A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

Two days after taking a job for Tesla, owner of The Giving Pies got a simple text message canceling the order

A catering contract to celebrate Black Heritage Month turned into a tough lesson for a Black-owned bakery in the South Bay earlier this month.

What started as a $16,000 deal ended up costing the small business owner thousands of dollars instead.

On Valentine’s Day, the owner of The Giving Pies in San Jose’s Willow Glen neighborhood received a pretty sweet call from a representative with Tesla: a catering job for thousands of mini-pies for a Black History Month event.

Owner Voahangy Rasetarinera, who started the business out of her home in 2017, says both sides agreed on a quote and exchanged an invoice for 4,000 pies for delivery this week. Because of the tight turnaround, Rasetarinera asked staff to work extra hours, she bought ingredients and packaging supplies and declined at least three other catering jobs.

  • dustyData@lemmy.worldEnglish
    227·
    10 months ago

    This sucks but it is a hard lesson about dealing with large companies. If any company wants anything that doesn’t comes off the shelf of the store, they have to pay upfront. Pay has to be by a certain amount of days in advance of delivery date or the date is not guaranteed and will be late. Work doesn’t start until payment is done. If they want to pay after delivery, sign a contract, require an advance of at least half of the bill or materials cost (whichever is highest), non-refundable, include a cancellation fee. Put this shit up as terms of service on a website and direct everyone to that page whenever you are contacted by a new client. The larger the client company, the more important it is to be this strict. For you it might be a bankruptcy inducing amount, but to them it will be immaterial pocket change, so you have to hold your ground.

    • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
      1635·
      10 months ago

      I was a small business owner in this same situation. I got a contract, I got partial payment up front, then they reneged upon my finishing the job and asking for the rest of the payment. They said they’d pay me 10% of what they owe, AND demanded additional services for free. I took my contract to a bunch of lawyers, all who said the same thing “They’re too rich to sue. They will delay, stall, and after years, even if you won, they still probably won’t pay.” What they owed me, they bragged about paying every time they flew their private jet. They could easily have paid, but instead they decided to destroy me and my company.

      This isn’t something the small business owner can protect against. To the rich, none of us or our laws matter.

      • The_v@lemmy.world
        834·
        10 months ago

        The partial payment wasn’t large enough if it left you wrecked at the end. Generally the partial payment should pre-pay to cover all of your expenses and labor. The final payment is the profit margin. That way you are never on the hook for a potential loss and will always break even.

        So for the bakery, they should have had a full prepay policy on all special orders. Even if “customers” walked away because of the policy.

      • Reddfugee42@lemmy.world
        13·
        10 months ago

        This is why small claims exists. $7500 and THEY have to prove they DON’T owe it. If they don’t show up, you win summary judgement. That should cover most things and even if it doesn’t, it will all least soothe the wound.

        • jpreston2005@lemmy.world
          2·
          10 months ago

          They wracked up a bill of over $100k, and then forced me to take $11k after demanding more free services. The service they demanded I wasn’t able to do and told them this. They didn’t care, so I did what they told me to do, which ended up damaging the product (because I couldn’t fucking do it and told them this). I gave them their product, they gave me the $11k blood money, then they turned around and sued me for $75k for damaging the product (in the fashion they demanded) of which I was forced to pay $25k. This took all my funds, and I had to sell everything.

          Oh yeah, and the only lawyer that would represent me, ended up being best friends with the billionaire who was suing me. He didn’t tell me this until after I payed him his $10k lawyer fee, and after he got me a “great deal” of only having to pay $25k to this bloodsucking POS trumper billionaire.

          When I say you don’t matter to a rich person, know it’s literally the truth.