Of course. Just pointing out that to me a gift card has less value than the same amount of cash.
FWIW, most of Canada’s provinces have passed laws making it illegal for businesses to apply an expiry date to gift cards; in essence, they have the same value as the money associated with the card. In some places, you have to replace the card itself, but the money is still good. If the gift card is for a particular item/deal, and the price later goes up after some time, most provinces state that the card can still be used for the item but the cardholder simply has to pay the difference (e.g. gift card for a night in a hotel at a given price before X date).
I think the OPs friends were perfectly reasonable in their offer.
He has absolutely no right to anything other than actual and reasonable costs, the cost of phone calls and the extra time spent.
OTOH, if he’s the kind of wacko that is going to show up at their house 5 years from now, drunk, demanding his money, it may be worth the $350 to make his crazy ass happy. Then never ask him for a favor, or do business of any kind with him again.
My take on it.
He didn’t fulfill his part of the contract due to “unforseen delays”.
Unforseen ?
Or his mucking around making him late in the first place as in sitting in a diner?
Or even his not actually bothering to go there in the first place .
You have only his word for it.
Even if he is genuine he sounds like an arsehole.
This might be vaguely O/T, but I work at an auto salvage yard in Fargo. Just wondering about the part where you said they can’t junk their car here? Is there some law in Canada that forbids this? or??
Probably a law in the US that forbids selling a Canadian car there (which is what it would be if is was junked - sold to a junkyard or mechanic) without proper paperwork, etc.
Was the agreement to bring back the car? If I pay someone come to my house to pick up something, and I’m not there when they arrive, I expect to pay them. They came to my house; it’s not their fault I wasn’t there.
I’m seeing both sides of this.
If the neighbor had been able to pick up the car, would your friends have paid him $350? What were they expecting to pay for the fuel for the trip down? Is $350 in line with that?
What was the reason for the delay? Did the neighbor get a late start? Did border patrol hold him up?
If the delay was not of the neighbors doing AND the $350 is a reasonable amount for fuel for one direction of the drive, then yes, your friends owe the neighbor that. It’s not his fault that the shop didn’t leave the car out. Did your friends call the day of pickup to ensure that the car would be left outside?
Now, if I were the neighbor, I would feel rather bad about not being able to make the pickup, and I would probably have accepted the gift card and we all could have grumbled about border crossing lines and garages that don’t leave cars out.
I would like to know how he came up with the $350 figure, perhaps he charged you for fuel both ways.
He was obviously expecting payment even if he was not able to complete the job, but it’s unsure how he arrived at that amount, from what it seems it is above the agreed upon price if he did accomplish the job.
IF he picked it up, they’d pay half.
He didn’t pick it up.
Don’t forget that he was making the trip anyway; they made a mutually satisfactory agreement that they would pay for a significant portion of his trip if he could pick up their car, since he was going anyway. He still went and did his own business there, but he was not able to pick up their car, and somehow still expects them to pay for the trip he took to do his own business.
I’m not in the habit of paying for work that is not completed. Guy is just looking for free money, I’d tell him to go pound sand. Really, it was a pretty sweet deal for him in the first place, getting half his gas costs paid for on a trip he would have made anyway. Gift cards may not have been the way to go, but $75 is a nice amount to compensate him for his lost time, considering they didn’t get anything in return. Just goes to show, don’t do business with friends, family (or neighbors).
I think your friends were kind and don’t owe that guy $350. But I probably wouldn’t have given the guy restaurant gift cards, unless I knew his dietary habits. Not everyone likes to eat out. Not everyone likes to eat out at the same places. I don’t know what would have been a better gift, but I could see how a certain person (the type of person who would demand money he isn’t owed) would react negatively to a gift card.
A number of restaurant gift cards…totalling $75.00…were these just old gift cards they had no use for? That sounds very cheap on their part.
That being said, I thing the flat bed driver/neighbour is being unreasonable asking $350.00.
This is why I have dogs…some people are just jerks.
There are a number of reasons the neighbor may think he is owed money. Maybe he spent a couple of hours going out of his way to try and pick up the car. Maybe he had to take a bigger truck to take your friends car, and he had to pay for extra gas. Maybe he wouldn’t have made the trip if your friends hadn’t offered to pay for half of the fuel? He might have waited until he had more cars to bring up. He might have done it much later. He might have not made the trip at all and worked out another way to get his cars.
He could have spent a fair bit of additional time and money attempting to pick up your friends car which he did on the basis your friends were going to pay him.
What your friends should have done is gone to talk to the neighbor and try to work out a reasonable amount to pay. The neighbor might have been dick and just demanded $350 but more likely he would have either: justified the amount, asked for a lesser amount, or possibly even let it slide, especially if your friends pointed out they still have to pay hundreds to have their car towed. Instead your friends said your time and money is only worth $20 and some restaurant gift cards.
