party_pants said:

Kingy said:

Anyway, I have a problem. No, not that one.

In June I rang company A and ordered two pallets of (product) for a job, and paid for two pallets.

Company A rang back a week later and said that they had arrived.

I sent my operator in to collect the product. Unbeknown to me, Company A’s forklift driver loaded two (and a half) pallets onto the truck.

He went to the job and began using it. The client saw that there was leftover product that she “had paid for” and wanted extra area covered which operator did.

Operator rang me and said that there was more leftover. I went to site and saw the half pallet left over, and a bit confused, assumed that I had got the measurements wrong(it’s a weird shape). I still did not know that Company A had loaded extra onto the truck.

Operator loaded the leftover onto the truck and returned it to the depot.

6 weeks later, I get a bill from Company A for the half pallet that I didn’t order, didn’t want, and didn’t know I had.

After a few phone calls to find out WTF was going on, Company A tells me that they were missing half a pallet, looked back through their security cameras to see it being loaded onto my truck, and sent me a bill for it.

Now that I understood why I had leftover, I got my operator to load it on the truck and return it.

They sent me a new bill for what they thought was in the pallet, minus what was in it when returned.

After a few more emails and visits to the store to explain my side, they still expect me to pay for their fuckup.

They asked me to get the client to pay for the extra product. I spoke to her personally today, and it’s a hard no.

I’m already out of pocket because I paid my operator & machine for 6 hours laying the extra product, that I didn’t have in my quote, and didn’t get paid for.

Should I invoice Company A an equivalent amount to their extra invoice, for the extra costs to me?

6 weeks later

It all comes down to relationships and goodwill. Do you need to have an ongoing relationship with this supplier on an ongoing basis in the future?

We had an issue a few weeks back with our skip bin company. They charged us for being 400 kg overweight. We disputed this, the bin collection that day was nothing out of the ordinary. After a bit of back and forth they reckoned their automatic bin weighing and logging system is fool-proof. Anyway, we ended up paying it just to keep the peace. We need these guys on an ongoing basis, and they are the cheapest option. Switching to another supplier is going to cost more anyway.