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I have a close friend who works as a landscaper and is known for doing spectacular work. When I ran into him a few weeks ago he said that business was great, except for the client from hell. I asked what he meant and he said that he had gotten a $25,000 contract from a guy who is a prominent businessman and who is also related to the local judge. Everything was going great until two months into the job. That’s when my friend asked the guy for the first payment of $12,000 – which was stipulated in the contract they had both signed. “I’m not giving you a dime!” the guy said, and starting complaining about the quality of the work. “If the work is so bad why did you wait a few months to start saying so?” my friend asked. The client had no answer for that, but did say “I tell you what. If you get back over to my property and finish the job right away then I won’t take you to court. Once everything is finished I’ll pay you $10,000.” As it turns out this “prominent businessman” runs this scam on everybody and either gets work and never pays or threatens to take them to court – where he is related to the judge – and then slashes the agreed-upon price by at least 50 percent. Most contractors cannot afford to go to court even if they win, because court costs and lawyer fees are steep, so this jerk often gets his way as customer from hell.