What would you do in my shoes?

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martinlutherbling

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Sorry, this is a bit long.
So a few months ago I decided I wanted to get one of my knives extensively modified. I got in touch with a gentleman well known for such work. For the sake of discretion, I won't mention his name or the model of knife at this time.
At the time, the modder had a 6 month wait list (I'm exactly 3 months in as of today) and required payment in full up front. Not a big deal, we're talking about a good amount of work and his reasoning is that it's hard for him to recoup his costs after modifying someone else's property. Seems reasonable to me.
Anyway, fast forward three months and my collection is moving in a very different direction. I'm spending my money on customs and developing a clearer focus of what I want to collect, and this modified mid-tier knife doesn't fit into that anymore. So now I'm thinking I'll sell the knife and get a refund from the modder. At this point no services or goods have been tendered, and he doesn't have a 'no refunds' policy or any return policy at all posted on his site. I shot him an email and this was the reply:
"Sorry but I live week to week and have everything invested in Blade Show at the moment. That is why I ask for payment up front, to keep people that are not sure out of my books. I don't have the money for a refund at the moment. Maybe after Blade."

I want to make it clear that I've never had a knife modded or ran/worked at a business of this type before, so please excuse me if my point of view here is ignorant. I'm here for your opinions, so if my thinking is out of line feel free to let me know.
First, it seems to me a bit unprofessional to say "Hey, your money's spent and I have nothing to refund you with". I know of a few knife makers that operate like that (ie use Tuesday's order to pay for Monday's build, Wednesday's order to pay for Tuesday's build, and so on) and it seems to me an unsustainable way to run a business.
Second, his stated reason for demanding payment up front is to avoid non-payment for the services he has preformed, not to avoid people who might change their minds.
Finally, the thing that bugs me the most is "MAYBE after blade". I don't like hearing the word "maybe" when it comes to money in my pocket. If the payment was called a non refundable deposit, that would be one thing. But, again, no mention of a refund policy on the site.
Am I in the wrong here? Is it unfair of me to ask for a refund considering I'm still months away from getting any sort of work done to the knife? What should I do from here?
Thanks
 
Since you are asking... I would tell him, "nevermind about the refund," then wait the remaining 3 months and accept the modified knife I ordered.
 
Right, wrong, or somewhere in between I don't see you getting your money back. That is the trap of paying in full up front. I say go ahead and get it modded and use it or sell it.
 
It's never good to pay for stuff up front. At least you're learning that now.

At this point there's not much you can do. Maybe it's best to just wait for the knife to come back to you, then sell it.

P.S. I don't think you're logic is out of line. That "maybe" would upset me, as well.
 
Very unprofessional. Behavior like that calls into question the integrity and ethics of the maker/service provider. It also calls into question that person's willingness or ability to service the knives he has worked on in the future should they require service done.

I am all for giving knifemakers and knife modifiers the benefit of the doubt & generous leeway in terms of deadlines.

However, when money is accepted up front that knifemaker or knife modifier should be held to a much more rigorous standard of business practice. There have been too many bad experiences with service providers who accept payment up front to not do so.
 
Money up front is never good, especially 6 months in advance.

Taking money up front to live off of is a horrible business practice.

He's going to crash very soon. I would give his info out and save people the trouble. He's basically just borrowing people's money for free to live off for 6 months...
 
Interesting question. And in my opinion, no clear right or wrong.

I personally don't agree with asking for full payment up front, and I don't see anything wrong with asking for a refund if the guy hasn't actually done any work on the knife, or purchased any materials for it. But YOU CHOSE to pay in full up front. That choice was yours and you made it, so now you have to live with it.

You say the guy has no posted refund policy, but did you ask if he had a refund policy before sending him your money? That is the sort of question that a person should always ask, just like asking if the service provider offers any warranty or satisfaction "money back" guarantee on their work. As a customer, you have a responsibility to ask any questions in advance that might affect the transaction. And if you don't ask those questions, you have to accept the consequences of not asking.

In the absence of any clear and specified "contract", or terms of service, I don't think that either side in this matter can be described as completely wrong, or completely right.
 
No matter how you look at the other interested party in this deal, it will not change the fact that you are trying to justify defaulting on a contract that you made. That is on you.
 
While I am not a fan of paying up front for something that may take months to deliver, you did know that was the case up front. For better or worse, this is relatively common, though. Whether or not this is necessarily true in your exact situation, a lot of people in various industries involving building or customizing any sort of product are incurring material costs prior to actually performing the work, and they may not be able to return those materials for a refund if a customer backs out. You are essentially correct in that he is doing what my dad would call "robbing Peter to pay Paul" since he can't do the job ahead of yours without your money. Is it right? Well, I wouldn't call it a "best practice" in any line of work - a small deposit would have seemed reasonable - but it is what it is, and you agreed to it up front. So, in your position, I would go ahead and wait for the job to get done and then either sell it or sit on it for a while in case your tastes change again.

