Consumer Safety & Awareness Part 24

Refusal to Pay

In a slightly less traditional sense, theft of services results when a customer refuses to pay for a service performed. This can happen in many instances from the use a professional such as a co-writer or lawyer to a medical situation. Although it would be unusual for someone to receive health services without first providing proof, at minimum, of identity, it does happen.

If you are a business owner, anyone who uses what you provide without paying is guilty of either theft of service or product thievery. Individuals can be victims as well if they ever provide assistance to someone with the expectation of receiving anything in return and are then not paid.

For example, the Texas District Attorney’s office reported the following incidents:

a) Lady takes her sick cat to the Vet but later never pays the vet bill.
b) Parent takes kid to day care but fails to pay bill for several months of day care services.
c) Man with no insurance goes to dentist for teeth cleaning, gets teeth cleaned, then fails to pay dentist bill.
d) Lady gets car repaired by mechanic at auto garage and fails to pay bill.
e) An attorney went to pickup a saddle he was having reworked. He took the saddle out to his truck to "get his checkbook". The lawyer then got in his truck and drove off without paying for the saddle. When the saddle maker called the police and they contacted the attorney, the attorney claimed the saddle maker owed him some legal fees for "advice given at the saddle shop". The lawyer even prepared a bill that same date for his services and put it under the saddle maker’s door. The sad thing is this lawyer does this to people all of the time.

While each situation has to be judged individually, after studying a number of such cases, these District Attorney’s came to a conclusion:

“The answer is always: what can you prove was the intent? If you can prove the drawer of the check did not intend to transfer the money by check (i.e., he knew he was going to put a stop payment regardless of the completion of the work), then you have a theft.

The stop payment is merely the camouflage. It may or may not be legitimate. You still have to prove what was in the mind of the drawer when the service was done. So, you obtain a statement explaining the stop payment. You look to see if the person has done this before (a history of 30 stop payments might be a clue).

You know that most of the elements are proven. The only element of them in doubt is the intent to deprive, which must be formed at or before the service was provided.”

A search on the Internet shows some examples of this problem:

a) A pilot was arraigned on three felony counts of theft of services after being accused of cheating an aviation company of more than $80,000 for chartering three private flights using a false credit card.
b) An investigation revealed a man illegally gained access to a local Internet service provider’s network and was selling that access to his customers. This illegal company has been in business for approximately two years.
c) In several cases in at least three states, after prostitutes charged men with rape when they did not pay for services given, the judges or prosecutors changed the charges to theft of services.
d) An actor was arrested after he refused to pay for an assessment on property he was interested in purchasing.
e) A municipal supervisor was convicted of having other county workers do repairs on his house while they were on county time.
f) Two men were prosecuted for arranging the phony rental of construction equipment. One was a worker at the rental company; the other was a contractor. Forging papers together, the contractor used rental equipment on his projects without paying for them.
g) A truck driver used inactive license plate on his trailers and went through the E-ZPass machines without paying for the tolls. His evasion on $4,748 in highway tolls in one state resulted in almost $30,000 in penalties. This included 633 violations in one year.

I once worked for an organization that promised me $500 a week for 20 hours of Internet development and organizational development. After ten weeks, having only received $100, I informed them that I expected to be paid what was owed. Eventually I took them to small claims court where I was granted what was owed, but since the organization dissolved was never able to collect, although the situation is still pending.