From: BalloonsII@aol.com
Date: Thu, 20 Jul 2000 19:26:33 EDT
Subject: words of advice
To: balloondeco@balloonhq.com

I spent yesterday at small claims court about a job gone bad.  Bride comes to 
me a week before the wedding to book for 6/17/00 - I was almost booked but 
could squeeze one more in (why can't I say no?).  She told me that she would 
call me during the week with what time we could get into the community 
center.  Phone call comes - we agree between 11:30 and 12:00.  I added this 
to our already signed contract that clearly states that the facility must be 
accessible at set up time and that if it is not the customer will be 
responsible.  Get to sight at 11:50 and the place is in the worst part of 
town, all doors are locked, no cars around, wait 10-15 minutes, call the shop 
to get a message from them saying it is 10:30 (this call was from the wedding 
coordinator) where are you but no phone number was left from them.  Call 
brides phone number, got answering machine, left message on answering machine 
with my cell phone stating we would go to the next job and come back just 
call us.  Nothing from them.  A week later she calls asking where were we??  
She wants a full refund - I tell her all the balloons were blown up and ready 
to go (stayed up to 3:00am and rented a 15' truck to accommodate her job) and 
since it was her responsibility to be there she was out of luck.  Two weeks 
later a court summons appear she is suing me for 2.5 times the cost of the 
job.  Showed up for court yesterday, she is 40 minutes late -10 minutes from 
the case being dismissed she shows up.  We come to an agreement with me 
giving her a little back so we don't have to go to trial and I hear her say 
she is going to go to another court and sue me for punitive damages.  I say 
we have no agreement until she agrees that if I give her any money today this 
thing ends.  Four hours later, I have to pay her 95% of the jobs value (but 
she agreed it ended there) and a very deflated balloon artist (me).
I was told that we didn't make enough of an effort to get the job done, we 
could have gone back to the community center.  They couldn't understand about 
the 4 jobs after hers and if I kept wasting time trying to figure out where 
she was my other jobs would not get done.  And of course there was the lying 
on there end about they were there all day waiting for us, that she gave me 
her cell phone, pager number - all lies.
Well my words of advice to you all is (and offered to me from the courts of 
Ocean County New Jersey) make sure you get a phone number where the bride can 
be reached day of wedding, make sure your contracts use the verbiage with 
your set up time that 'time is of the essence', make sure you ruin the rest 
of your jobs for the day to accommodate the ones who don't show up (sorry, my 
sarcasm) and have them initial where in your contract that states they are 
responsible for accessibility to the facility.
I must say that one good thing did come of this - one of the court mediators 
ordered an $80.00 gift basket from us later on that day, I guess they didn't 
think we were all that bad.
Thanks for letting me tell me story and hope this helps one of you.
Liz Crosby, CBA
Balloons, Baskets & Bears, LLC
Toms River, NJ
US