I pit deadbeats!

The BBQ Pit
41

I think you misunderstood. It’s not suggested that you don’t let the parent(s) pick them up, but that you don’t allow them to drop their kid(s) off unless they’re paid in full to that point in time. At least that way, if they stiff you at all, they can only stiff you for the most recent, prior babysitting service, which probably won’t amount to more than $24 (at $3/hour for a full 8 hour day), rather than being out hundreds of dollars.

So, they show up with their kids, they haven’t paid for last time and refuse to do so on the spot, say “I’m sorry,” and close the door. Now the mother will have to take her kids home and cancel her plans. You can bet she won’t be pulling that shit a 2nd time. And even if it means your wife loses the “customer,” what was she really losing but a deadbeat who wouldn’t pay her anyway?

42

My impression from the OP is that his wife is running a home daycare, as he mentions multiple customers. Nobody in their right mind pays $10-$12 per hour for daycare, in my experience. That would be at least $400 per week, and for many people, that would defeat the point of working.

I had my two oldest kids in a licensed, registered home daycare for $80 per kid per week. That care provider also cared for a few other kids at the same time (three or four, and one or two who only came for an hour after school), so she made an ok living at it. If she had charged $10 an hour, multiplied by five or six kids… wow.

43

And you can always talk to your local prosecuting attorney to at least make some theft of service noises at the deadbeat client. And your deadbeat customer too for that matter.

Over the years I’ve bought a few items on eBay that were slow in delivery. I’ve always gotten amazing results when I’d call or email them and mention the sellers local prosecuting attorney by name. Easy enough to look up on the web.

44

Hey, I’m all about doing what you need to do to get by. In the words of the hippy hero Russell Simmons, “Do you.” I will, in fact, find some other evil to rail against. Like the people taking advantage of the OP.

I am gaining a grudging respect for the good natured way you are handling the feedback on your font choice, though.

/hijack over

I think this is just awful… but I’m afraid your wife’s willingness to go for so cheap probably sends the message “oh, it doesn’t matter” to some idiots. The deadbeats are certified jerks, and I think a sternly worded letter is in order on the off chance it slipped the deadbeat’s mind. Next, I’d second the debt collector service - I always thought they were the scum of the earth, but knowing that some debt collector is calling to get you and your wife’s hard-earned cash makes me rethink my plan to have them first against the wall when I’m running things…

45

I pay $1330/month, for one child for four days a week. With my normal dropoff and pickup times, it works out to $9.85/hr. Admittedly that’s in a relatively high-end center, in an expensive area, not a home daycare.

46

I haven’t noticed these issues with the default at all, on different computers and different browsers. I suspect it’s an issue with your particular setup.

(One suggestion would be to reset the default font on your browser and force the browser to use that font for viewing all pages.)

47

deleted.

48

I feel for you on the babysitting front.

My husband is the stay-at-home parent now, but I kept various kids here for many years. As a parent, I’ve always enjoyed kids and like the controlled chaos of having a houseful.

One lowlight:

The family across the street was having financial troubles and I agreed to watch their kids while the mom worked and the dad job hunted.

That dad stayed home all day until about 30 minutes before school let out and then he would take off to do who-knows-what. They finally skipped out owing me about $250.00+ that they were always bringing ‘in a couple of days’. I didn’t really expect them to pay up at that point and was concerned to watch as their financial situation became more and more dire. At least when I had the kids, I knew they were OK.

The family showed back up several weeks after their house was forclosed upon and squatted in the empty, powerless house for a while before moving on. They made it a point to avoid us. I didn’t really care about the money, but left them alone anyway.
Another lowlight:

Another couple of kids I watched for a while were such whiney brats, I actually began to dread their arrival. These kids pushed every rule (which I expected and planned for whenever new kids are added to the mix).

A week or two into watching them, I actually ran a 3 day training program on these two. Day 1 was “The Pillars of Character” (a school program that they were already familiar with, that covers kindness, caring, sharing, honesty, truthfulness, etc).

Day 2 was a game called “What Would You Do?” with scenarios and discussion about common problems we were having and how to handle them.

Day 3 was a review of the house rules. Day 3 also included a ‘terribly quiet talk’ with them to let them know what I expected from them and what they could expect from me… with the upshot being that if they couldn’t follow my rules, I would not have them back over. Discussion with the parents just got me a lot of apologies but no help or follow up.

