Between A Rock & A Hard Place: How Shoddy Work Can Cost You

I often read the shit list section and see accused sellers dig themselves into a hole here with lies and excuses. Either they think they're clever enough to get away with it or don't fully understand how doing this can end up costing them time and money, as well as wasting the time of others.

This last Saturday, I hired a landscaper named Juan who reminded me a lot of the sellers I see here who end up in the shit list section. This landscaper had a simple enough job of removing weeds from my xeriscaped yard that ended up costing him his reputation and a pretty penny due to his carelessness and attempted deceit.

You see, on Sunday, my neighbour knocked on my door asking for the contact details of my landscaper. Turns out Juan went crazy with the weed wacker and sprayed a torrent of rocks across the road, dinging and chipping the paint on four of my neighbour's cars.

My neighbour called my landscaper only for Juan to start tossing out excuses and lies including, but not limited to:

• "He doesn't service the city I live in". My neighbour called him out on this one by pointing out that he's seen him working on one of my other neighbour's yards regularly.
• "He did not use a weed wacker". He did. In fact, his reckless use of the weed wacker sent several rocks flying around my own yard, dinging my garage door, scratching my car, and hitting my poor wife in the shin while we were on the other side of the front yard relaxing.
• "The landlord (me) caused the damage". Luckily, some of my other neighbours had witnessed Juan's flippant use of the weed wacker, so I wasn't wrongfully blamed.

You can see based on his contradictions that he dug himself into a hole right from the start instead of owning up to the mistake he made. My neighbour would've been willing to go soft on him, but because he was caught telling multiple lies, my neighbour wanted him to pay for the damages.

So today, Juan came down so that my neighbour can show him the damage he caused to his cars. At this juncture, Juan has admitted to the mistake, but his reaction to the damage still isn't great, for you see he told my neighbour that "The damage [to the cars] isn't that bad" and "These things happen all the time". Neither of these comments paint him in a good light, because the damage to the cars is indeed quite bad and these things really should not (and certainly do not) happen all the time. Juan the landscaper just can't seem to properly understand the severity of the issue here.

As it turns out, the reason the landscaper was so quick to pin the blame on me, his customer, was because he did not have insurance. There's a whole other issue here on how being cheap with your business can end up costing you more if something goes wrong as well. To summarise it, some shit listed sellers here don't account for potential issues with customers by protecting themselves and their businesses, leading to legal and financial problems later on down the line.

So now, Juan has agreed to pay for the damages he's caused to the cars out of pocket to keep him out of court. All of this could've been avoided had Juan put more care into his work and didn't waste time trying to lie. What would've been an easy $160 for him is now going to cost him thousands of dollars, and now he's not going to be getting any more business from me or my neighbours in the future.

Needless to say, he's had Juan bad day...

Sadly too many Juan's on this forum

This is sad. I'm glad you found peace with Juan in such a manner. Justice mate.

The problem is that Juan may have done this 500 times and gotten away with it, in which case, it is profitable for him to continue doing it. That's why we see so many scammers who just ghost and don't care.

How a person conducts themselves in business ( Also in the Shitlists ) speaks volumes about them both as a business person but as a human being.

What may not seem to be a lot of money to one person, could potentially be the difference between paying their rent or not that month to the other party.

You get what you pay for. You hire a Juan or Tuo (2) then you risk getting shoddy workmanship. Better to hire someone "local" :0

Oh dear, Juan.

I will admit. At a younger age, I was probably just as full of shit.

Oh, how things change as we age. For the better.

SocialManager said:

The problem is that Juan may have done this 500 times and gotten away with it, in which case, it is profitable for him to continue doing it. That's why we see so many scammers who just ghost and don't care.

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My neighbour suggested something similar after Juan told him that "these things happen all the time". I think that landscaper was alluding to my neighbour that he did it before and managed to get away with it.

MisterF said:

How a person conducts themselves in business ( Also in the Shitlists ) speaks volumes about them both as a business person but as a human being.

What may not seem to be a lot of money to one person, could potentially be the difference between paying their rent or not that month to the other party.

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Exactly. Had that landscaper successfully pinned the blame on me, I could've potentially lost some of the money I had been setting aside for my wife's visas and our future moving expenses, in addition to creating tension between my neighbour and I.

IamNRE said:

You get what you pay for. You hire a Juan or Tuo (2) then you risk getting shoddy workmanship. Better to hire someone "local" :0

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Interestingly enough in this case, Juan was roughly three times as expensive as my old landscaper. The old landscaper was really cheap, but he did an immaculate job each and every time. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to reach him lately.

