Legal advise - item damaged during alteration

[mr monty]

Originally Posted by shoe

my God, this is a horrid story. i wish you the best of luck on trying to recoup damages on this.
no record, nothing in writing, do you have receipt of how much you paid for the belt , and do you have proof of how it looked like previous to handing it to him?

Even with a receipt and proof (e.g. photo) of how it previously looked. He has no proof of what the finished product was supposed to look like.

 

[Concordia]

I bet there's a judge in DC who would be willing to hear this case.

 

[sho'nuff]

Originally Posted by edmorel

I'll tell you what, that artisan wouldn't pull that crap on Chuck Norris.

no way. would you want a spinning roundhouse kick to your head? Chuck's specialty.

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by Minkous

If taking the matter to the courts is not an option or you simply dont wish to go that route. Recommend to him that he either pays for your trouble or you wish to report him to the better business beaurea. I know my parents have used the better business beaurea as a form of leverage in certain cases.

I'd recommend the BBB as well. If there is enough left over, then get him to pay for someone else to do it properly. If you dont have a picture or something for him to follow, then it is tough love if it turned out differently than you thought. This is one reason why I probably won't ever go bespoke again, there are just too many things that can go wrong. But if the work itself is even bad, then that is unacceptable.

I've watched People's Court and this guy took an exotic skinned weekend wallet to a local shoe repair owned by foreigners. The thing came out looking like absolute ****. Like it was like a 2 year old tried to fix it when all that needed to be done was restitch one of the seams, basically a straight line for 4". The judge ruled in favor of the cobbler because the guy brought something that wasn't worth anything and gave him something that wasn't worth anything.

 

[dokelroth]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

I've watched People's Court and this guy took an exotic skinned weekend wallet to a local shoe repair owned by foreigners. The thing came out looking like absolute ****. Like it was like a 2 year old tried to fix it when all that needed to be done was restitch one of the seams, basically a straight line for 4". The judge ruled in favor of the cobbler because the guy brought something that wasn't worth anything and gave him something that wasn't worth anything.

Two questions:

1. Do you realize he is in Germany and likely the BBB is not?
2. When is your next Aryan Nation meeting?

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by dokelroth

Two questions:

1. Do you realize he is in Germany and likely the BBB is not?
2. When is your next Aryan Nation meeting?

The foreigners did not speak English, so I dunno what the guy was thinking taking it to them. I missed the part about him being in Germany. Aryan Nation meeting is scheduled for Berlin next month, maybe I can advise him personally once I'm out there.

 

[HomerJ]

Originally Posted by Concordia

I bet there's a judge in DC who would be willing to hear this case.

If a pair of pants are worth $54M, imagine the damages for a crocodile Hermes.

 

[Joel_Cairo]

Originally Posted by tiecollector

Aryan Nation meeting is scheduled for Berlin next month, maybe I can advise him personally once I'm out there.
Unlikely. Neo-nazi activity in Germany is incredibly tightly verboten (its illegal to display a swastika or sell Mein Kampf; you can be arrested for greeting a friend with too stiff a wave of your hand; most german language antisemitic websites are actually hosted in the US because of our whole 1st amendment thing), and if you were going to a meeting there, it certainly wouildn't be in Berlin, the liberalest city eva (Hitler famously quipped that "Berliners are not worthy of being called Germans"). It'd probably be in a depressed ex-DDR spot, like Dresden or something.

 

[cbsteven]

Sorry for the tangent, but as a business owner, I always have to snicker a bit when someone suggests going to the BBB as a means of recourse. They're a toothless organization. All they can really do is lower a companies score on their own ratings system. This would only matter if consumers checked a BBB score before doing business with a company, which the vast majority simply do not.

When a customer feels that I screwed up and wants to force a refund or get back at me, the two tactics I fear most are taking it up with their credit card company, or badmouthing us on internet forums.

 

[grimslade]

Stilmacher, aren't you in either Paris or Germany? As someone already pointed out, in Europe you're pretty much screwed.

Needless to say, you have all my sympathy, although if I were bringing a $3000 belt to someone to have them do extensive work on it, I would like to think that I would have taken more than the usual precautions to ensure that the work was done correctly.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by Joel_Cairo

Ok, that makes sense to me.

But, for the sake of argument, what if you know with 100% certainty that the second time around, the craftsmanship will be superior? Would you object to, say, a visionary sculptor using shopping-carts as a raw material? I guess my question is where you draw the line. Is this an absolutist "preservation of anything that has been designed and produced in the past" principle?

No, my position is predicated on the fact that the item in question fits certain criteria. Shopping carts and things of that sort really don't fulfill any esthetic canon whereas say, 19th century jewelry or a medieval book does.

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by mr monty

Oh! Like cows were intended to be shoes?

I've no qualms about using animal products.

 

[HomerJ]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

I've no qualms about using animal products.
I think that's been well established. You sort of remind me of

 

[LabelKing]

Originally Posted by HomerJ

I think that's been well established. You sort of remind me of

On that point, Stilmacher, do you have any sea turtle-skin items?

 

[stilmacher]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

On that point, Stilmacher, do you have any sea turtle-skin items?

No, I don't - only my tortoise frames.