Breach of Contract not Theft

[Marshall Levy]

Originally Posted by Noel Lising

The cops have upgraded the charges to fraud. They have located the last known address of Ray Guiterrez and there is a warrant for his arrest. Prior to this he ripped off Rona using the same modus operandi carting away power tools.

It has been slow, the cop handling the case went on a 3 week vacation & the guy is nowhere to be found.

2008 has been a bad year for us in terms of theft, we lost 2 Christie HD 8Ks, Meyer Sound System, etc, etc totalling $ 800K in Montreal early 2008. The theives managed to pull our 5 ton truck & emptied the contents. There was neglince on our technicians side as well, they should have unloaded the gear but decided to just leave the trailer overnight ( but hey who would have thought they can tow a 5 ton truck parked in the hotel). We managed to save the show. Insurance company gave us a check after 6 months.

Hope everything works out. Not sure how you do things but many companies who do money loans, equipment rentals, and so forth don't just do a contract and credit card hold. They also check credit history, require a copy of a driver's license, SS#, and so forth. Doing this properly will ensure that you have a real customer. It's not that hard of a process, either, but is worth it in the end as it's a very solidified method.

[Kyle Ross]

Geeze, that sounds horrible. I guess it's hard to put down an 80 grand deposit, but hopefully you can come up with a way to protect yourself from any of this very illegal nonsense again.

[Matthew Rogers]

Really, if you are renting out gear worth over $5 (even if you are going with it) you should always ask for a Certificate of Insurance. Would you rather lose $1,000 worth of business or $80,000 worth of gear? Any one who can afford to rent that much gear should be able to afford to buy the appropriate rental insurance.

Also, always get a signed rental contract and copy of their drivers license.

Matthew

[Noel Lising]

Originally Posted by Matthew Rogers

Really, if you are renting out gear worth over $5 (even if you are going with it) you should always ask for a Certificate of Insurance. Would you rather lose $1,000 worth of business or $80,000 worth of gear? Any one who can afford to rent that much gear should be able to afford to buy the appropriate rental insurance.

Also, always get a signed rental contract and copy of their drivers license.

Matthew

Thanks Matthew, on a side note we did ask for insurance, insurance would only cover it if the client reported the gear stolen in this case the client stole the gear. there was a $ 4k security deposit via credit card, they paid $ 4k for rental

It was a rookie mistake on the camera prep person, it has been our policy to photocopy driver's insurance.