Domestic Linen is set up to take advantage of people, they play hard ball and they dont care if they win fair. They only care about what they can get away with. WATCH OUT
I made an agreement with their very nice, friendly and seemingly trustworthy saleswoman from Domestic Linen, that should I go out of business, our contract would be canceled. She assured me that would not be a problem.
I told her that it was a risky venture and it was 50/50 that I would be out of business in 2 months. She said they would have to charge me for an additional month after I cancelled. I said that was fair and fine with me.
So I ended up going out of business 2 months later. I never heard from them until months later, the first I heard from them at all was a letter from their inhouse lawyer! Demanding I pay them about $2500! It was a classic underhanded business maneuver. The reason lawyers are the subject of evil jokes. The legal system says you can sue someone for 50% of the contract amount without even providing services and that is what they did. Without so much as ever contacting me prior.
They said it was becuase they had so much invested in my generic white restaurant towels i was renting for $30 a month including a couple floor mats. They are huge, they didnt invest anything for my little cafe with those little white towels. Its bologna.
And it is pointless to argue that, cuase the fact is I discussed the potential for my failure from the beginning and I wouldnt have entered a contract unless it would be cancelled by going out of business.
This was obviously a misunderstanding so I called them to speak with my sales representative. THEY WOULD NOT LET ME TALk WITH HER! The costumer service representative said she would handle it so I told her the situation. She said in so many words.. hard luck, you should have gotten it in writing. You cant prove it. Im thinking, so what.. its the truth, if we can just talk with the sales woman she will tell you and we can get it straightened out.
They were not interested in what was fair. All they cared about was that they could take me for my money, becuase its not worth the expense for me to take them to court and they threatened to ruin my credit.
Im not very good at confrontation like this. Finally I was able to contact the lawyer who wrote the letter. I explained the situation to him. He understood and so I told him I would be happy to pay a month or two of rent. He did suggest I pay more than that for their investment in uniforms.. I said no, those uniforms werent the ones I ordered and I sent them back weeks before I went out of business. He said oh. By the way their uniforms are very uncomfortable and low quality.
He told me he would talk with the company and see what he could do and would call me back within a week to make arrangements.
Once again I never heard from them until months later... Bam, im hit with a collection letter and when I called them to explain I had made contact with the lawyer and he was supposed to call me back, so why is it sent to a collection agency... This intimidating guy berrated me and explained they do this for Domestic Linen all the time and that it is his now and I cant deal with anyone except him. That Domestic Linen sold it to them. I told him thats not right and that it was just bad business practice. He yelled at me and said if I fight it it wont be worth the court costs. Finally I ended up giving in. I just wanted it to go away, what can you do? I paid them $500 of my hard earned money that I needed to save my credit history and my peace of mind.
I cant tell you how bad that made me feel that people can be so evil. I felt like I was dealing with criminals pointing guns at me. Businesses should not have the power to push people around just becuase they can get away with it. I hope that everyone visits this ripoff report thing. Maybe it will make a difference.