Renting to own the Venus Prodigy

[carl-swanson]

The reason I put that little (true) story up is to show just how difficult it is to get paid once the client has the instrument. It’s basically an honor system at that point and there is no great incentive for people to pay when they are a thousand miles or more away from the owner of the instrument. That’s one of the reasons why musical instrument companies use finance companies like Allegro instead of self financing. I’m sure that Allegro has a whole system set up to go after deadbeats like the lawyer down in Florida, whereas I don’t. I was extremely lucky that Dickie Fleischer happened to live about 15 minutes from this jerk and was willing if necessary to go get the instrument. As it happened, the man brought the instrument to Dickie(on my orders), and Dickie crated it up and shipped it back to me. Dickie insisted he didn’t want any money for his effort, but I was not going to do that. So the final cost to me for this mess was: $600 in lost rent, $400 shipping charges to get the instrument back to Boston, and $200 that I insisted on paying Dickie for his invaluable help. Total: $1,200.

[jessica-wolff]

Small dinky harps? Don’t be so snooty! Some of those little guys are quite charming.

[David Ice]

Having just worked with Dickie in February, I can imagine he could be quite intimidating if need be!

[carl-swanson]

This is a really screwed up family, and the father is a domineering narcissistic jerk. When the daughter was accepted to study in New York State, he moved the whole family up north so she could still live at home. Then 2 months into the school year, he took her out of school and the whole family moved back to Florida. The harp teacher was furious because this was a spot which could have gone to another student who would have stayed the whole year. I was furious because I had agreed to rent the instrument to an address in New York state, not Florida, and I had turned down other potential renters after he agreed to rent it. So when he informed me in early November, I had no one else lined up to rent the instrument, so I reluctantly allowed him to take it. Boy, was THAT a mistake!!!

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