Photo documentation is your friend

[Billct2]

After 40 years of doing this I just had a new one...we were hired by a tenant in a fairly new building to do a couple wall signs, door lettering and add their name to the electric pylon directory. There was only one other wall sign on the building and what they wanted didn't match that, but it was confirmed that the landlord was OK with what they wanted and we pulled the permits. I took photos of the building, each sign location and the pylon to show the client (and zoning) how everything would look with all the specs. Job went fine and was completed on time, client liked everything. Then they send me an email from the building manager saying we had to put the pylon skirt back that we removed while doing the install or pay $2900.00 for a new one. They included photos of the sign when it was new and now. The "then" photo was obviously taken when the sign was first installed because the only name was the first tenant, a bank, and the time/temp wasn't even turned on yet, and there was dirt around the base from the footing. It shows a nice looking post cover that matches the fancy sign box Now there is only a rusty steel post.
Well I know that shortly after this sign was installed it was hit by a car, so hard the car burst into flames and driver was killed. So I explained to my customer what a "skirt" is and send my original photo of the sign. They were concerned because my photo wasn't time stamped, but I told them they had my original email with the photo and that would prove when the pic was taken. I also told them that there was no need for us to take off a post cover to apply some vinyl lettering on the sign. And I told them the story about the accident and maybe the post cover was never replaced when they put a new pole in.
Then I did quick search, the accident was 2 years ago. I looked on google earth, no cover on the post in their street view. I also found some photos taken of the building last summer that were time stamped, again, no post cover.
So WTH, either the property manager is clueless or a scam artist. But lesson learned, always document a job site in case someone claims damage of any kind.

 

[FactorDesign]

Sounds like a good time to sell them a pylon skirt for $2900 since they want it so badly.

 

[bannertime]

Yup, I can't stress this enough. Anytime we come onto a scene of an incident, we start taking photos. Especially when we are doing a take down, we take pictures of how we left the area.

About 15 years ago, one of our balloons ripped a large A/C unit off it's base on the top of a store. It hadn't rained yet, luckily, cause you could see straight down to the jewelry counter. They were coming up with some story about how we tied directly to the unit and that we did something to the balloon to cause it to flail around. I was in my early teens, but I had a digital camera with me when I went with my dad to check it out. I started taking pictures of everything. Which saved us dearly. The photos ended up showing that we did not tie to the A/C unit, but that we tie to the base underneath it. More importantly it showed a plastic bag had been blocking the intake on the blower which caused the balloon to loose shape and become a wind sail during high winds. The balloon did cause the unit to move about three feet, but at no fault of our own work, "act of god". The store's insurance ended up covering the damages. I don't remember all the details, but had I not seen the plastic bag in the pictures, the fault would have been ours.

We also get customers that call us shortly after leaving a jobsite and say that we never did install the job. First we ask them why did they sign the delivery slip before the installer left? Then we send them the photo of the job. Both times this has happened in the past two years, the customer has said we photoshopped it. After convincing them to walk outside do they come up with some excuse for why they thought it wasn't finished.