Karma is a wonderful thing

In short, 8 years ago I got ripped off. (a few grand)
Me and an engineer built a machine from scratch - and when I say scratch I mean piles of steel box section, a welding machine and 3 months of pleasurable graft.
I loved every minute of designing and implementing the controls and when it was finished it worked better than the man who was buying it ever dreamed.
This machine is very specialised and does the work of three separate machines.
It sews patterns and quilts material and then tape edges them.

To be fair, he paid us each month and bought all the materials but didn't pay the last month.
He went bust (but not as straight forward as that) and he and the machine disappeared without a trace.

Until last week. The original engineer phoned me to say he had been contacted as it had apparently been bought out of storage but wouldn't turn a cog.

The new owner wants us to put it right and wants to know how much.

We had a quick visit to site and I plugged in my laptop and between us we knew a few parts (missing sensors and sewing machine parts etc) and it would be good as new.

The price - what we both lost originally plus new parts plus new labour paid in cash before we start.
The man went to the bank and paid us there and then.

Lovely

Oh, and it hadn't been in storage for 8 Years despite what we were told. The product counter in the plc had nearly 100,000 counts.

Fair enough. The new owner paid the old owners debts, but doesn't know it.

Some would feel guilty about that. I wouldn't though. C'est la vie!

It is nice to see you recover the loss!!
I'm sure most of us have had at least one customer short us on a project. Maybe there's still some hope for a few of us to recover something?

Not sure that's a story about Karma...The original owner still didn't pay his debt, and the new owner had to shoulder the burden. Not blaming you for taking advantage of the situation, but it's not Karma.....Just a fortuitous turn of events.

Glad it worked out for you.

It sounds as though maybe the old owner used it, then put it in storage. The new owner may have picked it up from a storage auction, meaning the old owner got no value from it, ergo, karma is once again in balance...

Sucks that it wasn't the original owner...you would've stuck it to him.

jraef said:

meaning the old owner got no value from it, ergo, karma is once again in balance...

Click to expand...

The old owner put 100,000 turns on it....He got his value.

I see absolutely nothing wrong w/ charging honest hours for your time. Glad you could recap some previous losses.