Quote Originally Posted by Dan Druff View Post
BTW in court I would tell the story a bit differently.

Frame it that they were either shady or incompetent not to realize the amount of setback required, quoted you a $5400 price and made you put down a deposit, and then raised the price to $11000 when they were told the setback was needed, and they pretended that was your fault.

Insist that they were the experts here and needed to account for this and quote you this major price variation, rather than keeping your deposit because they were too incompetent to quote you a correct price for the job.

I think there's a high chance you win this.

Something you might want to threaten the owner is that, if you beat him in court, you will make a website about the case and post a copy of the court win for everyone to see, and this will come up in a front page google search for them. (This is your legal right to do, btw.) That often scares shady small businesses into acting right. But do this over the phone, not in e-mail, or otherwise they'll just bring that e-mail to court and try to make you look like a vindicitive asshole.

What you want is for them to think that court isn't simply a freeroll for them, but that a loss in court will also result in a major hit against their rep when people google them.

But first things first. Ask them to point to exactly where in the contract it authorizes them to change the quote to $11,000, and do so via e-mail.
The website idea seems like a great one but this guy seems to have dug his heels in and ready to fight tooth and nail. Everyone I have talked to about this other well companies included can’t believe he won’t give back deposit. We are busy and really didn’t want to have to sue this crook but he leaves us no choice. My better half surly didn’t want to go this route as she has never even had a parking ticket or been in court other then jury duty