This reminds me of a situation many years ago in which I ordered a limited edition semi-custom electric guitar, back when online ordering was still a relatively new thing. It came to my attention that there were going to be delays in this particular run of instruments, and meanwhile, my tastes had changed quite a bit, to the point that I really no longer wanted the guitar I'd ordered. Well, because the dealer had already paid the manufacturer up front, he couldn't refund my money. What he offered to do instead was apply my payment to another guitar he already had in stock, so that he wasn't out anything and I got something I wanted. I still eventually sold that guitar because of my continually changing tastes, but everyone got what they needed out of the deal, and there were no bad feelings. In your case, maybe there is some other work you could have him do for the same price. If not, stick with the agreement.
 
Scurvy092 said:
Money up front is never good, especially 6 months in advance.

Taking money up front to live off of is a horrible business practice.

He's going to crash very soon. I would give his info out and save people the trouble. He's basically just borrowing people's money for free to live off for 6 months...
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I agree with this.... Having learned my lessons in the custom pool cue world. Very similar tendencies in the custom knife world and custom pool cue world as far as shady business practices go. Many are true craftsman, but terrible terrible businessmen........

Edited to add: From my experience with these types of people, it is best to wait the 3 months and stay on good terms with the customizer. If you get pushy or demanding with him, it will not end will in your favor. He holds ALL the cards at this point.
 
Interesting situation. And I agree I think with the other positions stated here.

Paying up-front is always a warning. But again, you entered knowingly into that contract. You changed your mind, not him. My thoughts might possibly change if this was well past the time promised, but at this point he is still within the framework of what you both agreed.

If it were me, I would honor the deal, take my modded knife when completed, sell if you wish and chalk it up to a lesson learned.

I have made deals in the past for things and then later had my interests change. It's part of the evolution of my collection.
 
killgar said:
Interesting question. And in my opinion, no clear right or wrong.

I personally don't agree with asking for full payment up front, and I don't see anything wrong with asking for a refund if the guy hasn't actually done any work on the knife, or purchased any materials for it. But YOU CHOSE to pay in full up front. That choice was yours and you made it, so now you have to live with it.

You say the guy has no posted refund policy, but did you ask if he had a refund policy before sending him your money? That is the sort of question that a person should always ask, just like asking if the service provider offers any warranty or satisfaction "money back" guarantee on their work. As a customer, you have a responsibility to ask any questions in advance that might affect the transaction. And if you don't ask those questions, you have to accept the consequences of not asking.

In the absence of any clear and specified "contract", or terms of service, I don't think that either side in this matter can be described as completely wrong, or completely right.
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On this point, I will say that there is definitely a contract present, though the solution to this situation still doesn't seem exactly clear.

While I agree that there are other issues in this instance, I will say that, depending on the laws of the state(s) involved in this transaction, there is almost certainly a defined and definite contract of services to be rendered here.
In any conversation, email, or other form of communication that took place between the two involved parties, the contract has it's terms defined and laid out, including payment, the nature of the services to be performed, and the time in which they are to be performed. The details of this contract would include the up-front, and full payment by the purchaser for the services, and the performance of those services to be done by the modifier at the time given (6 months later), so none of this has gone beyond the terms of the contract that has been agreed upon by both parties.

If there was no discussion of the possibility of a refund, or the potential of it being needed, then that is for the OP and the modifier to work out, and for them to come to a decision on.

While I will say that I don't necessarily agree with the business practices of the modifier in question here, I will say that you entered this contract knowing the terms, and his terms are within what can be legally done regarding this type of service (to my knowledge, in all states of the US). So far you and the modifier have both lived up to the terms stated, so if you decide to change your mind, then this is an instance of you defaulting on a contract which you agreed to, and you will have to negotiate with the modifier to see if you can reach an agreement for what should be done.

I don't think this is anyone doing anything wrong, per-say, but you will need to work it out with him to see if you can resolve it, since you entered into this agreement legally and correctly (at least from the information we have been given on the situation thus-far).

So, again, I do not want to put too much opinion about who is right or wrong in this situation, because frankly we don't have both sides of the situation, and there are too many factors and odd moral discussions that will be relevant to that. What I am going to point out is that:
1. you entered into this legally and knowingly
2. there is a contract present for this transaction
3. you (OP) are the one defaulting on this contract
4. it is entirely between you and the service provider to resolve this issue, regardless of how either of you justifies your decisions

And as for what I would do:
If this was me, I would honor the contract to the best of my abilities, because I entered into it, and this is the service-providers rightfully-earned income. I have made deals in the past that have hurt me, and may have been more than I should have spent on something, or something came up on my end that changed the situation, but as long as I am able to honor my agreement, I will. If I can't, then I make every effort to find a reasonable solution that is fair for both parties as much as possible.
 
