Every person that ever built a life around owning their own company has had to make a lot of choices. If you have trouble making decisions quickly then work at learning to do that. It will stand you in good stead in your life as an entrepreneur. One of the choices is often to sue or not to sue.
I have watched a lot of people screw up their best chance for a good life by making a wrong decision about that issue. I have also watched destruction follow a failure to make any decision just as swiftly and certainly.
Learning when to be decisive and when to let things ride is a real asset in the game of running your own life. If you get good enough at helping the right things resolve themselves without drastic action you will only need to be decisive when it really counts.
I had an old friend, let’s call him Harry for now. Harry was a past master at not paying the bills he acquired. Harry had a lot of money but he hated paying for anything. I went on a trip with him once and watched as he ran up a bill at the hotel that seemed very substantial at the time. When it came time to check out and rejoin the real world Harry left early in the morning.
This was in the days before instant credit checks were part of the society. He had paid a bit on the bill the day we checked in and left a credit card number that had no available credit line left. When the hotel submitted the bill to the card company it was refused.
The hotel called me as I was in the same party with Harry and a couple of lady friends. They asked nicely if I knew how they could reach Harry. I gave them his phone number and forgot about the issue.
A month later I was looking at my credit card bill and found Harry’s bill on my account. I called the hotel and told them I had no interest in paying for the deadbeat’s good time. The hotel manager apologized and offered to take it off my account. Harry had apparently told him I would settle the bill for him.
Harry owed me a small batch of money by then and I thought that maybe I could collect it easier than the hotel. I made a deal with the manager for a substantial discount any time I used their hotel and left the bill on my card.
Then I called Harry and told him that his money had arrived. He said what money, in the voice that only his friends knew meant he was worried. I said that I had remembered a ten buck bet we had made, a little white lie, and that I had the cash to pay him. I told him he better come get it while it was still in my possession.
One of my best drinking buddies was a detective on the unit that investigated fraud. I told him to come over that night and we would play some cards while having a little fun with Harry. He had been burned by Harry in the past and thought it would be fun to get him back a little.
Harry came in the door and four of us were sitting there playing cards. Of course Harry wanted to join in but he needed a loan. I sent him down to the store with a check of mine and he came back ready to play. Everybody there was in on the deal. We cold decked Harry all night long. He never won a hand.
At the end of the night we all took checks from Harry for what he owed us. The amount he owed me came out to slightly more than the hotel bill and the other money he owed me. I put it in the bank and waited for it to bounce. It did.
Then I called Chuck, the detective and said, “How’s your check from Harry working out?” He told me his had bounced too. We gathered all four of the checks together and they made a total amount over the limit for larceny by check in those days.
Then Chuck took out a bench warrant for Harry’s arrest on a charge of grand larceny by issuing bad checks. We went over to his house to collect him or the money. Harry was not really happy to see us. He tried one ploy after another to get out of paying us the total amount of the checks.
That part was the most fun, Harry was really sweating. He knew Chuck didn’t love him. Finally he went to the stash he always had in his house and bought back all of the checks. Chuck tore up the warrant and we left with our money. We laughed over that one for years.
The deal I made with the hotel paid off too. I saved thousands of dollars for myself and my clients over the next several years by using that discount. That was a lot more fun than suing Harry. And I never had to pay an attorney. Don’t sue if you can avoid it. Try any other way you can think of before you do that as long as it is legal.
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