Scary Experience Last Night! long post

[gemini5362]

There are a couple of things I would do. First of all is call the attorney generals office. They have to be licensed with the state to do buisness and removing safety equipment might be something the state would look into.

Second of all you still have recourse to the working mans court as I like to call it. File a claim in small claims court. In arkansas it is about 50.00 I believe to file now. Sue them for the cost of the doctors visit and the cost of the rental. Your arguement for the cost of the rental is that the equipment broke due to unsafe repairs. You were injured when the equipment broke and you were unable to finish the job that you rented the equipment for. The claim for doctors fees should be obvious. I am going to doubt that you can claim for pain and suffering in small claims court but I do not know that it would be worth your time to check and see.

Small Claims court is a good way to resolve disputes. In Arkansas attorneys are not allowed in small claims court unless they are the actual plaintiffs. I have been in small claims court three times. I won two of them and the third one the judge was wrong but he is the judge so I lost. Judges allow a lot of latitude in small claims court and you basically get up in front of the judge and both sides tell their stories and the judge asks questions and you answer his questions. It is very informal. It would be very interesting to see how the judge reacts to someone telling him you have to lift the seat and then hammer parts in place so that it will lock down and you can safely use it. I am also sure that he will love the sticker that says you have to supply your own seat belt and that the sticker was covered by grease. You will probably get a lecture about renting it with obvious defects but I believe the rental company owner will probably get a bigger lecture and have to pay the bill. In arkansas an automatic part of the complaint is the fee to file. If you win the rental company will have to reimburse you for that also.

 

[JCS_in_KY]

Mike, Thanks for the links for the Attorney General's office. We had to file a consumer complaint against another company about two years ago and the AG didn't do a thing about it. From what others told me that was how it usually worked. The AG told me in the first conversation I had that they'd send out a letter to the company we filed a complaint against but that anything the company did to resolve the situation was voluntary and the AG would not force them to do anything. We've got a new AG since that happened though so maybe the results will be different this time, especially since it's a safety issue. I'm also going to dispute the charges with my credit card company but even if I get the money back I really want to see these safety issues resolved before it happens again to someone else.
John

 

[dmccarty]

Dont forget the local TV station. I would think they would love a story like this....

Later,
Dan

 

[hazmat]

Dont forget the local TV station. I would think they would love a story like this....

Later,
Dan

I'd keep that at as your trump card - ie if the AG doesn't resolve the issue (or refer you to another organization that will), then contact the TV station. The media would be more interested - near death experience plus politician's disregard for public safety...

 

[MikeD74T]

JCS, I don't know whether your AG is elected or appointed. If appointed it's by someone that is elected. If the AG office doesn't respond check with your local, elected district or county representatives. Sometimes their calls get answered quicker. MikeD74T

 

[LBrown59]

Hopefully the way this place does business will come back to get them in the end and I just hope that no one gets hurt before it happens. Ironically the reason I rented this backhoe was to finish a job I started two weeks before with a ditch witch I rented from another rental company. I have about 1200' of trenching to complete and I thought I'd get it all done in one long weekend with the ditch witch. Well the chain on it turned out to be so dull it wouldn't cut worth a darned. I hit my old waterline a time or two, it was 1" PVC and that ditch witch was so bad that hitting the PVC about stalled it. I ended up finally getting about 1/4 of the total work done with it and decided after that little ordeal I'd rent the backhoe to finish the job and you see how that worked out. When I returned that ditch witch I told them what was wrong with it (besides the dull chain it also had two tires that kept going flat so I'd have to stop and fill them about every hour). That rental company did end up refunding about 50% of my rental cost but they never fixed the trencher. They told me they were just going to put it back out for rent and maybe if people complained about it in the future they might do something. This was the same place I'd rented a compactor from last year and on the third start the cord came off in my hand. I called them and they wouldn't me fix it, I had to return it to them and trade it for another one which they did with no problems but it was 100 miles of extra driving for me. Unfortunately it seems too many people have low standards for rental equipment so the rental companies can get away with renting this junk out and the majority of the people never complain about it. I think given my previous luck with rentals and this close call I had with this backhoe that I'm done renting. I've purchased all of the other equipment I need with the exception of the hoe and I think I may have to start saving up for one. Putting a little money out is better than sitting / laying around now with a sore lower back and at the same time being thankful that it wasn't more serious than that.
John

Here is what I found out about about renting this kind of equipment from rental companies.
You can hire it done for about the same money.

 

[LBrown59]

i had a little bx23 that had a large pucker factor a few times on a hill with that dang put it in N to start feature.

netural on a tractor should work just like park does on cars and trucks.

 

[MikeD74T]

netural on a tractor should work just like park does on cars and trucks.

Neutral on a car or truck doesn't even work like park??? MikeD74t

 

[RobJ]

Bummer this happened and like others glad yoiu are ok. Lot of gutts to make that jump. In the heat of the battle little things like drag the hoe or drop the bucket don't always hit the brain pan.

But I would have called them and left a message the moment it happened. That and on tractors and such the hour meter would be the tell-tale on how much you used it and what you should pay. Around here a daily rental is actually 8 hours on the meter, not 24 hours on the meter. Sorry I'm one of those you saw what you were renting, they delivered, and you used some, sort of like the plumber you call out and he says your dishwasher is wasted, you still own him for the call even though you will buy and install one from the local HD.

But we've all used or heard the term "it's a rental!!". And people beat that stuff to no end. If you are lucky you get or wait for a new piece of equiptment. If not you take what's there. Like dfkrug mentioned, sometimes it's cheaper to rent the old stuff. If this was $200 a day would you have paid $400 a day for a new L35? Probably not me because I'm cheap.

If was me I'd just say I'm glad to be ok, never rent from them, if I only used it for 4 hours then try and get half my money back, and move on. Because someone else is going to rent that POS, and use it all week without any problems.

 

[dfkrug]

Probably not me because I'm cheap.

There is a big difference between being cheap and being frugal. You may
be cheap if you deny yourself something despite having the discretionary
funds to buy it. You are frugal if you spend your money, but do your
best to get a good deal. But don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish....