How to get your money back from an unethical business
Published on November 19th, 2006
I’d like to share a story that happened to me very recently. The reason for describing it online is too many times I’ve witnessed same or similar scenario happen to people, and not just myself. You see unethical companies try to take advantage of common people all the time. And unfortunately, most of the time the outcome isn’t good – “The Man” wins, little guy gets screwed, and that’s it. But, what happened to me proves that it doesn’t always have to be that way.
As many of my fellow New Yorkers, I don’t have to face the choice of renting vs. owning – I simply don’t have enough money to own, so right now my only option is to rent (but I hope to change that soon!) So, for the last two years, I’ve been renting a studio apartment in Brooklyn’s Homecrest neighborhood. This was my first apartment after college, and when I moved out of my parents’ house, I was quite proud of that achievement, ready to start living it up like a king, partying every night, causing general debauchery and kicking it like a rock star. Unfortunately, none of that happened, but that’s material for another blog entry, called “False hopes and crushed dreams.”
The apartment itself wasn’t that bad, if you don’t count spontaneously collapsing ceiling in the bathroom, rarely having heat in the winter, constant cockroach infestation problem and a prostitute living upstairs (or at least that’s what she sounded like). It was big for one person, quiet neighborhood, close enough to subway, pretty nice overall. But – in July 2006, I and my girlfriend decided to move in together. There was one problem though – I just signed a lease extension a month ago, so if I moved out right then and there, that would be breach of contract, and the landlady would help herself to my security deposit (for those of you ignorant of what security deposit is because you never had to deal with it, consider yourselves blessed – a security deposit is one month’s rent that you give to your landlord when moving in that he’s supposed to “hold on to in case something happens.” When you move out, you’re supposed to get it back. In reality, most landlords consider it theirs and don’t want to part with it any more that they want to part ways with an arm or leg)
(my old apartment)
So, after finding a new place big enough to fit all of my girlfriend’s shoes and still leaving a small corner for me, I decided to talk nicely to my landlady, and maybe she’ll understand the situation and cooperate. That was Mistake #1. My landlady was not a nice person at all. I knew that after two years of living in my apartment, and going through hell trying to get her to fix anything when it broke – and things broke often. When the entire ceiling in the bathroom collapsed (thankfully, no one was in there at the time), she refused to fix it, avoided my calls and made life difficult for me until I told her I’m going to stop paying rent until she fixes it.
Anyway, I talked to her and explained the situation, and to my pleasant surprise, she agreed to return my deposit. Just pay your last month’s rent, she said, and I’ll send your deposit to your new address. That, of course, was Mistake #2. In case anything went wrong (and, as you can undoubtedly guess, it did), all I had was her verbal promise to me that she’ll return the money. Thinking back, I should’ve probably suggested that instead, I don’t pay my last month’s rent and she keeps my deposit - that would make it easier for both of us. Or, at least get her to sign something that says she’ll return the money. Or tape the phone conversation. ANYTHING would be better than what I did, just trusting her blindly, putting all my faith in her good word.
You all know where this is going. Three months later, I was happily living in a new place with my girlfriend-turned-fiancée, and everything in life was good – except I still didn’t have my deposit.
In those three months, I called their office almost daily. They used every tactic in the book on me. Not picking up, not returning calls, seemingly forgetting who I was once I did get through to the landlady (so I’d have to explain everything all over again), promising that the check should be there any day now – I’ve gone through it all. Throughout this ordeal, I was always very nice and polite, never raised my voice, because for some reason, I stupidly refused to believe that I was getting scammed, that these people never intended to return my money, and I kept thinking it was some kind of a big misunderstanding.
(my new apartment)
Until one day it dawned on me. I called the office, and receptionist picked up. I asked for my landlady, and surprisingly, she was in. I was getting quite happy, because I haven’t talked to her in a while. Then, the receptionist came back on the line. “I’m sorry; may I ask who is calling?” I told her, and was put on hold again. A minute later, the receptionist came back and asked – “And what’s the purpose of your call?” I calmly explained to her that it was about my deposit. After another long hold, she came back and said “I’m sorry, she can’t take your call right now, you have to call back some other time.”
Do you mean that she doesn’t want to talk to me at all, I asked in a very relaxed and casual tone of voice (while boiling with rage on the inside). “I don’t know what to tell you,” the answer came. It was obvious that those people were getting annoyed with me not getting the clue and wanted to make it extremely clear that I wasn’t getting my money.
At that point, I finally exploded and said something like “If you don’t put me through, I’m going to court right now and will file a lawsuit.” That got the landlady on the phone. “What’s your name? Is this about the garage?” She acted like she hasn’t talked to me hundred times about this, but promised to look into it, as she usually did, and call me back (which she never did)
Clearly, I was getting nowhere by being nice. I had to take action, and I started doing research on my options. The situation looked pretty bleak. I had no evidence that they promised to return the money. I talked to everyone I knew, read numerous Internet postings about similar situations, researched the documents on court website – basically, did everything that I possibly could. I even considered writing to local newspapers and TV shows … clearly, I wasn’t exactly thinking straight 100% of the time.