[video=youtube;7iTqoDH0vFU]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iTqoDH0vFU[/video]
 
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Charr said:
On this point, I will say that there is definitely a contract present, though the solution to this situation still doesn't seem exactly clear.
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I wasn't saying that there wasn't a legally binding agreement between the two parties. I was pointing out that we here on this forum don't have the actual contract before us for review, nor were we privy to any communications. Therefore, we can't say exactly who is right or who is wrong. If we have no way of knowing the exact specifics of the "contract", we can't know who is or who isn't violating the terms of that "contract".

And as far as their agreement being a legally binding contract, I don't know what state the OP is in, or what state the service provider is in, or the relevant specifics of the civil laws in those states. If we don't know what states they are in, we can't know what the civil law has to say about their agreement. Different states may have different laws defining what constitutes a legally binding contract, as well as how, or when, either party is legally permitted to back out of that contract.
 
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killgar said:
I wasn't saying that there wasn't a legally binding agreement between the two parties. I was pointing out that we here on this forum don't have the actual contract before us for review, nor were we privy to any communications. Therefore, we can't say exactly who is right or who is wrong. If we have no way of knowing the exact specifics of the "contract", we can't know who is or who isn't violating the terms of that "contract".

And as far as their agreement being a legally binding contract, I don't know what state the OP is in, or what state the service provider is in, or the relevant specifics of the civil laws in those states. If we don't know what states they are in, we can't know what the civil law has to say about their agreement. Different states may have different laws defining what constitutes a legally binding contract, as well as how, or when, either party is legally permitted to back out of that contract.
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I see what you mean on the first part, and I just misunderstood you there. Not only that, but you are right.

On the second part, though, there are some general guidelines that contracts follow that are a commonality even between then different states, and there are not really that many exceptions to most of those guidelines.
According to the general rules for the formation of a legal contract that almost all states follow (I think the exception, if there is one, is Hawaii and D.C.), this is still a legally binding contract, and the detail of how it should be handled should be the same.
Now, that is not to say that there might be some laws I am not aware of (god knows there are), so there could be a law that applies to this that we don't know, but even going beyond that, all I am really trying to say is that the OP needs to work this out with the service-provider in a fair manner for both parties, because nothing that has transpired in this agreement so far (that we know of, admitadly) has been illegal, unjust, or seemed really unreasonable.

And besides, if you are ever truly in doubt of whether or not there is a legally binding contract, there are laws that all states hold that make up for that, and most of them boil down to this:
If both parties act as if there is a legally binding contract with defined terms, and there is legal grounds for there to be a legally binding contract with those same terms, then both parties are held to the terms of the contract, and should proceed with any additional steps to make the contract legally binding regarding their respective state legislature in an appropriate amount of time.

So, even if there isn't a contract strictly speaking because of some unknown law or minor requirement in one state or the other, the contract is still valid, and should still be upheld.

But again, that is not truly my point.
The OP really needs to not worry about the legality of any of this, because he entered into a business agreement, and he should either uphold it, or try to come to a fair solution for both parties, because it is not the responsibility of the service-provider in this instance to account for the default of the OP. This is what we should all do when condutcting ourselves in a business environment as much as possible, for the sake of both ourselves and the people with which we do business.
There are times when businesses will take responsibility for the default of their customers and provide a full refund without any fault on their part or obligation to do so, but that is going above and beyond what they reasonably have to do, and while it is great, it should NOT be something we as comsumers consistently expect from everyone, because not everyone is able to provide it to us for many reasons.
 
Scurvy092 said:
Money up front is never good, especially 6 months in advance.

Taking money up front to live off of is a horrible business practice.

He's going to crash very soon. I would give his info out and save people the trouble. He's basically just borrowing people's money for free to live off for 6 months...
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Maybe I am dumber than a tree stump, but why would any knife maker/modder need payment in full six months BEFORE the work is even started?

And while my denseness is dense, why would the maker/modder spend the money six months BEFORE the work is even started?

Poor business practices, yes?
 
Well, after reading your replies I decided the best thing to do is stick it out and get the work done. It's what's fair, keeps things copacetic and hell, I might end up wanting to keep it. And if I don't, then it's money in the bank.
That being said, I do think the modder' attitude is a bit unprofessional and his business practices are poor and unsustainable. That said I chose to go forward with it in the first place. Chalk it up as a learning experience.
 
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