Have you ever been in a situation where you tried to work out a business deal, and spent tireless hours negotiating but ended up suspicious of the other person’s motives?
You’re not alone! A recent Reddit user took to the forum petty revenge to outline the steps they took when they were wrongly left with a bill for over $10,000!
In this case, the OP (Original Poster) had to close their physical office and needed to sell off everything in it. They had a vendor whom they had to cancel a contract, resulting in a $12,000 bill.
The vendor in question had an office just down the hall, so OP approached one of their sales managers, who explained that they were planning to expand and might want OP’s office space while the space is a deal with the building, they could trade the office furniture for the bill.
Custom furniture built for the office space carrying a value much greater than the bill?
This should be a done deal, right? Wrong!
With just a few weeks to go until moving day, OP had a distinct impression that the vendor was dragging their feet intentionally. So they decided to speak to the building management about hiring their waste contractor to haul it all out.
Building management mentioned to OP that the vendor had said they might want to buy the furniture, so this had come up in conversations OP wasn’t privy to. Building management continued to ask OP if they would abandon the furniture altogether. OP confirmed this but explained that the furniture was originally going to be traded for the large bill received earlier and stated clearly that they weren’t going to pay the bill and give the vendor the furniture. Who wants to lose twice?
OP later met with the waste contractor, who sounded familiar with the situation and offered to do anything left behind at an extremely low rate…
Was there a plan in motion that OP wasn’t aware of?
It’s now two weeks before everything needs to be removed from OP’s office space, and the vendor is still giving unreliable answers to OP’s questions. Without a clear line of communication in place, OP decided that he wouldn’t get anywhere with this deal and completely disassembled all of the office furniture and piled it all up in the center of the office.
It’s clear at this point that OP had his suspicions that the vendor intended to charge OP $12,000 and take the office furniture free of charge. It took OP 5 days to complete the reverse Ikea process, and, by the sounds of it was worth every second.
Many commentators agree with OP, with one saying:
“Well done.
The only thing I might have done differently was to hold on to the nuts, bolts, and plates and offer to sell them to the vendor guy/building guy for the 12K or thereabouts.
You get paid AND own them at the same time.”
While others agree with OP’s decision but would have taken it to more extreme lengths.
“I would not have taken the furniture apart. I would have taken a hammer to it. I’m not making anyone’s job easier in these circumstances.”
OP turned in the keys and paid the waste contractor’s bill the day before the lease was up. A week later, they received a polite email from the building management asking whether they had the screws and parts to put the furniture back together.
OP responded and explained that they had brought everything home and thrown it away since the vendor had yet to follow through with their part of the deal. A few days later, the vendor called OP to ask what was left in the space. OP quickly responded that if they weren’t going to exchange the furniture for the original bill, then OP wouldn’t give it to them free of charge!
Anybody in business can benefit from understanding that “If you don’t buy it, you can’t have it for free.”
Negotiations can be tricky to navigate since you have to weigh your interests against those of the other side – What would you have done in this situation?
HIS MOTHER AND AUNT ARE BANNED FROM HIS WEDDING AFTER WHAT THEY DID TO HIS FIANCÉ
Source: Reddit