When running a business you will always have competition, but ideally, it will be friendly competition where everyone gets along.

What would you do if you sent a competitor a job that you couldn’t handle, but they refused to pay you the standard finders fee for it?

That is what happened to the roofing contractor in this story, so when another big job came up he made sure his competitor lost out big time.

Check it out.

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, I’ll bury you.

Background: I work for a very large roofing company, and in this particular region, there are only 3 companies that are considered when it comes to larger commercial projects (ie apartment complexes, condos, etc) and my company is one of them.

We all had worked the region as friendly competitors so much so that up to this point, if one of us landed a large deal but didn’t have the time to complete it, we would hand it off to one of the other two in good faith.

Be paid a “finders fee” based off the cost of the total job, and the cycle would continue.

That is until the following incident went down.

2 years ago I got a contract for a commercial metal building but did not have the crews to spare for this project.

I called the owner of one the other two companies (let’s call him Mr. D) that I previously mentioned could handle this and referred him the deal, which he graciously accepted.

That’s a nice windfall.

My finders fee here would have been about $40k.

A pretty hefty chunk of change, but he probably made 5x that in profit.

He never paid me this.

I tried calling him dozens of times to get paid, but he was now dodging me.

What a jerk.

Eventually my number and email were blocked from calling his phone, office, and both work and personal emails.

Ok, if that’s how you want to be, two can play this game.

Fast forward a couple months and there was a massive storm that damaged a HUGE condo complex.

I’m talking several hundred units.

At this particular complex, the HOA Board made the decision on what company would be selected to do the work.

I knew several members and they knew of my work, so I was called in to assist with the adjustment from the insurance company and make sure they were taken care of under the assumption that I would get the contract for this deal.

I met the adjuster on site who knew me and my company very well as we had been working the same market for nearly a decade at this point.

He and I tag teamed the Adjustment to speed it along and he also used my knowledge to help him understand what all needed to be covered.

(He primarily did flood damage claims, so wasn’t the most knowledgeable about roofing, thus he deferred to me for my expertise quite often when it came to these claims, especially pricing. This comes into play later!)

We finish the adjustment after 2 full days on site and the adjuster heads off to go work on the estimate which he will have in about a week.

At this time, Mr. D from the previously mentioned company finds out about this property and tries to finagle his way into getting the contract.

Turns out, he knew the President of the HOA through some mutual friends.

Mr. D bribed the President with a cruise to the Caribbean and a free new roof on his sons home to try and get the deal.

Now the entire board aside from the the President was backing me at this point and wanted me to do the work, but the dude just wasn’t having it.

I was forwarded an internal email chain from one of the friendly board members where Mr. President flat out replied “I DON’T CARE, I WILL NOT LET **** **** DO OUR ROOFS!”

At this point the other board members could easily out vote him and just give the job to me, and he knows this and tells Mr. D.

So what does Mr. D do in all his infinite wisdom?

He is taking a big risk here.

Well he decided to buy alllllll the material needed for the project, has it delivered, and has a crew start tearing off a roof WITHOUT A SIGNED CONTRACT.

He did this knowing it would force the boards hand and they’d have to use him, solidifying him as the contractor.

Ok so I lost the deal, but where does my revenge and deliciously evil compliance come in you ask?

Well, remember when I said we were all waiting for the adjuster to write the estimate?

We were about to get it.

Now anyone who has ever dealt with an insurance claim knows the insurance company alwaysssss underpays the first time around.

Just how it is.

You then deny acceptance of their price, send in your estimate, and negotiate.

That is unless you agree to their estimate up front.

So the day before Mr. D pulls his stunt, I get an email from the adjuster (who is completely unaware of what is transpiring) with his first draft of the estimate.

As per usual, he sends it asking me to review it and see if the pricing is right.

Oh boy was it NOT!

This project should have cost anywhere between $500-600k, his estimate was for $240k.

*Fun fact: If a capable contractor and the customer agree to an insurance estimate, it makes it nearly impossible to ask for more money down the road since the customer AND the person able to the work agreed to the original price.

I think you already know where this is going…I replied back “YUP! Looks good! Cut the check and send it to the HOA!”

So I went to the HOA the following day and gave them the insurance estimate, told them they just had to call the adjuster and confirm they also approved it (they did exactly that), wished them the best of luck, and to give this to Mr. D as he will need to get that contract finally signed for that price.

I didn’t put up a fight, I didn’t argue or try to get the deal back.

I simply went in knowing I was no longer getting the deal and would have to accept that. Hehe

Poof, I disappeared into the wind to let my plan play itself out.

If Mr. D didn’t have a contract, why did he do the work?

I found of a few months later from my friends on that board that Mr. D went absolutely crazy when they gave him the agreed upon price.

He tried calling the adjuster and getting a new price set, but the adjuster just replied that if he couldn’t do it for that price, I was more than able to.

He knew he was screwed because he’d already committed himself to reroofing that entire complex no matter what!

He lost about $100k on that project based on my calculations.

On top of that, he tried to cut every corner imaginable to get his costs down and ended up doing an absolutely terrible job.

Adding insult to injury.

So terrible that the HOA is now suing him for not standing behind his work as numerous leaks have sprung up, and some of the work is so shoddy it can be seen from the street and he is refusing to pay for it or come back and correct anything.

He would have better off to just do the project properly, eat the loss (his company was large enough they could eat it and not go under), and walk away tail between his legs.

He is not not smart enough to come to this conclusion as I found out.

So there you have it.

You try to be stingy and bite my hand that fed you, then come back for seconds, I will bury you.

Occasionally I feel bad knowing his company couldn’t even get a contract for a chicken coop at this point, but then I remember that he purposefully went out of his way to try to rip me off and destroy any and all mutual respect we had for one another.

He made his bed, now he gets to lie in it.

Great revenge right there, it was easy and didn’t cost this guy a thing while costing Mr. D a ton.

Read on to see what the people in the comments think of this story.

Absolutely ruined his reputation.

Good question.

Mr. D was very shortsighted.

Integrity is more valuable than money.

It sounds like this could have backfired.

Always treat your competition fairly.

Or you could be in for it later on.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.