My story of the day. School district placed an annual order in May for a bit over $1000. It's broken up into 2 parts. 1 = $1000, new items. 2 = $100ish for updates of their existing items.
$1000 worth of merchandise is delivered on June 1st, but ready on May 22, their scheduled pickup date. They are told to tell the business office to tell them they picked up the order so I can get paid. I expect to be paid in early July.
Mid-July I call the business office. Leave a VM. No response. A week or so later they finally drop off the $100 worth of stuff to update. I turn it around in a few days. Again, express how I haven't been paid and they need to reach out to the business office.
Today I follow up again, and I'm told they'll cut the check at the end of the month. The reason? They didn't tell the business office they received anything until a few days ago.
So next year when they place the order, they aren't getting 1 estimate with everything. They are getting 20 estimates where every item will require its own PO. The thing is, this is one order of many from that district so now everyone has to play by those rules because every summer they decide to hold up an order for a similar bullshit reason. They're officially on my shit list.
EDIT: Another story. Another municipality based group orders a few grand worth of stuff from me. Included is a quantity discount. They pay up front and follow all the instructions perfectly. Everything is smooth. It's going through a 3rd party vendor. I process the order and we're good to go. I should get it in 4 weeks or so. About 2-3 weeks into the process they reach out letting me know someone else wants one. I tell them sure. I'll process the order for them at the discounted price and take care of it for them. We'll figure out payment when it comes in. It's $180. So it comes in shortly after they pickup the original order and I reach out to my contact. He lets the other guy know. So for the next 3 months every few weeks I remind them it's not picked up. My contact groans and says "I'll follow-up with him". Finally I get the guy's phone number to call him directly expecting the normal response of "Oh shit I forgot. I'll get over to you right away. I'm so sorry."
Instead, I got the jerk off response. He told me he'd come in sometime this week. He pretended not to know where we were. Just basically showing all of the signs that he was going to blow us off. So I told him "I appreciate you're going to come in, but this is past due. I need a credit card." Guy acts like how dare I ask for a measly $180 and who am I to ask for his credit card. He doesn't know us. Guy makes $100k via his public pension.
So then I reach out to my contact and he's supposed to follow up, but of course, crickets. So now this whole organization has had it's name tarnished because of this jerk-off. Now, their whole organization has to be COD because I know 100% they won't step up and pay me.