So, dear sellers from the shit list: Don't be a Juan! You'll regret later.

well good to know you got paid your dues, but that idiot deserved a punch in the face for harming your wife something you could have done, and something we can’t do to the sellers if they mess up here but hopefully sellers here will take a clue from this post.

Hey @Zwielicht, sorry to hear about your experience with Juan and your yard. However, your story and the name of the guy reminded me of a book I have read in my teenage years. Somehow the cover fits the story more or less - the guy in the background with the hat could be you, then you also have some rocks that lie there on a landscape, and Juan with a shiny head trying to get out of his situation with a lot of stories.

Well said!

Did you tip off ICE about Juan

@Zwielicht Very well said !! You have perfectly define relation between service provider and seller and it should be like that. I am not comfortable with the line "it happens all the time", it would be like it happens sometimes which can be adjustable who said that all the time mean the person is not serious about the work he is doing.

So question is...what legal action can be taken..for the scammer on this forum..except banning his account

TheVigilante said:

Sadly too many Juan's on this forum

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I don’t think there is at all if you look at the numbers. I’d say I spend about $500-1000 bucks a month testing services, see if they’re any good blah blah.

Maybe the odd one is pretty shite. However most are rectified quite easily if the seller fixes an issue, most do!

I have placed one shitlist which was more to shut the thread down after the seller went AWOL... I’ve had two (out of hundreds) dealt with via PM which included a mod getting involved but all sorted.

My point, this is one of the ‘safest’ forums if you play the numbers game and only use sellers with BSTs, don’t deal outside the PM systems which makes a mods job easy as the trail is just there for the taking!

Most shitlists outside of the BSTs could be massively avoided by the buyer taking the basic risk assessment

Let's just hope that guys like Juan learn from their mistakes. I'm sure that only 10% do.

Even i am agree, i worked with upwork and freelancer too but no one is there who looking after your complaints or there any section where you can define yourself for your funds or do claim on seller. I love the efforts and honest of MOD's who personally help you in everyway as the only way is proof for them which need to be legal and honest. It's easy for us to claim but hard for them to resolve as they have to listen both members conversations and then have to decide who is correct.

ThatSEO said:

I don’t think there is at all if you look at the numbers. I’d say I spend about $500-1000 bucks a month testing services, see if they’re any good blah blah.

Maybe the odd one is pretty shite. However most are rectified quite easily if the seller fixes an issue, most do!

I have placed one shitlist which was more to shut the thread down after the seller went AWOL... I’ve had two (out of hundreds) dealt with via PM which included a mod getting involved but all sorted.

My point, this is one of the ‘safest’ forums if you play the numbers game and only use sellers with BSTs, don’t deal outside the PM systems which makes a mods job easy as the trail is just there for the taking!

Most shitlists outside of the BSTs could be massively avoided by the buyer taking the basic risk assessment

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SocialManager said:

The problem is that Juan may have done this 500 times and gotten away with it, in which case, it is profitable for him to continue doing it. That's why we see so many scammers who just ghost and don't care.

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Maybe the Juan you're talking about does care more then you all think and is trying to get better at the job he does and made a mistake? He lied because of the fear and anxiety of his reputation. He will still have a family and mouths to feed, he went about it all the wrong way, I get that. It's something that happens on a daily basis. You can't just assume every person in an upstart who makes a mistake is the same as every other scammer in the world!

Eventually he did own up and if he pays for the damage and apologises with genuine remorse isn't that a good thing? Lessons learnt on both sides of the coin. He lost a few potential loyal, paying customers. He's paying for his mistakes in monetary value and probably in mind. Slating him even more when he probably already feels the shittest human on earth is a bit overkill.

VeeGeeN said:

Maybe the Juan you're talking about does care more then you all think and is trying to get better at the job he does and made a mistake? He lied because of the fear and anxiety of his reputation. He will still have a family and mouths to feed, he went about it all the wrong way, I get that. It's something that happens on a daily basis. You can't just assume every person in an upstart who makes a mistake is the same as every other scammer in the world!

Eventually he did own up and if he pays for the damage and apologises with genuine remorse isn't that a good thing? Lessons learnt on both sides of the coin. He lost a few potential loyal, paying customers. He's paying for his mistakes in monetary value and probably in mind. Slating him even more when he probably already feels the shittest human on earth is a bit overkill.

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I would understand your point of view if it wasn't for that he tried to blame it on someone else.

If someone try to blame their mistake on another person - then it's bang on site. No excuses for that