|
vendo81d
|
 |
« on: January 20, 2014, 11:27:35 am » |
|
On October 28, 2013, I sent a text message to Alan reminding him of his agreement to send payment on that day. Alan sent a text thanking me for the reminder and promised to send payment via UPS. I still hadn’t received payment by November 19, 2013, so I sent a text to Alan asking why he hadn’t paid me. Alan then lied and said that he had sent payment. I asked when and Alan promised to send a tracking number the next day. That didn’t happen and I warned Alan that I was preparing to take him to small claims court. Finally, on November 25, 2013, Alan sent me a tracking number. When I checked the number on UPS’s website, nothing showed up. Alan claimed it just needed time to “show up in the system”. There was still nothing in the system the next day, so I filed my court papers on November 26, 2013. Filing the court action cost me $96 which could not be paid by personal check, so I had to spend another $1.20 on a postal money order. It cost me another $30 to have Alan summoned and another $30 to subpoena Officer Hicks as my witness. Between court fees, money order costs and postage, I spent over $160 to file my court action. I expected to be able to recoup these expenses when I won my case.
Out of the blue, I got a letter from the North Carolina Attorney General’s office dated December 13, 2013 asking if my complaint had been resolved. It was attached to an undated letter that Alan Huffman had sent them. Alan made more fictional statements in this letter such as claiming that I had asked for my machine back free of charge and that I had contracted with him to sell my machine to another customer. Alan claimed that he had sold my machine to another customer. I had a big problem with this because since Alan had never paid me, he didn’t own the machine and it wasn’t his to sell. Alan’s letter said that he was including a UPS tracking number showing that he had sent payment to me. However, no number was included in the letter. I called Julie Daniel of North Carolina Attorney General’s office and discussed her letter. I questioned why they were contacting me after so long. She said they had a lot of complaints about Alan and were putting pressure on him to resolve them. She had noticed that there was no tracking number in Alan’s letter and she assured me that she hadn’t fallen for Alan’s lies.
I was originally assigned a court date of January 3, 2014. In order to get there on time, I would have to leave Illinois on New Year’s Day. I found out later that this was a mistake and my actual court date was January 10, 2014. In order to make this date, I needed to leave on the morning of January 8, 2014. At about 8:30 p.m. on the evening of January 7, 2014, I received a text from Alan Huffman with a tracking number claiming that he had sent me $1775. I noticed that it was the same tracking number that he had given me on November 25, 2013. I sent him a reply stating that he still owed me for court costs and I was planning to come to court. I checked the tracking number and found that the package wasn’t due to arrive until the afternoon of January 9, 2014. There was no way I could wait for the package and still make it to court the next morning. I wondered whether Alan was just trying to get me to miss my court date so that my case would be dismissed. I tried to call Rod Heuerman, but accidentally called Alan Huffman because I read the wrong line in my address book. I even said “Rod” when Alan answered the phone. Alan said he would pay my court costs and said “What are they $50?” I told him that I had already spent over $160. Alan said to send him a receipt and he would pay me. I had been lied to so many times before that I didn’t trust Alan and decided that I should still come to court. That way if he didn’t pay or sent me a bad check, the court would go after him for me. I was already on the road for 90 minutes or so on January 8, 2014 when I got a new text from Alan. He sent me another tracking number and said that he had sent me a check for $163 as we had agreed the night before. I had told him how much I had spent, but I had never told him that I had agreed to settle for that. It is illegal in Illinois to use a cell phone while driving, so I had to pull over to read Alan’s texts. I sent Alan a text saying that I all I knew was that he had sent me a package, but I didn’t know what was in it and I couldn’t afford to miss my court date. I went on to say that I hadn’t agreed to anything as he alleged and I would let the magistrate decide what court costs I should be paid. The texts kept coming all the way into Tennessee where I was held up in stop and go traffic for 70 minutes due to an accident. In Alan’s last text he said that he had dropped off copies of his checks and tracking numbers with the magistrate. He also tried to tell me that my court costs were only $126. Unbelievable! This guy had been screwing me for over two years and now he’s worried that he paid me $37 too much for my court costs.
I made it to Lenoir, North Carolina on the afternoon of January 9, 2014. I had some trouble, but eventually found the courthouse. I stopped in the clerk’s office and tried to get some information on how the small claims system works. The women there weren’t very helpful. I asked if they had a satisfaction of judgment form I could pick up to send in if and when I received payment. They said they didn’t have anything like that (not true as I will explain later). They said “You must be the guy who is coming from out of state.” I then went to my hotel and called my wife. She had made arrangements with UPS to pick up the first package from Alan Huffman so that I would know what was in it before going to court. However, it was held up indefinitely in Indianapolis due to bad weather and would not arrive in time.
The next morning I checked the tracking numbers Alan had given me and saw that neither had arrived. The first one showed that Alan had picked up the tag on November 26, 2013, but didn’t ship it until January 7, 2014. I went down to the courthouse and arrived about 8:30 a.m. for my 9:00 a.m. trial. I was wearing a suit and was asked whether I was a lawyer! I wanted to bring my wife’s cell phone with me because it had all of the texts from Alan on it. I was informed that I couldn’t bring a cell phone into the court room and I would have to take it back to my van. I told the guard that I had evidence on the phone and he said if the judge needs it she can call a recess for me to get it. Luckily, I had already made a written transcript of these messages. All I needed was for James Earl Jones and Malcolm McDowell to act them out like on the television commercials.
The docket was called at about 9:05 a.m. by the magistrate. She was an attractive woman who looked to be in her early 40’s (I apologize if she is younger than that). If I hadn’t been there when my name was called, my case would have been dismissed. I was asked if I had seen Alan Huffman and I told the magistrate that I didn’t expect him to show up. I was concerned that my witness, Officer Hicks, had not shown up. I was told later that Officer Hicks was teaching a class and wouldn’t be able to make it to court until 10:15 a.m. So, I had to sit and listen to other cases. The most common type of case involved renters who were behind in paying their rent. One defendant was a woman who hadn’t paid her doctor bill. The magistrate asked her why she wasn’t present when the docket was read. She said that she had run behind taking her little boy to daycare. The magistrate then said “So you basically are saying that you have no respect for the court’s time.” The next to last case involved a plaintiff who was representing herself and a defendant who had a lawyer. The lawyer basically chewed her up and spit her out. The only real mistake he made was calling the magistrate “sir” before correcting himself and saying “ma’am.” It was now about 11:00 a.m. and my case was the only one left. Officer Hicks was still not present. The magistrate told me that her clerk had gotten another call and Officer Hicks would not be able to make it. I was asked if I wanted a continuance or if I wanted to just present my case without him. I said that a continuance wouldn’t be practical considering how far I had come and that I would go on without Officer Hicks. I doubt the Granite Falls Police Department will be admonished for “not having any respect for the court’s time” like the earlier defendant. I started my case by saying that this was actually my third trip to North Carolina trying to resolve my situation. I went through everything that I have previously detailed and even gave the magistrate a copy of the 2010 and 2013 threads from soda-machines.com describing problems people have had with Alan Huffman. The magistrate ruled in my favor for $1775 plus court costs. I wasn’t sure what was allowable for court costs, so I kept track of everything. I documented $1173.86 in expenses. The big ticket item was my mileage. A round trip to Lenoir, North Carolina was 1486 miles. At the federal reimbursement rate of $0.565 per mile, this amounted to $839.59. I didn’t get anything for this. I was only awarded $156 for my court costs. I didn’t even get anything for my money order fee which was required since they wouldn’t take a personal check. My actual out of pocket expenses that I didn’t recoup totaled about $400. Still, if I hadn’t filed my court case, I would probably still be trying to collect money from Alan Huffman.
I had brought my van to North Carolina so that I could go to Dr. Pepper in West Jefferson, North Carolina and get soda in bottles to bring back for my machines. I had purchased soda from them twice before and that is one of the places from which Alan Huffman gets soda. I had some trouble remembering how to get to the Dr. Pepper warehouse, but eventually I found it. I was still wearing my white shirt and suit pants from court. I explained to the woman that I had just come from Lenoir because I had been in court suing Alan Huffman. After I said that it was like one of those old E.F. Hutton commercials (when E.F. Hutton talks, people listen). Everyone around stopped what they were doing and wanted to hear what I had to say. The woman told a couple of men there that I had sued Alan Huffman and one of them wanted to shake my hand. Later, he gave me a 2014 Dr. Pepper calendar and said “Here’s something Alan Huffman doesn’t have.” I was told that Alan had given them bad checks in the past and hadn’t paid for his last shipment of soda. The boss there has declared that any future sales to Alan Huffman will be on a cash only basis. After my van was loaded with 16 cases of soda, I found an extra copy of the 2013 soda-machines.com thread and gave it to the woman. She was tickled to receive it and couldn’t wait to read it.
I then started on my way back home. I was hoping that it would be an uneventful trip. However, my low tire pressure sensor came on while I was driving on the winding portion of I-40 near the Tennessee/North Carolina border. It was already after dark at this point. I found a gas station and stopped to look at my tires. Another van that was near me on I-40 also stopped with tire trouble. Luckily, there was a tire repair place behind the gas station. Unfortunately, we found that the puncture was caused by a big nail at the sidewall and the tire would have to be replaced. They didn’t have a suitable replacement, so I elected to have the tire plugged and I would take care of it in the morning. I decided that since my tires probably had less than 5000 miles of life left in them, I would just get all new tires. I ended up getting new tires in Knoxville, Tennessee. It took about an hour to get the tires and the rest of my trip was uneventful.
The first package from Alan Huffman arrived on January 13, 2014. I wondered why he sent a package instead of an envelope. If he had really been serious about resolving my complaint without going to court he could have sent payment overnight instead of using UPS ground. In the package was a check for $1775 and a box of Russell Stover chocolates. Did Alan really think a box of chocolates would make up for all of the grief he put me through? Maybe it was just a Forrest Gump metaphor (dealing with Alan Huffman is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get). The check was not a cashier’s check, but a personal Scooby Doo check (see picture). I noticed that this check was dated December 5, 2013. At first I wondered why Alan waited over a month to send it. Finally, I figured out that he had written the check on that date to make it look like he had already paid for my machine before he sold it to someone else. I called Alan’s bank and they said the check would clear, so I deposited it in my account. The second package was originally supposed to arrive the same day, but some idiot at UPS had routed it to Rochester, New York instead of Rochester, Illinois. I didn’t get that package until the afternoon of January 17, 2014. It contained a Whitman’s Sampler and another Scooby Doo check, this one for $163. Alan’s bank said the check was good, so I cashed it. I then called the clerk’s office in Caldwell County, North Carolina to let them know that I had received my payments from Alan. I was told that I needed to fill out a form for their records (you know, the form they told me on January 9, 2014 didn’t exist). They said I could stop by their office and pick it up. I said that wasn’t going to happen and asked if they could mail it to me. I was then put on hold and told that if I didn’t want to wait for the form, I could just send them a statement and have it notarized! I said just mail the form, I can wait. I figured Alan made me wait over two years, he can wait a few days to get my court case cleared up.
And that is why I don’t have a Vendo 123 anymore. Does anyone have a nice one for sale?
|
