Holy crap I'm a criminal! - Page 2

I used to do a lot of these cleanups and never removed anything without a written contract.....I didn't care if it inconvenienced the client because I am not going back to prison over a load of scrap metal

Originally Posted by IdahoScrapper

Why would shorty jump the gun on property he does not yet own? He should have waited to call for a quote AFTER winning bid.

Not sure how foreclosures work, but if a person previewed it before you got there, and saw everything and happens to win the bid, will s/he expect the stuff to still be there?

My dad bought a foreclosure a few years ago. Lots of stuff left behind, including a Ford Focus in the garage. Don't know if it's the norm that buyer gets what is left behind, or if seller normally clears it out after sale, but before possession occurs.

From what I understand of the whole situation, I'd return it.

They do that sometimes so they know how much are their costs are going to be and know what all it will cost them, so they know how high to take the bid and still come out on top.

Burly,

When I was doing foreclosures for that one lady, I didnt go near the property until she provided me the paperwork showing she had full authorization to authorize me to go.

Also, when I am requested to go to a property, where the owner is not present, I make sure that they own the property.

I would have charged him for the time you and your guys wasted with cleaning everything up and then putting it back.

I guarantee you that if he wins, he will take it all and leave you the junk.

At some point taking stuff to offset the costs of providing a free quote will bite you in the a$$. Client may have been good with you doing that last week but things change and the next thing you know you have a new set of bracelets.

If I had bought that house I would Cherry Pick the good stuff before having you, the junk removal business, start work.

Bottom line...Leave it be until your cleared to start with papers in hand.

Well what happened

Originally Posted by BurlyGuys

I have something very similar that I use for ALL my one-time jobs. My repeat customers I have always had an understanding with. It would be inconvenient for them to run out to meet me at every job.

Yet you inconvenience yourself with free quotes?

Needs to be a 2 way street.

Originally Posted by newattitude

Wait, isn't a ''free quote'' free?

Is advertising ''free quotes'' for a clean out but yet, taking things for your time a wash?

If I need a new roof and I look up roofers and they say ''call us we will give you a free quote'', when they come I expect them to measure and give me a *free* quote. Its up to me if I want to accept it or not.

Your opening post makes it sound like (in my situation for example), if the roofing company came to my house to offer me a free quote, I'd have to let them take stuff from my garage to cover their ''free quote'' time.

Free is free, or, its supposed to be. No?

This goes back to the old saying of "Everyone runs their businesses different ways". Apparently, Burly's way does real well for his situations.

With these particular situations he is talking about, trust me when I say, that the client doesnt care if he takes anything. Their goal is to get it all removed, whether by free, or at a cost of some kind.

Now if this was a private individual, and not someone with junky properties, then I am sure Burly's "Free" quotes would be different.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

This goes back to the old saying of "Everyone runs their businesses different ways". Apparently, Burly's way does real well for his situations.

With these particular situations he is talking about, trust me when I say, that the client doesnt care if he takes anything. Their goal is to get it all removed, whether by free, or at a cost of some kind.

Now if this was a private individual, and not someone with junky properties, then I am sure Burly's "Free" quotes would be different.

Dead on, George.

Originally Posted by GeorgeB

They do that sometimes so they know how much are their costs are going to be and know what all it will cost them, so they know how high to take the bid and still come out on top.

That is exactly what he was doing. He just failed to share with me that this was different than the quotes I usually did for him.

Originally Posted by newattitude

Wait, isn't a ''free quote'' free?

Is advertising ''free quotes'' for a clean out but yet, taking things for your time a wash?

If I need a new roof and I look up roofers and they say ''call us we will give you a free quote'', when they come I expect them to measure and give me a *free* quote. Its up to me if I want to accept it or not.

Your opening post makes it sound like (in my situation for example), if the roofing company came to my house to offer me a free quote, I'd have to let them take stuff from my garage to cover their ''free quote'' time.

Free is free, or, its supposed to be. No?

Ah, but you are assuming I advertise free quotes, which I do not. If I drove to every quote request I could spend my life driving around to jobs I don't get, and some of those quotes are pretty distant. What I do is ask the prospect for a general description of what they have, and give them a range based on that. Sometimes they send me pictures.

If I can't give a good quote based in the information they give me, I give them a day we'll be working in their area and have my crew stop by. My drivers are well trained in quoting jobs. They will price the job and if the customer likes it we will do the job on the spot.

Originally Posted by cummins

He must be playing with his new tools, keeping us in suspense

Sorry, I was out doing jobs that I was actually getting paid for! ;-)

Okay, so here's the upshot.

I thought about it for a minute. The house is a foreclosure, so there is no real "owner" of the items. The bank doesn't want them, they are an inconvenience, and bidders aren't going to buy a house based on there being "good" crap in the house.

The longer we were there, the more likely it was that some nosy neighbor might call the cops, or that they might drive by on random patrol and stop to ask questions. Now my truck IS marked Burly Guys Junk Removal, with bright colorful graphics on the side, so the likelihood someone would report us is pretty small, and usually the reaction is "Oh thank God someone is cleaning up that eyesore." But I didn't want to have to explain myself.

If we put stuff back into the house we're going to have another half hour of exposure. In addition, would anyone believe we were putting stuff back instead of taking it out?

If we just throw stuff in the driveway we're creating a nuisance. And I wanted the stuff really badly. And I thought just close up the truck and get the heck out of here!

And then my conscience took over. Dammit.

I had the guys put everything into the garage while I went and talked to a neighbor. I gave her one of my cards and explained to her what had happened. Just so there was some kind of record of what I was doing. She began chuckling and offered to lend me her husband and her boys to load my truck and take stuff away, and said that I would be doing the neighborhood a favor.

She took my card and showed me her basement full of stuff and asked for a quote. We're going back this week to clean it out. I explained to her that I didn't want to stick around any more that day just in case some over zealous neighbor had the gendarmes on the way.

So doing the right thing actually can turn out okay. But I'm still p.o.'d about it!

My resolution is that with those regular customers I will now get at least an email with my standard disclaimer in it stating we have the right to remove materials from the property.

And shotforbrains is off my list.

And to be honest, on another day I might have made a different decision...

when your 2 years old you learn never to leave the out house till the paper work is done.

what did you taek from the neighbor