stores take precautions not to bolster the law but to catch people breaking it. the contract thing is overkill. in over five years this is the first time I've had this happen. I get most of my business BECAUSE i don't operate like a corporate law firm. Its usually a man to man transaction between to business owners, ending with a handshake. If they need the corporate thing there's other shops around that can serve them better.
You got lucky. Still doing things by the handshake is very much an outdated way of thinking and it's a line of thinking that is killing another industry that I am a part of (equine).
"Contract thing" is not overkill, it's actually like the store analogy. It is "your" precaution to prevent theft or if they get caught to provide compensation.
Bottom line, if you want to continue to do just the handshake deal, then you run the risk of this happening and when it does, you just throw it in the ole bin of "cost of doing business the way you do it". Even when there are contracts present, they are still broken, every day. Some businesses find it costs them less to pay the penalty then to go through with the contract as planned. It happens, but if you don't have language as to what the parties agree to as far as "punishment" for breaking the contract (within legal reason) then there was no "meeting of the minds" and it's very hard to get anything for all that hard work.
For better or for worse, that is the way it is. That's the way that it has become. Either change with the times or the times change you.
