the art work, all his team did was place it on a t-shirts DIGITALLY. Drag an already made logo to an already made t-shirt and arrange the logo on the shirt. Simple. Point and click. Okay, so maybe its not THAT simple but it most certainly is not 3 hours worth of work like he claimed.

I explained to him that i felt he was just doing this because he is angry that he did not get the job. When a company calls you to ask for a quote it is your job to give them an accurate description of what they will be getting. It is your job to give them what they ask for and if you don't "win" the bid you suck it up and consider the work you did to be a cost of business. It isn't like this guy designed an entire suite of products from scratch. I provided ALL the art work, it was all done for him!! I think what gets my goat the most is the fact that the ONLY reason he wants the money for pretend artwork is because we turned him down.

Not only that but during the phone conversation he mentions that he has our credit card information on file since we worked with them last year. What? Are you threatening me? Are you basically saying that you'll run our card number with or without my consent? At that point I told him that I was disappointed with his behaviour and that I do NOT authorize him to charge our card. That I have to speak to my boss about it and then I will call him back to let him know if he can charge the card or not. He goes on to say that he would rather speak with my boss directly since he is not pleased with the way that things turned out and doesn't think that my boss made a good decision as an executive and he feels as if I'm caught in the middle.

I'm not sure what I think is more insulting, the fact that he thinks I'm slow and don't understand how business works, the the president of a multi-million dollar company is stupid and makes bad decisions as an executive, or the fact that he thinks all of us are just going to sit there and take it. I mean seriously?

I told the guy thank you for his time and I'd be back with him shortly. I hung up and sent my boss an email explaining the situation and we now have preemptively contacted MasterCard in order make sure that this particular company doesn't charge our credit card.

Again I ask, what would you do if you were caught up in this situation? Would you lose your cool in a professional environment and tell this person where to shove it? Would you ignore the situation completely?  -- I'm going to call my friend who referred me to this particular vendor and let him know that not only will I NOT do business with him but I would suggest that they stop giving him out as a recommendation. What an unprofessional person.