I have a customer that refuses to pay but it's kind of a complicated situation to explain I originally gave these people a quote on building two sets of steps on a deck they had built. Upon further inspection of the deck I ended up telling them I wouldn't build the steps on this structure because nothing about it fit code and to add to it would be wasting their money. Thinking I was doing the right thing and not thinking about protecting myself I agreed to salvage with Lumber I could during a careful demolition process of the deck and rebuild it for them for a spoken estimate of roughly $7,500 for the tear down and rebuild to code of what they had there not including the steps and not including any extra materials needed because I not going to be able to use all of the old materials some new ones were going to have to be bought the homeowner told me to do what I had to do to make it right so that's the time to tear this Deck down salvage the lumber and stack it neatly but due to company they had coming in and lack of material money that I had requested several times I was unable to start the rebuild process and then was asked to begin on something else that suddenly had taken priority over the rebuild just for the sake of their company they wanted me to clear a path down to the lake and I asked if he would like some nice Stone steps and brought roughly $200 worth of rock up there and began trying to make this mess right for them because the deck had been built out over their old path so I rerouted the path around where the corner of the deck was going to be when I do go to put it back up but when I giving them fair warning that I was going to Bill them separately for the demolition and the rebuild as well as the path to their lake being a completely different project I was only given a check for $100 and another check at the same time for $200 because I believe the homeowner realized how ridiculous the payment sounded when he came out telling me he was only going to give me $100 I wrote an invoice up and sent it to his wife because I was told that she was the one that was going to be taken care of the bill and I guess she is the one who had originally had the deck built so I even discounted my labor for the demolition by $500 and only charged them what left them owing me $2,025 but the wife is trying to say I sent her a quote that was much lower but she is referring back to the estimate I sent in reference to building two small sets of three stairs on either side of this already assembled structure when I begin tearing this deck down, that estimate was completely irrelevant because I was no longer just building steps and she is being evasive about paying acting like she is going to call me but doesn't and just keeps saying she will tomorrow. I did not have a signed contract for project and a paper assembled breaking down the costs for the project because I was told to make it right the most affordable way possible and so charged 10 or 20 percent lower even than I was going to because I felt bad that this guy had done them wrong. But I am not going to rebuild this deck for them without getting paid for demolition first or I risk not getting paid for everything all together and I believe I deserve to be paid because I rearranged other jobs in order to work this project because I was under the impression they were going to pay me to fix this deck how can I get her to pay me without having to sound rude or escalating this situation and they slander my name with false half told complaints on social media