Shutterstock

It is good to question things when you think you are being charged too much, but sometimes you can push things too far.

That is what happened to the contractor in this story when his client refused to believe that the shipping charge of $150 was accurate and demanded a breakdown of the costs.

After weeks of back and forth, this guy went into great detail to explain exactly how much the shipping cost, which ended up being more than $150, so he raised the price on the invoice.

The client should have just kept their mouth shut. Read through the full story here to see what you think of what happened.

Weeks of emails debating $150 charge

I am a Project Manager for a construction company that works primarily for the Federal Government.

Taking care to avoid being overcharged is important.

When a change happens on a construction project, we need to put together a detailed cost estimate, then the government reviews the estimate and occasionally asks for additional information or more detail if my estimate is not within an acceptable % of their estimate.

Normally there are no questions if my estimate is within 5% of the IGE’s (Independent Government Estimates). That is the check and balances to evil general contractors taking advantage of the system.

Sometimes people can take things too far.

Don’t get me wrong, I am an evil general contractor, but they shouldn’t just assume that without doing the research themselves.

While there are still $500 hammers and the occasional $1500 toilet seat, sometimes it is nice to see that there is some accountability in the occasional government agency. However, it has become quite painful the last couple years with how “nickel & dime” some agencies can be.

The whole: “Can’t see the forest for the trees” mentality has been running rampant recently with many agencies. And that is where 20 pages of backup for a $150 charge just make me giggle for hours.

Let’s see what happened in this story.

Just over a month ago, I submitted a cost on an official change order for some construction material.

The government Project Manager questioned the freight charge that was quoted and the weight/volume of the material stating that “their” estimate did not match what we had proposed, and that the freight charge need to be reduced, and that I had to backup my estimate with a more detailed response.

More and more people keep getting added to this email chain.

After weeks of repeated responses that it was a flat fee for freight and it would not change if it was a single 20lb lag or a full pallet of material, the government PM decided to add an increasing number of people to the email chain in an apparent attempt to point out I was overcharging them.

It started with adding my direct Sr PM, then my company’s Director of Operations, and on to the owner of my company, while on their side adding a dozen government employees, some I had never seen mentioned on this project.

$150 to ship something that heavy seems like a good deal.

I had no idea what their end game was, but after 3+ weeks of back and forth there were literally 25 people on an email chain all over a $150 freight quote.

The quote from my vendor listed $150 to transport 1800 lbs of material. This is pretty typical as a flat fee within a certain distance of a jobsite. They argued that it could not be exactly $150 and I need to provide backup.

Honestly, it should cost way more.

I proceeded to REPLY ALL on the email and wrote the justification in the form of a math problem and attached 20 pages of backup (8 pages just on Arizona Tax Depreciation code (Section 179) for Sprinter Vans, which is something I did not know about 3 weeks ago); citing gas prices, mileage with detailed maps of possible truck routes, vehicle maintenance and depreciation charts from the State’s Department of Revenue, the current minimum wage rates in the State, and more.

I easily spent well over 4 hours of my time putting this together, but this is malicious compliance after all. It is 288 miles round trip and 4.5-5 hours to make a delivery depending on traffic.

Clearly, the shipping charge was just a set amount to offset their true costs.

At 16 mpg for a loaded sprinter van, that’s 18 gallons of gas, or down to 5-8 mpg on a 43′ flatbed (I have no idea what vehicle they will use to deliver the material, but am using “standard industry practices”)

Diesel is currently $5.50 gallon in Phoenix, so that equals $99.00 at a minimum and up to $183 in gas alone, leaving $51.00 (to a negative $33.00) for labor to drive for 4.5-5 hours which comes to $10.20 hour.

Will the government people even care about this?

This is less than AZ minimum wage ($15.15 hour…assuming they are paying only the minimum wage)

Assuming the maximum fuel efficiency, $99.00 for fuel plus $75.75 in labor costs comes to $174.75.

He is really getting into the details.

Now for Tax Depreciation vs Market Depreciation:

Section 179: Because a Sprinter van has a Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR) over 6,000 lbs, businesses using it more than 50% for work can often write off up to the full purchase price in year one via Section 179 Tax Exemption.

They should have just paid the $150.

I got a quote for a new 2026 Mercedes-Benz Sprinter van in the basic configuration and included that at just under $49,500. That divided by 2080 hours in a standard work year gives an hourly depreciation of $23.798. Times 5 hours is another $118.99

So, they were correct and the $150 freight quote was wrong. I thanked them in my email, and submitted my revised proposal with $293.74 for freight.

Just one more example of government waste.

That is a hard won $143.74 and I can’t imaging how many thousands of dollars in lost time just from including that many people on an email chain for increasing numbers of weeks.

It is hard to believe that there is so much waste that goes on in the government as well as in major companies.

Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Here is someone who has delt with situations like this.

You can’t let the frustration get to you, though.

Shipping is very expensive, but people hate paying it.

What a great saying.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an employee who gets problematic overtime changes reversed by pointing out how it will harm the company’s bottom line.

This is how these situations should be handled, though.

If they had just paid the invoice, they could have saved a lot of time and money. The amount of waste that occurs like this around the world is staggering.

People need to know when to push back and when to just pay what is owed, but that is not an easy lesson to learn.