After I quit watching them for pay, I also gave up even having them over even for ‘fun’. This was my first ever experience of meeting kids who simply would not behave and that I could not learn to like, at least on some level.

Another lowlight was the ‘nut-mother’- I believe she is bipolar with paranoid tendencies. The kids were great, but the mom made my life so miserable that I had to quit keeping the kids. She did so much stupid and crazy stuff (like not recognising her daughter had a pretty obviously broken arm and trying to just drop the kid off here!). She punished her six year old for coming over to tell me that she (the child) was home alone and scared. I was considering calling CPS on her when she finally lost custody of her children. This was a sound decision.

Oddly, she had me subpheoned for her custody case. Hot tip for those of you considering compelling someone to appear for you in a court case: Find Out What They Think First! Fortunately, I was not called to appear.

I stilll watch the 2 wonderful kids next door. They are so good I sometimes forget how easy it is to care for them and that they are not mine. I also make it a point to tell their parents how much I enjoy having them. They are a pleasure. We have kept them for 6+ years now.

49

Can you go to small claims court with this? If you file the documents and they get the letter in the mail that they are being sued by you for the bill plus your court costs, they might pay up. Might be effective, and it costs you very little, if not nothing.

50

I’m looking into it. I don’t have an attorney on retainer – I have one I can call and who’ll let me make payments, I’m not totally bereft of good advice :slight_smile: – so it’s a case of waiting for enough extra cash to get the ball rolling. And I don’t really want to stick it to this guy, at least not very publicly; as I said, I rely on word of mouth and he knows a lot of my other clients. It sucks.

ca3799, MissGypsy: you nailed it. My wife does – did? – home daycare for a few kids – never more than 5 at a time – for a few hours here and there. It’s not a lucrative business, but more of a hobby that brings in spending cash, plus, she likes kids (I hide in my office, personally :slight_smile: ). Part of it is, as I said, that she wants to help… and several of these kids parents are struggling to make ends meet to begin with; charging even minimum wage wouldn’t be feasible for them. We still have one who is up to date, but that one doesn’t need much – say five or six hours a week, tops. The rest all apparently decided that, with school out and older kids home to watch the young’uns, there’s no need for daycare any more. Fair enough. But they didn’t fucking PAY what they owed first, and have started avoiding my wife’s calls. Fuckers.

Hippy Hollow: you’re probably right, but it’s not like she advertises. Like my business, it’s all word-of-mouth; what really chaps my hide is that every one of these folks was referred to us by someone else. I don’t know why that seems to make it worse for me, but it does. It’s almost like, “Fuck, not only are you breaking MY trust, but what about the Joneses over there who referred you in the first place?” Or something. Y’know?

51

God, this reminds me of an incident that occured about a year ago. I used to work as a freelance interpreter, and one of my clients was the father of a student that went to my mother’s English school (this was back in Seoul). He paid the lower end of the standard hourly rate, and it took him over a month for him to send me my fees. I did get paid in the end.

A few months later, he asked if he could hire me for half a day, for some informal meeting with European investors or some such. I was busy at the time (and making much better money elsewhere) so I declined, but recommended the younger sister of my best friend as a substitute. He got in touch with her, she accepted the job, and everything seemed to be fine. (It was a very easy job and hiring me would have been overkill anyway, but none of their staff members spoke more than ten words of English.) She worked a total of maybe 3 hours. He owed her something like 90 dollars.

After a few weeks, my best friend mentioned to me that her sister hadn’t been paid yet, and if I could call the guy and find out what the hell was going on. I called him a few times. He reassured me that he would send the money “tomorrow.” It got to the point where my mother was dropping hints about the unpaid sum every time he came around to pick up his kids. He was always very obliging, acting surprised that she hadn’t received the money yet, promising to look into it. About three months passed, and he stopped answering his phone. His kids were still attending my mom’s school, so I suppose if I’d really wanted to push it I could have found another way to contact him, but it seemed somewhat tacky - I felt bad enough that my mom had become involved as it was.

For some reason, my best friend seemed to be somewhat accusatory of ME as well. I’m not sure why; I guess she was blaming me for introducing her sister to what amounted to a deadbeat. Well, I certainly wasn’t aware he wasn’t going to pay her. I mean, he was late paying me, but he did pay in the end. Plus her sister was still in college, and frankly with her inexperience and level of education, I had done her a favor by hooking her up with this gig. The fact that the dude was being an asshole about a freakin’ 90 dollars was not my fault.

