Cage Fury Fred Cambria needed Television Crew with less than 48 hours notice for a UFC Fight Pass show in Humboldt, Iowa. We got the crew, they approved the estimate. They ignored the down payment then refused to pay the bill. Haddonfield, NJ 08033 NJ

We are a production, staffing, and payroll company based in Minneapolis, MN.  We provide live event technicians everywhere in the US, and have been doing so since 2014.  We've had a good run of clients paying their bills with only a couple of bumps in the road.  Unfortunately, one of those bumps just happened with Fred Cambria and Cage Fury out of Haddonfield, NJ, for a televised Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Fight Pass event.  

If you want the short version, we provided a service with a last-second labor request from a company (Cage Fury - Fred Cambria, New Jersey) that came in with a referral from a mutual acquaintance.  After this televised UFC event was over, Fred Cambria wrote an email, praising our service and the technicians we sent them  - and then offered to pay us over $3k less than the estimate he accepted in writing.  We have all of this in written emails and screenshots.  Please share this far and wide so he can't pull this nonsense on anyone else.  

For the long version - read below:

On Friday, November 14th we were asked to reach out to Fred about a UFC Fight Pass event happening in Humboldt, Iowa.  He replied immediately, asking us to help him find 4 Broadcast Sports Technicians to work the event which began on November 19th, meaning that the techs would likely have to travel on the 18th. Fred approved the original estimate at 9:44am on Wednesday, November 15th, via email.  That left us about 48 hours to find these technicians. 

We told him we would show what the costs would be if we could secure local technicians in Iowa.  We made it crystal clear that we would very likely have to travel people in, due to the last-second nature of the request, and the remote location - but we would do our best.  We also said we would pass the travel costs through, which we did. 

Keep in mind these are NOT hard bids, they are always estimates, based on the information provided by the client.  It states this clearly on all of our estimates and is completely and widely accepted as the rule of thumb in our industry.  Live events have a lot of unpredictable challenges and no live production labor company in their right mind provides "hard bids" because of so many factors that are completely out of our control.  

After calling everyone we knew in Iowa, we were only able to secure one technician, from Cedar Rapids, IA which was 2 hours 40 minutes away.  Finding Broadcast Sports Technicians during the Fall, on a weekend is extremely difficult, and Fred was very much aware of this.  However, we pride ourselves on being able to take on these challenges and get them staffed, using our national network of technicians.  We expanded the search to Minnesota and found 1 more technician from Minneapolis.  The next one came from St. Louis, MO, and the final one came from Salt Lake City, UT.  It took us 2 solid days of making hundreds of calls and sending hundreds of texts.  We knew what we were getting into, but we were hoping that our hard work would impress the client and earn us some future business. 

We updated Fred as we were making progress and we sent updated costs via email and QuickBooks as we went.  The flights, cars, hotels, mileage and per diem added up quickly.  Last-second flights cost upwards of $1,000 and Fred is not new to this industry - so he knew full well it was going to be expensive.  The last email sent before the event, with an updated cost of $11,388.51 was on November 17th, at 3:04pm.  Fred replied 34 minutes later, at 3:38pm via email which said "Will do perfect".  Next, he was sent an invoice for that exact amount at 3:47pm for a down payment, which he viewed on the QuickBooks application at 10:10pm that same evening.   

Our first red flag was when he didn't pay the down payment invoice.  We reminded him of the amount due but he quit responding.  We had already booked the crew and all of the travel, so we were starting to get nervous.  The company that referred Fred to us is a long-time partner in good standing with us so we were trying not to get overly concerned.  

The day after the event, Fred emailed us on Nov 20th at 12:22pm praising us for sending a great crew and telling us how much he valued what we did.  He said he needed an explanation on how the invoice went from $4k - $11k, but said he would settle with us via credit card after getting an explanation.  This was a huge red flag to us, and it's when we started getting more concerned.  Fred approved the estimate of $11,388.51 via written email and he viewed the down payment invoice, which is recorded on QuickBooks.  Our estimates are extremely detailed, and it left nothing to question.  He knew the cost, approved the cost, and then pretended like it was some mystery to him that needed "further explanation".  Apparently, email replies with time stamps are not something he is familiar with, because we have written proof of everything.  

Fred kept asking for explanations on travel pay and overtime, which was all very detailed ahead of time.  He tried to talk one of my employees into accepting $8,500 instead of the final amount of $11,840.67 he owed due to all of the extreme travel costs and overtime.  I shut that down immediately and told Fred that his acceptance of the estimate on Nov 17th was final, and if he was not willing to pay the costs, that was the time to do it.  Fred knows this, but he's chosen to try and make us actually take a huge loss on this job.  

When you pay someone to wake up at 4am, drive 2-3 hours and work a broadcast for 10 hours, then drive back after the job because they had flights to catch - it is extremely expensive.  Others chose to accept our offer of local lodging.  Fred knew this because -again- he saw and approved it.  If he had offered to pay the $11,388.51 I would have begrudgingly accepted, or asked to meet in the middle.  My staff and I worked extremely hard to get this show booked because that's the only way to maintain a good reputation in our business.   The profit margin is always lower when so much of the cost is travel.  We usually only mark up travel by a small amount, but we offered to pass it through this time to try and help manage the costs.  Taking over a $3,000 loss on a job like this was unacceptable.  

When I got on the phone with Fred and reminded him that he approved the estimate, he started changing his attitude very quickly.  When I told him his offer was an insult, especially after the work we did and the quality of people we found him, he started acting like he was suddenly the victim, and that he needed to do some "validation" of our costs.  It seemed like a well-rehearsed routine he'd acted out before.  

We're not going to sit by and hope for the best.  We're looking to let everyone know what to expect with Fred Cambria, Cage Fury, and UFC Fight Pass events.  If he had just paid his bill, he could have spared himself, his company, and his partners the embarrassment and damaged reputation.  

Hopefully, Fred will learn his lesson this time, but I doubt it.