Members Kramerguy Posted September 5, 2008 Author Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 I left a nice message about legal action and finally got a call back I will be picking up my gear tomorrow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members cooterbrown Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 For real.Take two buddies, show up at 3 am and collect your belongings. The cops will also be happy to escort you.By law, those are your "tools", and don't think any good construction worker won't hesitate to get a police escort with some bolt cutters to get his stuff if it's been kept from him, unlawfully. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkwire Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 The cops will also be happy to escort you. By law, those are your "tools", and don't think any good construction worker won't hesitate to get a police escort with some bolt cutters to get his stuff if it's been kept from him, unlawfully. Not in my experience. The cops treat stuff like this as a property dispute, and tell you to work it out amongst yourselves or in court.WARNING: Kind of a long story below...hopefully Diatribe's experience will be nothing like this.I left a part-time weekend band back in 2000. I had invested $675 into the gear. I told them not to worry about it, we'd work it out later. The band broke up about three months later. The drummer desperately wanted to keep it going, because it was pretty much his sole source of income. did I mention he was a loser? Well, he was a loser.He had no capacity to run a band and soon was playing the gigs left on the schedule with whatever pick-up musicians he could find. After several bad reports, the agent he was working with cancelled his bookings.Two of the other former members had invested money as well. We contacted him and said we needed to settle the money owed. He complained he didn't have any money. We told him we knew that, so we'd settle for gear.For my part, I wanted to cut him a break, so I said I'd take a pair of JBL speakers (15" and horn) that had a blue book value at the time of $450. The other two guys asked for power amps. He refused to give up any of it, because then he wouldn't have a p.a. We told we had to resolve the situation somehow.His response was to e-mail us the following week with an 8-page e-mail that claimed he owed us nothing because as a band, we were subject to laws governing contracts-at-will. When we left the band, we reneged on a contract AND any monies due. He went on to say that he was considering suing us for money lost from the cancelled bookings. He basically went on to a bunch of legal websites and COMPLETELY misinterpreted the law. We showed the e-mail to a lawyer, who started laughing hysterically. He then asked, "Can I make a copy of this to show to my office?":cop:The lawyer asked where the equipment was. We said it was locked up in a trailer at the drummer's house. He then asked if we could get access to the equipment. I said, "Sure...in two weeks, he's playing a gig in town."The lawyer said, "OK...how interested are you in maintaining a friendship with this guy?" My response was I didn't care if I ever saw him again. The lawyer said, "If you tell anyone I said this, I'll deny it. There is nothing to stop you from going to the club and retrieving the equipment. If he calls the police, tell them you have copies of all the receipts for the equipment and the money you invested. They'll tell him to go to court."So...2 Saturdays later, me and one of the other guys who was owed money strolled into the club around noon. I told the bartender, "Hey, I'm with the band playing here this weekend. Our speakers were cutting out last night, and we're going to take them in to get fixed, so we'll be taking stuff down off the stage." He barely looked at me and said, "Whatever. Knock yourself out."Five minutes later, the speakers and one of the power amps were liberated. I left him one power amp to drive the mains. I was even nice enough to call him at home to let him know that he would need to borrow a pair of speakers and a monitor power amp to do his gig that night.He started swearing at me, threatening to call the cops and sue me. I laughed in his face and told him he'd need a lawyer to talk to me again, because quote, "as of now, your Michael privileges are revoked." I'm still pretty proud of that line. Monday afternoon, a police detective called me on the phone. I gave him the details, and he said this was a property dispute that belonged in court, it wasn't police business. The third guy eventually got his power amp as well, and none of us have spoken to the drummer in 7 years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Inigomontoya Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Come on, you gotta post the ad, how can you not post the ad! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members strathound Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Great story Funkwire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kramerguy Posted September 5, 2008 Author Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Wow funk... I hope things never come to that.I did have to sue a guitar store owner once. He took and cashed my check for a few hundred bucks for a pedal, said it was special order (this was long before the internet), and yanked my chain about it for nearly 8 months, using excuses like it being backordered, temporarily unavailable. I went to a store in the next town over and they had a wall of them in stock. I went back to the original store and asked for my money back and the guy yelled at me (I was just an 18 year old dumbass at the time) "get the {censored} out of my store and don't ever come back or I will have you arrested" .. I went to the court house and filed a small claim. Dude never showed up, and tried to ignore the court order to pay me. He ended up paying me, the court costs, and the hourly rate the county charged him to send the sheriff to kick the door to his music shop in to hold the auction. He showed up right after the chuck-norris imitation on his door, unfortunately. The sheriff was going to sell me everything I wanted for a dollar per item until the debt was satisfied! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members SpaceNorman Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Wow funk... I hope things never come to that. I did have to sue a guitar store owner once. He took and cashed my check for a few hundred bucks for a pedal, said it was special order (this was long before the internet), and yanked my chain about it for nearly 8 months, using excuses like it being backordered, temporarily unavailable. I went to a store in the next town over and they had a wall of them in stock. I went back to the original store and asked for my money back and the guy yelled at me (I was just an 18 year old dumbass at the time) "get the {censored} out of my store and don't ever come back or I will have you arrested" .. I went to the court house and filed a small claim. Dude never showed up, and tried to ignore the court order to pay me. He ended up paying me, the court costs, and the hourly rate the county charged him to send the sheriff to kick the door to his music shop in to hold the auction. He showed up right after the chuck-norris imitation on his door, unfortunately. The sheriff was going to sell me everything I wanted for a dollar per item until the debt was satisfied! Now THAT is a case of justice being served!!!! I love hearing about slimballs being put in their place!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Funkwire Posted September 5, 2008 Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Great story Funkwire. Thanks...but it still pisses me off that we had to go to those lengths to conclude matters. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Kramerguy Posted September 5, 2008 Author Members Share Posted September 5, 2008 Final update, I got my stuff back. The guy didn't have the balls to even face me, he just left the door unlocked and vanished before I got there.All lose ends now tied up. Moving on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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