I suspect the neighbor sees your friends offer as ridiculously low (especially if he places a low value on the gift cards). He’s now coming back with an equally ridiculously high offer but would likely settle for something in the middle.
Out of curiosity do you normally need a key to get a car into neutral? You’ve also said they gave a number of gift cards. Why multiple gift cards? Were they to the same restaurant?
There are a number of reasons the neighbor may think he is owed money. Maybe he spent a couple of hours going out of his way to try and pick up the car. Maybe he had to take a bigger truck to take your friends car, and he had to pay for extra gas. Maybe he wouldn’t have made the trip if your friends hadn’t offered to pay for half of the fuel? He might have waited until he had more cars to bring up. He might have done it much later. He might have not made the trip at all and worked out another way to get his cars.
He could have spent a fair bit of additional time and money attempting to pick up your friends car which he did on the basis your friends were going to pay him.
What your friends should have done is gone to talk to the neighbor and try to work out a reasonable amount to pay. The neighbor might have been dick and just demanded $350 but more likely he would have either: justified the amount, asked for a lesser amount, or possibly even let it slide, especially if your friends pointed out they still have to pay hundreds to have their car towed. Instead your friends said your time and money is only worth $20 and some restaurant gift cards.
I suspect the neighbor sees your friends offer as ridiculously low (especially if he places a low value on the gift cards). He’s now coming back with an equally ridiculously high offer but would likely settle for something in the middle.
Out of curiosity do you normally need a key to get a car into neutral? You’ve also said they gave a number of gift cards. Why multiple gift cards? Were they to the same restaurant?
Very unlikely.
The car belonging to the OP’s friend was in Grand Forks, ND. The guy with the truck was already going to Grand Forks, ND.
Grand Forks, ND, is a town of 50,000 people and 19.2 square miles. I can’t imagine that anywhere in Grand Forks is more than 20 minutes out of the way of anywhere else, let alone two hours.
The OP tells us very clearly that his friends asked the guy if he had room on his truck to bring their car back, and the guy said yes.
Jesus, read the goddamn OP will ya?
It says very clearly that the guy was going to Grand Forks already, before he ever knew about the OP’s friends, and that when the OP found out that the guy was going, the OP called his friends and they got in touch with the guy.
Look, the OP states very clearly, in plain English, that the guy with the truck was making the trip already. There’s no ambiguity at all. You’re making wild guesses based not only on no information, but based on information that is directly contradicted by the actual fucking story told by the OP.
Even if this were true, we also learn from the OP (which you presumably have not read) that the agreement with the driver involved him bringing the car back, in return for the OP’s friend paying for his gas one way. The driver agreed to these terms, so the absolute most he has the right to expect is the cost of gas, one-way, from his place to Grand Forks.
Which the gift cards are in no way equivalent to.
There are three parties at fault here, from my POV:
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Your friend, for making an open-ended contract. “Cost of gas for one way” is way too fuzzy, especially when he’s going to add a few tons of weight on the way back. Even if he had to show receipts, guess which way an unscrupulous guy would have picked? So that was a miss on her part.
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Your friend, for offering too much to begin with. If he’s ALREADY going to Grand Rapids, and the weight of your car will only be 1/3 of the total load, then paying for gas one way is too generous. At MOST, I’d have offered to pay 1/3 of the gas plus $20 - $50 for the trouble of picking up your car. Probably, I’d have first offered him $100 if he’d pick up your car, too.
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Your friend, for not supplying a spare key to the driver. :smack:
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The tow truck driver, for not delivering the car, which I assume was an integral part of the oral contract, and still expecting to be paid anything.
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The driver, for arriving late to the garage. Had he arrived on time, when the garage was still open, he would have been able to pick up the car. At the very least, HE should have called the garage and verified that the car would be left open and with the keys under the mat.
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The garage, for promising that the car would be left open, with the keys under the mat.*
*However, they are only at fault if your friend pre-paid for their services, after which they agreed to leave the car unlocked with the key under the mat. If this is the case, then I think the garage is mainly to blame because their failure to leave the car open led the driver having to leave without the car. And I’d be calling them and giving them all kinds of hell.
However, if your friend did NOT pre-pay, then she should have given money to the tow truck driver so that he could pay the services. Because there is no way that the garage was going to release the car without payment. If this is the case, then I go back to #5, where the driver is mainly to blame because he arrived after hours.
There’s my layman’s take on the whole thing. Take it with a grain of salt.
Note that i said “absolute most.”
The one-way gas fare was supposed to be in return for actually bringing the car back. Did he bring the car back?
Maybe it was already asked, but what proof is there the guy even went to try and pick the car up? I mean, overcharging for a service he didn’t do already makes me suspicious. The OP also seems to suggest there was an agreement with the garage to leave the car open. I’d double check with the garage to see if that really was the case, if it hasn’t been done already.