Mike_Cronan
New Member
We were asked to design and price up a steel structure for a new client which we did. The client then made a revision and we repriced accordingly. The customer then told us to proceed with the job and we requested a deposit of $15,000. At this time the total cost of the job was $125,000. Customer sent the deposit and then the scope of the job began to increase as the client had us revise our design 3 times. The price was now up to $240,000 which would be a pretty large order for our company. I turned away work based on this project as i needed to devote resources to this job. All of a sudden the job is put o hold and we are asked to refund the deposit less any costs incurred. I wait a few days before responding to the refund request and then we are informed that the job is back on again. They ask us to deduct the installationcosts so that they can do themselves and save money. We do this and then 2 weeks later we are told the job is not going forward at this time. They said something about permits not being in place. I don't want to refund any of the money because we had banked on this job and now i have a large hole to fill in my backlog. I really cant justify that we did $15,000 worth of work but what about the work we passed up because we were committing resources to this job? If i hold my ground, do i have a leg to stand on? To me, most deposits are non refundable though i did not state this to the client. They should have been sure of what they were doing prior to sending me the deposit. Any thoughts appreciated.