In the end, my friend’s implicit accusations and my own vague feelings of guilt made me decide to pay the girl myself. I forked over the 90 dollars - gave it to my best friend in cash and told her to give it to her sister. She knew that it was coming out of my own pocket, yet she didn’t blink an eyelash. No thank you. Nothing. She acted like I was doing something that was expected of me. I sometimes wonder what would have happened if in the end I hadn’t paid what the deadbeat owed. Would she have cut off our friendship? (We’re still friends, although perhaps no longer what I’d call “best” friends.)

As for the asshole deadbeat, I think he moved to Australia.

52

Why would you give someone you know is a deadbeat the chance to screw over a friend? I wouldn’t have paid the $90, but I’d feel guilty as hell that I helped it happen.

53

Then they should get a nasty surprise when school starts - pay the past-due up front, or no babysitting.

54

Thanks. :slight_smile:

The fact is that when anyone responds to any post on the board, they are reading — and using for themselves — the font I use. The edit window is CSS-coded as font-family: Verdana.

:smiley:

I agree with your take on the OP as well. An awful lot of debt collection takes place on behalf of small, family-owned businesses who cannot afford to write off their past-due receivables.

55

How about a deadbeat employer?

My mother worked for a couple of years for a small start-up company of about 10 employees. She started having suspicions about their finances - little things here and there like the head of the company suggesting that a really good idea to drum up a little capital would be for the employees to all chip in some money. Then one month they were notified that in lieu of direct deposit, their paychecks would be handed out to them. Then next month the handed-out paychecks were post dated. The month after that they were post-dated and handed out four days late. The month after that, they bounced. The company claimed an administrative snaffu and ponied up the payroll. That’s when my mother looked into her 401K account and found out that her designated amount had been deducted from her paychecks for five months but not deposited to her account.
She found other employment.

When the whole thing broke open wide they found that the owner had failed to pay any of their creditors for the past 12 months. They had lost two major clients and were in the process of losing a third. I don’t think anyone knows where the money went exactly, but she’s still working on getting her 401K money.

What I can’t figure out is what makes people think they can get away with this sort of thing indefinitely? You have to know that if you quit paying people you owe that it’s going to catch up to you eventually.

56

Lottery mindset: If you just keep hanging in there and staving off creditors, a windfall will magically appear and save the day.

57

In the insurance business, we refer to this as “adverse selection”!

58

I couldn’t have afforded to work, if I had to pay that. Wages around here are low, even with college degrees. That’s one reason (of several) I don’t work outside the home now; we can’t afford daycare for three little ones.

Sofaspud, that sucks that your wife keeps getting crappy clients. We’re not all like that. We had to pull our kids from daycare unexpectedly, when my oldest got sick and couldn’t be around other kids for a month or so. We apologized, and gave her the next two weeks pay for both kids. She said nobody had ever given her notice or paid the last week, let alone two weeks in advance. I was surprised; I thought that was common courtesy.

59

The beauty of small claims court is, you don’t NEED a lawyer. You just need documentation. I had to sue someone for $4000, and he refused to pay. Getting the subpoena was enough to get him to settle, and I never had to go into the court. I think people don’t take you seriously, and don’t realize you have remedies, even as a small business owner without a lawyer or a collections agency. It’s worth looking into, anyway.

60

I’m certainly not offended by it, and indeed I customise the fonts my browser uses for several sites so I make no judgment as to your motives, but I hope you’ll accept this feedback in the spirit it’s meant, which is entirely without rancour: I, too, find it very jarring. There are a whole range of fonts that people might or might not prefer to Trebuchet, but within one page a change of fonts (regardless of the relative merits) tends to reduce readability, and draws attention to the change.

While you’re correct that Verdana is used for the text entry box, that difference was used by the page designers to draw attention to the different context of text within the entry box. To suddenly have the font associated with text entry popping out into the thread text is inconsistent with the rest of the design, which is why people’s attention gets drawn to it. I realise you think it’s a trivial thing, but it’s one of those cases where small things are disproportionately noticeable, (sort of like mouth ulcers, if you like).

Could I ask what browser you use? If it’s Firefox, Mozilla or Opera then it should be a relatively simple matter to create you a custom stylesheet that will render the SDMB in the font of your choosing, without altering other people’s experience. I’ll do it myself if you like.

Edit: apologies to the OP for continuing the hijack. Erm, fuckin’ deadbeats! :slight_smile: