Charge backs were first implemented as a way for the banks to have a check and balance system with the management companies. The completed work orders were scrutinized by the banks vendor manager and approved for payment or “Charged back” with an additional fee to have the work order corrected. This was done in the first thirty days and the management company would either get paid or be charged back for each work order. This was a good system as the management company had to critique their work orders more carefully before they sent them in and if they found errors they could send the contractor back to the property to correct the work order so he could be paid. This system worked for years. It meant a contractor had the opportunity to ascertain he would get paid correctly for each and every work order he completed.

Then along came the spin off management companies and they began to see this was a golden opportunity. Now, they had a way to make even more money and with each generation of these spin off companies they became more desperate to raise that bottom dollar figure for their company. They began to use this as a way to cheat the contractors six to ten months after they had completed the work orders and had already been paid. Some of these companies used this tactic as a way to punish contractors who dropped them.

It got better as time went on, as they started playing the absent picture game. I know everyone knows that game. There is no photo of the new   knob lock or the winterization photos are not all there and so on.

Then it evolved into a slush fund to make up any deficit for the company. Hence a year later a contractor may be waiting for thousands of dollars owed for recent work orders he completed and not get paid due to “Charge Backs”.  (I like to refer to them as kick backs, but that is my own personal sense of humor)   Now the contractors never know when that boom is going to be lowered and they pray every month it will not.

How could they get away with this?  Simple, once a contractor got paid he usually deleted all the photos.  That is why it is imperative to save every single photo from every single property and put them on a disk and label that disk with the property address, them archive it with the printed out work order. If you get a charge back you have absolute proof of what you did at that property. I have resent photos up to a dozen times, and I got paid when they figured out I kept every single photo of every single property.

One company even told me I could not keep photos it was against their company policy. I told them “”It is OUR company policy to keep copies of all documentation for seven years because we never know when we may have to go to court”.  Boy, does it hurt when they slam that phone in your ear!  Irregardless I got paid.