Two HOAs Have Outstanding Invoices, But The Management Company Doesn’t Understand Why They Owe So Much
by Jayne Elliott

Shutterstock/Reddit
Imagine working with someone who seems clueless when it comes to doing their job.
Would you let them stay confused, try to help them out, or make everything so clear that they would have to admit they were wrong?
In this story, one employee who works for a company that works with HOAs sets the owner of an HOA management company straight, and it’s pretty satisfying.
Let’s read the whole story.
“Carefully study these 2 files and tell me what’s going on here”
Background: I work for a company that does work for HOA’s (yes, they do suck, but I like being able to afford my bills, so…).
A lot of HOA’s have Management Companies that give them a Manager to advise them on stuff.
This is who gets our bills.
At one point, one of the Managers at one of these companies was looking to leave, and my boss (in all of her brilliance) ignored me when I said he’s not the right type of person for her to work with (she’s…difficult, and needs employees who can stand up to her without “challenging” her, and he’s a challenger).
She hired him anyway, because his background appealed to her.
That didn’t last long!
After 2 months of my life being hell trying to train someone who thinks he knows more than me, but can’t use a computer – she got sick of him challenging her on everything and fired him.
He started his own Management Company, and went after some of our Clients that hadn’t found management yet, so we still have to interact with him.
Both Clients he landed were absolute messes, with past due balances that meant we stopped doing work for them until they get caught up.
This doesn’t sound good.
The Story: We sent him all the past due invoices for both clients when he took them on at the end of last year, and have not done any real work for either since.
He keeps emailing and asking for meetings to discuss the billing, and then doesn’t pay it, but comes back and complains that they got another bill because we billed them for the meeting time (this is very standard in our industry).
Yesterday he decided for some reason to involve me. And he should not have done that.
This guy isn’t getting it.
He and my boss have been going back and forth in emails for hours, and have racked up thousands of words back and forth about how we’ve explained this billing to him so many times, we aren’t going to spend anymore time on it (yes – she’s ACTIVELY ARGUING WITH HIM while telling him she’s not going to spend anymore time on him).
That’s when he comes back with “carefully study these 2 files and tell me how last month this client had a balance of $5100 and this month they have a balance of $8400”
The Compliance: So I opened both files. Insert Kendricks Halftime Smirk.gif
He really set the record straight!
Remember when I said he got 2 of our clients to sign on with him? The $5100 balance was for the other client.
So I shot back with: Please note, the $5100 invoice is for Client B, not Client A, as you have attributed. Please see attached email from December with all outstanding invoices for Client A up until that point, and a second email from January with the newest invoice for the time we spent explaining the billing and providing the invoices in December. In an effort to assist you with your accounting, I have also attached an Account Summary for Client A. Just a reminder that Client A and Client B are 2 separate clients, and their accounting should be accordingly handled separately.”
Suddenly he “is very sorry for the confusion, and will go back over all the documentation before letting us know his findings”
Moral of the Story: Don’t go full bore on an argument if you aren’t ABSOLUTELY SURE some admin somewhere isn’t going to step in and destroy you with 1 email after hours of acting like WE don’t know what we were doing.
How stupid to confuse the bills between the two clients! This guy clearly isn’t good at his job.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
This is probably true.

What’s he going to find? That he was wrong.

There wasn’t really anything malicious that happened.

Here’s another similar thought.

That guy better watch out!

Some people who think they know everything actually know nothing.
If you liked that post, check out this story about a customer who insists that their credit card works, and finds out that isn’t the case.
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