Mike, John T Dealing with someone charging stuff to you???

This seems to come up every so ofton, some one charging some thing to you without permission!!! Nut shell versions, Guy works for you and charges fuel or parts in your name. (you get bill or call from the dealer and you did not know about it) 2. You help another farmer some and he gets a shipment of fertilizer/chemicals form the supply company and it gets put on your account or bill, deliverd to other fellow. I cannot believe outfits still do this with out being paid!!! Nor do i believe it will hold water if you did not sign an agreement. GOT A FRIEND IN THIS MESS AT $16000!!! hOW WOULD YOU GUYS DEAL WITH THIS MESS.

At $16K, that doesn't sound like an accident.

16K!?
You would think salesperson would at least confirm
the order first.
The other day in the local hardware store
dressed in my "best" painting clothes the cashier "assumed" I was a contractor and asked me "what account?" If I knew of a valid account all I would have had to do was say. "ABC Construction" , scribbled Jack Black and walked out with the paint.
IDK.
Hope this gets resolved properly.
Pete

That happens all the time around here. Small SS dealer keeps his own books and drives the trucks and just leaves anybody he has to run the store. If something leaves the store they just write it on the wall. Most customers just go in every month or two and settle. works for us. I bought float trays they charged them to a neighbor and delivered them to my cousin. !?!

Call the seller and dispute the charge. Mistakes happen. If they push back ask for proof that you were the buyer and take it from there.

Investigate the circumstances. I had a dealer once that would give a customer a quote for a piece of equipment and then say: As long as you are here, just sign this quote so we remember what the figures are".

Unbeknown to the customer, they were actually signing an order. The dealer would take the order to the bank and borrow money on the "accounts receivable". The bookkeeper would make up the statements each month but the dealer would go through the statements and pull the ones that were fraudulent.

At the end of a certain month, the bookeeper needed to get in some money but the dealer wasn't there to pull the fraudulent statements. The dealer's dad told the bookkeeper to send out all of the statements. When the supposed customers got the statements, the phones didn't stop ringing for 3 days.

I had that happen with a account I have at a lumber yard.Some family members charged some materials and didn't tell me first.Got the bill and then how to go after them for the money.I now have my account set up for only my wife and myself can charge on it period.

Vito

If they didn't have approval to buy on your friends account, it's theft, plain and simple! They can plead ignorance but $16,000, they had to know it was wrong. It's no different than someone using your debit/credit card without your permission. I think the seller has some responsibility too, especially if your friend is a regular customer. A lot places won't take credit cards over the phone because of theft. There are rare occasions when a customer tries to pull a scam to get out of paying for something. Most everything is done on a computer now a days and it's common for a message to come up that says only certain people can sign for orders on a specific account or certain people can no longer sign. Another thing that's common is people come in to buy something for themselves and want the discount the company they work for gets. Sure, just get a P.O. from the company and no problem. 9 1/2 times out of 10, they don't even know the phone number or who to even ask for a P.O. If the company really wanted to help you, they'd buy it at their discount and then sell it to you at their cost.

Jocco, Well "you asked for it" so here are my free of charge (just what its worth) non researched yet still professional (based ONLY on my old hard drive memory cells lol) legal opinions.

"Nut shell versions, Guy works for you and charges fuel or parts in your name. (you get bill or call from the dealer and you did not know about it)"

This comes under the legal doctrines of Master Servant and Agency (first law course I took). heres what the "black letter law" says as I best recall: I'm sorta throwing Master Servant and Agency Law together here and thats NOT exactly all correct, but good enough for free chat board chit chat, youre welcome to take it or leave it.....

An Agent/Servant (that dude who works for you) has the authority to BIND the Principal/Employer (thats you). So if he, while acting within the scope and authority of his employment, makes a purchase of a product normally used in your business and all appears reasonable to the poor schmuk who made the sale YOU ARE PROBABLY LIABLE TO PAY FOR THE GOODS and if fraud or theft was involved, your action would be most likely (theres always exceptions Billy Bob) against the Dude NOT the store.......