Then, finally, after a few weeks of fruitless searching for possible ways to solve my problem, my fiancée said “Why don’t you talk to X, he has experience dealing with exactly these kinds of situations. Plus, he’s a family member so he’ll definitely try to help you as much as he can.” After my initial embarrassment of “I talked to a hundred people and why didn’t I think of this before“, I called X and he explained to me some things that really opened my eyes and made me understand the situation a lot more. Also, to my absolute delight, the situation actually wasn’t as bad as I thought.
(my landlady)
It turns out that landlords and other companies do wicked things like this because a) it is obviously financially beneficial for them to make somebody else’s money theirs and b) because in 9 out of 10 cases, THEY GET AWAY WITH IT. I don’t think there exists an official statistic on this, but it’s true – when faced with a situation like this, 9 out of 10 people go away quietly. Faced with corporate opponent that constantly puts all kinds of obstacles in their path, 9 out of 10 people throw their towels in frustration and decide to forget about it.
However, there was good news as well. If you’re a part of those pesky 10%, and you keep bothering the opponent, not giving up and actually prove to them that you’re capable going beyond phone calls, they pay you off. Immediately. Why? Same reason they do everything else. It makes sense for them, financially. To get rid of you in the long run, it’s going to cost them more money and worries than to pay you off. As soon as they realize that, they give you the money back.
Now, before I go into more detail, I’d like to mention that I am not a lawyer and in no way should this be taken as legal advice. The laws in your country/state/city are most likely very different from mine. What I did was the right thing to do in MY particular situation, and most likely not the right thing to do in yours. So what’s the point of this posting then, you might ask? That’s a valid question. Read on.
So what X advised me to do, was to threaten them with a lawsuit. Since the amount of money I was trying to get back from them was relatively small, if I actually sued, it would be much more expensive for them to get a lawyer and go to court than to pay me off immediately. There were more details involved that I don’t want to bore you with, but basically, my strategy was this: I got a complaint form from the court and filled it out. I didn’t actually file it - instead, I faxed it to my nemesis. My fax had two pages. The completely filled out complaint was on the second page. On the first page, there was a brief letter, stating that if I don’t get my money by such-and-such date, I would file the attached complaint in court.
And wouldn’t you know what happened? I sent the fax at about 2 PM on Monday. Tuesday morning, the check arrived in a mail, with a worried phone call from my landlady whether I got it yet immediately after that. It was like magic. Let me tell you, I was one happy camper.
So what’s the purpose of me sharing this story with the world? It certainly isn’t to tell you to threaten your landlord with suing – because, again, whatever it is, your situation is different from mine. But – you should do what I did, and that is not giving up and fighting till the end. If the landlady ignored my fax, I was fully prepared to go to court, even if my chances were average at best. And don’t think it’s expensive to file a complaint – in New York State Small Claims Court, you can file a claim for less than $2,000 for about $15 (I’m not 100% sure about the numbers.) I could’ve given up at any step of the way, but if you give up, you never accomplish anything.
(Mr. X)
Some of you might cry foul and say that I was lucky – not everybody has a family member that knows what to do in situations like these. To that, I have two objections. First, I spent three months trying to get my money back. X wasn’t the first person I talked to (although he should have been.) I spent my time and efforts, and I was determined not to quit until I won. At some point along the way, it stopped being about the money (although I really needed it, having to buy an engagement ring for my girlfriend) and became about not letting the bad people get away with cheating me… about accomplishing what I started.
The second objection I have to the point that I got lucky is that you’re right, you may not have anybody like that telling you what to do – but you have me :-) And my message is pretty clear. With enough effort, passion, and persistence, you can accomplish much greater things, and you can certainly win your money back from small-time crooks who think stealing $800 is more dear to them than risking bad publicity.
So let this be a lesson to them and to everybody else who likes to cheat people. The company name is Eilat Management, and the woman in charge of it goes by “Mrs. B” (she never gives out her real name, and I think now I know why)
Next time you feel overwhelmed by the situation, like you’re facing off against the machine that you feel can’t be beaten, remember that if you’re in the right, you have to be relentless to the point of stubbornness, and never surrender until you get what you want. Once they realize that they’re dealing with someone who’s going to make their life hard (just like they’re doing to you), they’ll be quick to surrender and go take advantage of easier targets.
And now I’ve come to the primary goal that I’m trying to accomplish here. I sincerely hope that with this post, I’ve caused more people to wake up and realize that some fights are winnable. The more people fight back, the harder it will be for landlords and other people in power to do these despicable things. And, hopefully, the world will be a better place because of it.
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