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Potential client may be trying to set me up
Hi guys!
I was contacted by one of my "friends" from my past, submissive period, who asked me if he could refer to me a person that had received a huge electric bill and wanted to challenge it. I told him to give this person my contacts, and I would see if something could be done.
The person messages me asking if we can speak. We speak on the phone, and I ask this person to send me the bill in question and two/three prior bills for comparison. I also ask additional information and several questions to better understand the situation, and red flags start popping up.
She starts sounding annoyed by my questions
She acts like she doesn't remember the details, and/or thinks it's my duty to deduce them from the bill.
She does not want to come to my office
I tell her where I am, she immediately tells me I'm too far and we can only speak on the phone.
She only sends me partial documentation
She only sends me the bill in question and one prior other, and nothing else, even though I asked her in writing to also give me additional information, including the current reading of her electric meter.
She cannot be reached on the phone
After looking at the bill, and starting to understand what happened here (more on that below), I write to her that I need to talk to her. She agrees to talk at a certain time, and then she does not call me, and does not pick up the phone when I call her.
The documents show a different story
From my analysis of the bills she sent me, I am able to see that she originally had an electric meter that was not able to communicate remotely with the electric company. It was eventually changed by the electric company. The company then discharged the readings from the former meter, and immediately debited all past higher electric energy use. Of course, nothing was told to me on the phone.
I start building up anger
The most telling signal of what is really happening, BTW.
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What to do now.
My "fear" is that she is deliberately waiting for the bill due date (which is in a few days) to then try to "frame me" as telling her I would help, and then doing nothing.
While I have not signed any mandate to assist her, and the written exchanges (by text messages) show that I was only asking preliminary information, I would like to avoid any risk here.
I can see two choices on my part.
Choice 1: I could send her a text message like this:
Me: Hi,
I asked to speak with you yesterday to explain directly to you that I, unfortunately, cannot assist you in this case.
In any case, since I was not able to speak to you at the agreed time and I also did not hear from you nor receive the other information, I presume you have already decided to proceed differently.
Kind regard
Choice 2: I could do nothing and wait for her inevitable call and/or message when the deadline for paying the bill is near. Then I could say the above more forcefully in words and / or in writing.
While choice 2 is optimal from a power point of view, it somewhat increases risks of confrontation about my "liability" for not having been clear that I could not assist her immediately.
What do you think guys, am I reading this correctly and what would in your opinion be the optimal option?
I will try answering my own question: in my mind it's better, at least at my current level, to forfeit any "power" consideration for the security of not getting involved in a shady situation and exiting cleanly. Even though the risk and the potential liability involved here are very low.
This is also what Jay Foonberg recommends in his landmark book for lawyers:Â "Do not, under any circumstances, leave open the possibility of the potential client believing that you have accepted professional responsibility if you haven't".
If she gets angered my my message, it will be proof she was trying to set me up. I think I won't answer her any more and save any texts she will send me to defend myself if she tries something.
I think I will send her a message along the line of choice 1 very soon.
Apart from what could be my personal paranoia here, in any case she has been very disrespectful in not picking up and not calling me back, since I was trying to provide a service to her. So this alone, in my mind, justifies me refusing any work with this person.
Sent my message and received this reply:
Her: Good evening, I am profoundly sorry but unfortunately these days I am facing a job that keeps me until this time of the day in a place without connection. If it’s not a problem for you next …, when I will return to normal we could restart the dialogue. Thank you
I have to digest this, but my immediate feeling is not good, I don’t think I’ll restart anything here.
Even if what she says is true, it remains she just did not care to even say sorry before I drew the line.
Instead I now have written proof she knows I won’t assist her, and I think I will thus drop it here.
Hey Bel,
I don't have clear ideas on this.
My view is that if a customer is a smaller fish and even smells fishy, then it doesn't deserve much time.
Generally speaking, I wouldn't ask people to visit the office unless it's a bigger deal.
I also wouldn't want to visit someone's office and, for smaller stuff, neither would any busy person -it's simple law of prioritization: the bigger fishes they are, the less time they have for the smaller stuff-.
There are important power and strategic consequences here, because when they have little time for the smaller stuff and you ask them to prioritize the small stuff, they think you may not be as big a fish as they are (ie.: you lose value and power in the sub-communication).
It's the same reason why on PU we say: don't bother execs with the details.
The reason is that it sub-communicates that you don't "get them", and thus that you're not ready for the big boys' club.
It wasn't this case probably, but it' still good to keep in mind.
Thank you Lucio,
the most telling thing here was probably just me having a definite bad feeling, like the customer was disrespecting me intentionally.
And what you say about (not) asking clients to come to the office is also very helpful.
On some level I was already managing it the way you mention with businesspeople, but tended instead to ask others to meet in person. But your answer makes me think that probably, even for private customers, I should start discriminating between big cases that require in-person discussion, and small stuff (where I should start dealing with it remotely when possible).
