CHECKS AND BALANCES, INC Katherine Gilbert Racked up a bill for services then refused to pay. Chicago Illinois

In January 2013 Katherine E. Gilbert along with her investor Mark S. Rogers encountered a critical failure of computer systems in their office that were setup by a former employee.  The equipment was setup years ago without documentation using a relatively obscure Linux virtualization technology and did not have any backups available. 

On January 28th 2013 Katherine E. Gilbert, on behalf of Checks and Balances, Inc. executed a service agreement through DocuSign.com to have us perform services to attempt to have their data recovered.  DocuSign.com is the same digital contract service used by big companies like Comcast to have customers sign up for internet service.  The work requestd required first conducting a discovery phase whereby our team would be charged with documenting the infrasctructure in the office consisting of multiple servers and a network storage device.  This was complicated by the fact that this equipment appeared to have suffered multiple power failures and would no longer function properly.  

The contract for the work specified an estimate and noted that due to the complexity of the recovery there would be invoices sent weekly.  A $300 deposit was provided by Checks and Balances per the agreement, by way of a business check.  Due to the severity of the situation work began immediately.

On February 4th 2013 the payment made by Checks and Balances, Inc. was reversed by the bank for insufficient funds.  We were charged a fee for depositing a bad check.  Work on recovering the data ceased immediately upon notificaiton by the bank.  At the time of work ceasing the project had been ongoing with multiple engineers working to recover the data.  Documentation for the work done on the project to date was provided to Katherine E. Gilbert including credentials for all the computer equipment.

Checks and Balances, Inc. had acrued over $8000 USD in fees for the labor since the work began.  We kept stopping back into the office to check on the payment.  After several attempts we were able to pickup a $1,000.00 Cashiers Check on 2/12/13 from Katherine E. Gilbert.  

Katherine E. Gilbert then claimed that we were pre-billing for work that had yet to be performed.  

Katherine E. Gilbert then made further claims about not being satisfied by the work performed despite our documentation that the work was performed as requested in the contract.  

Katherine E. Gilbert claimed she was fraudulently induced to sign the contract through DocuSign.  A system that sends an email for each party to execute their portion of the agreement.

Katherine E. Gilbert then responded by calling us names.

We sent the matter to collections.  We never got paid.

If you are considering doing business with Katherine E. Gilbert or Checks and Balances, Inc. you should be aware of the way they conduct business.  It's understandable that with a company facing a crisis like this there could be cashflow problems.  It's unfair, unethical, immoral and downright illegal to ignore your responsiblity as a business owner and to RIPOFF another company trying to help you stay in business.  

Why post this years later?  It's never sat well with me how we were treated.  Hopefully others can make an educated decision now that this is on here.