2. "You help another farmer some and he gets a shipment of fertilizer/chemicals form the supply company and it gets put on your account or bill, deliverd to other fellow"

You are most likely (subject to exceptions of course) NOT liable for goods you didnt order or for those another person got the benefit from. There are laws of "unjust renrichment" or "quasi contract' where if you without notice mistakenly received goods and benefited from them, you could, however, be liable for payment.

AS ALWAYS these legal questions are likely more accurate (of course, theres always exceptions) if answered by trained competent professional Attorneys versus lay persons.

John T Country Lawyer

I have had that happen before. I now have it where all charge bills have to be signed by a certain list of people at each place.

Like the local coop, the fertilizer bills and chemical bills have to be signed by me or my sons. NO one else. Not my wife, my DIL, not a hire hand, one of us have to sign the bills. We are the ones paying so we are the ones that have to be on the tickets.

Local gas station the list includes the Grand Kids.

The tickets have to be signed!!! Had the Coop deliver some fertilizer. The driver dropped the spreader and took off with me not more than 100 feet from him when he left. I was coming to him to sign the ticket. I called the Coop and told them that I would not pay for that load if they did not bring me a ticket to sign plus my copy for my records. They did on the next load out. Not an issue then.

I had a cousin that would charge stuff to relatives accounts. He did over 20K on fertilizer and seed one spring that got charged to MY account. The Coop manager got fired over it. I refused to pay for the cousin's charges. The cousin was and is a DEAD BEAT. He finally does not farm anything now. No one will trust him enough to rent him a scoop shovel.

Your friend real should not have any issue with a charge that large. Whoever allowed the charge to happen is the one at fault. I hope your friend contested the bill as soon as he got it. If he waited then it makes it more difficult.

These issues is why some places now have no charge accounts anymore.

I closed the ones at the lumber yard and a few others. It is just easier to just pay for stuff as you go rather than have to try to remember what is what at the end of the month. Only have accounts at places we do a lot of business with.

I work in a wholesale/retail electronics supply store. We are a "one store chain" with many charge accounts along with regular customers who pay as they go. All that along with the walk in's who are what we call retail customers. We sometimes make mistakes, and sometimes the mistake is the fault of the customer.

There are the customers who assume that everyone here knows who they are and expects things charged to the correct account without telling us to do so. You know the type: If you don't know who I am you don't need to work here.

Then there are the employees who come in with the same attitude, expecting everyone there to know. You can get the drift here.

You might say that we need to ask, well, we do. I will ask if this is a charge, and they will say yes, and then pull out a credit card. Not the same kind of charge.

Then there are the ones who change jobs all the time, expecting us to know about that as well.

Of course, we have one employee who can't remember squat. He works hard and is good with customers but gets things wrong from time to time.

I know this is rambling, but most of these are honest mistakes. We have one customer who stiffed us for a bunch of parts, saying his employee never picked up the stuff. He signed the ticket with an illegible mark and we finally wrote it off. Later he admitted he got the stuff but wouldn't pay for it anyway. Solution: We quietly put his account on the retail price list and he has paid for that shortcoming several times over. No under the table thing here, we told him up front.

Prevention is best form of cure. Costs a few bucks to set up & take a few minutes time, but worth it. Go to an office supply store & get purchase order forms. Notify all suppliers in writing that no charges are to be made without a purchase order, & order number must show on all charge tickets.
When ordering by phone- this is Pete Jones, I'm sending Larry to pick up some seed, purchase order number 1362. Then describe what Larry is supposed to pick up.
Or need 10 tons fertilizer delivered, P.O. # 1385, then describe.
Certain trusted employees or family members can be allowed to carry a pad of P.O.s in their vehicle, to be filled out as needed.
For parts list which peice of equipment it is for. For lumber etc list which building project.
In your bill paying session, compare all bills with your copy of P.O.s, dispute any that don't match.
Willie

Pretty much what i thought JT Especially if you recieve benifit from the service. Also thought the seller had a duty to verify the charge was correct or allowed.

It is fast going that way, no charge accounts. I do no let anyone put stuff on my accounts and i have very few. Seems unreal to me (just what your cousin did) and some company would take his word on it.