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Home>Levelset Community>Legal Help>my fiances boss at the time asked me to clean his office for him. He knew I had prior experience. I gave him a deeply discounted price because I knew his business was struggling, he had become boss/friend to my fiance and he was very grateful. He agreed to the price and terms of cash payment within 30 days (which I wrote on the invoices). I cleaned for him only 4 times because he never paid me. Always had excuses etc.. it has been 4 months since I first cleaned for him and he says that he paid my money( I have all this in text messages) to my fiance in pay pal transactions a little at a time. He has only paid my fiance $200 cash for over 200 hours of work that he has done. I repeatedly asked for my money and was never once told that it had been given to my fiance until now ( my fiance quit him as well for non payment). what can i do? Isn't this fraud, theft or embezzlement?

my fiances boss at the time asked me to clean his office for him. He knew I had prior experience. I gave him a deeply discounted price because I knew his business was struggling, he had become boss/friend to my fiance and he was very grateful. He agreed to the price and terms of cash payment within 30 days (which I wrote on the invoices). I cleaned for him only 4 times because he never paid me. Always had excuses etc.. it has been 4 months since I first cleaned for him and he says that he paid my money( I have all this in text messages) to my fiance in pay pal transactions a little at a time. He has only paid my fiance $200 cash for over 200 hours of work that he has done. I repeatedly asked for my money and was never once told that it had been given to my fiance until now ( my fiance quit him as well for non payment). what can i do? Isn't this fraud, theft or embezzlement?

Oregon

my fiances boss at the time asked me to clean his office for him. He knew I had prior experience. I gave him a deeply discounted price because I knew his business was struggling, he had become boss/friend to my fiance and he was very grateful. He agreed to the price and terms of cash payment within 30 days (which I wrote on the invoices). I cleaned for him only 4 times because he never paid me. Always had excuses etc.. it has been 4 months since I first cleaned for him and he says that he paid my money( I have all this in text messages) to my fiance in pay pal transactions a little at a time. He has only paid my fiance $200 cash for over 200 hours of work that he has done. I repeatedly asked for my money and was never once told that it had been given to my fiance until now ( my fiance quit him as well for non payment). what can i do? Isn't this fraud, theft or embezzlement? when i threatened to sue him, he paid me $45 cash of the $172 bill. he has never once said work wasn't acceptable, in fact he was very happy with it.

1 reply

Aug 1, 2019
I'm really sorry to hear about that. Everyone should be paid what they've earned, and I hate to hear that you're struggling to get paid here. However, I should note that we at the Expert Center specialize in construction law and construction payment - and this is a bit outside of our expertise.

With that being said, one option to recover payment might be to take the issue to small claims court. Unlike traditional litigation, small claims court tends to expedite the legal process for relatively small claims ($10,000 or less), and claimants can usually avoid much of the expense typically associated with filing a lawsuit. What's more, claimants generally don't need a lawyer in order to file suit there. So, in a situation where one party has received services but failed to pay the price they agreed to pay for them, pursuing a claim like breach of contract or unjust enrichment in small claims court might help to get paid, and other remedies could certainly be available, too.

Granted, keep in mind that filing such a claim could negatively affect relationships. So, sometimes, trying to talk the issue out and even potentially warning that a claim will be made might be a better first course of action.

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