If you screw someone over in the business world, you better be prepared for some serious blowback.

Sounds like common sense, right?

Well, you’d think so but you know how people can be…total idiots!

Check out what happened in this story from Reddit.

Start now!

Report me for “breach of contract”? Be prepared to lose your life’s work.

“I own a construction equipment dealership, specializing in excavation gear.

The main brand I carry has dealerships “every 2 blocks”, to the point that there are over 800 in the lower 48 states alone.

They do this to keep prices down, because dealers have to compete with each other.

My story starts in 2005.

Things were good…

Business was booming, I was making 15% on all new gear, and selling it by the truck load. I was one of the largest dealers in the U.S., and I was the largest in my region.

The factory provides us with the machine, as well as accessories for it.

As a dealer, we are not allowed to sell non authorized after market accessories if the machine itself is being financed through the factory.

I had many complaints about the lowering quality in accessories made by the factory, to the point that I was no longer comfortable putting my name anywhere near it.

I asked a friend of mine that deals only in used excavators where he gets all his gear, and he introduced me to a factory in China.

Long story short, I go visit the supplier, and impressed, and from that day on only use after-market accessories.

I get around the financing issue by selling all machines with no gear, which means no quick couplers, buckets, or hydraulic thumbs, and getting that financed, then the customer has to pay cash for the accessories.

If that is an issue, I have a secondary bank that will finance them, just not at 0%.

Sounds like a win all around.

In addition to a better quality product, I now can provide a much better price.

For example, a 24″ dig bucket would typically sell for about $1,500, and we would buy it for $1,200.

I’ll now sell it for $700, and pay my man in China about $300. This of course helped me get more deals, which would have gone to other dealers.

Now instead of being able to call up another dealer and take a machine in on trade if I don’t have it, I can only get them from the factory, meaning instead of needing to hold $1,000,000-$1,500,000 of inventory, I was having to hold about double that.

At one point, I sell a machine in to the heart of another dealer’s territory, non restricted I may add, and the customer turns out to be the dealership’s owner’s neighbor.

Uh oh…

This ****** off the other dealership to no end, and he finds out where my price advantage is coming from.

His neighbor tells him that he didn’t pay for the accessories separate, and he takes this as he financed it all.

The other dealer turns me in to the factory, and implies that I’ve always used aftermarket gear, and that I’ve always financed it through the factory, neither of which are true.

He made enough waves that the factory sent people out to inventory my lot, to make sure I actually had all the machines on my lot that I claim I do, and to make sure all the accessories I claim are theirs, actually are.

They audit my sales for the past 8 or 9 years of our business relationship, and going through everything with a fine tooth comb.

The kicker? They don’t let me use any financing they offer while they’re searching for a non existent error/scam on my part.

Not doing anything wrong!

After about 2 months of having 2 or 3 men going through all of our paperwork, inspecting every signature, and calling over 150 different customers, I get the green light to keep selling, and they leave.

Unfortunately, this turns what should have been the height of the season, in to one of the worst quarters I’ve ever had.

TIME FOR THE REVENGE

In our 2008, as you may be aware, the world ended.

Things were BAD.

Dealers were getting ready to close down. I went from making 15% on the new machines to making 5%, and I went from over doubling my money on each accessory, to selling them at $100 over cost.

I’m proud to say I didn’t lose a single penny during this. I eventually had to cut back my sales staff, but we never lost a cent.

Anyway, dealers were trying to get rid of their inventory, because they didn’t want to have to pay for it when the flooring expired.

Well, flooring started expiring, and the dealers didn’t have networks in place to be able to sell them far enough, or suppliers in place to sell them cheap enough, so they were getting stuck.

At this point, I was selling everything cheep, but was still selling it, and still making at least $2,000 a sale, so I didn’t run out of flooring on a single item.

Once a dealer ran out of flooring, and couldn’t pay for their gear, the factory would be responsible for trucking it back to their distribution centers, and then they would be stuck with all the gear.

I struck a deal with the factory, and the short version is, the other dealers were now getting free extended flooring, and weren’t paying for their machines.

If I needed it, or could sell it, they would pay my shipping expense, so I could sell it.

The other dealers were mostly fine with this, because I was freeing them of hundreds of thousands of debt every month.

Well, most dealers loved this. Out of the 7 or so dealers in my area, I would only take trades from 6 of them.

He was playing hardball.

That’s right, I stuck the dealer that turned me in with every single item he had.

He tried to get me to take them, literally offering my thousands of dollars to do so, so he wouldn’t have to either pay the factory, or lose his contract with them.

Well, it came to the point that our state had about $2,500,000 worth of inventory on hand, across all 7 dealers.

Guess what? Nearly half of that was all on dealer 7, and his inability to sell them, and inability to pay for them, cost him his contract with the factory, and his dealership as a hole.

Once things started turning around, I had the chance to actually buy his location, building, land, shop, etc, but turned it down. Another dealership did buy it, and actually hired him on as a manager.

After a few months though, he got fired, as he just couldn’t close a deal anymore.”

Now let’s see what people had to say on Reddit.

This reader asked a question.

Another person chimed in.

This individual shared their thoughts.

This reader said it reminded them of a movie.

And one person was impressed!

If you mess with someone’s livelihood, you better be prepared to pay the price.

Big time.

Thought that was satisfying? Check out what this employee did when their manager refused to pay for their time while they were traveling for business.