Advice from Nashville's Financial Guru Dave Ramsey
Dave Says
By Dave Ramsey
Author of Financial Peace and The Total Money Makeover
2/8/2005
"Contractor did not pay the
workers!"
Dear Dave,
We hired a contactor last year to build an addition on our home. However, it seems the contactor did not pay all of his sub-contractors. I paid the contractor in full, but now he’s out of business. The electrician came to me for payment and threatened to put a lien on my house if I didn’t pay. He said I owed him $625. I gave him a balance-transfer check drawn against one of my credit cards.
I revealed this to my attorney when we went to closing for a refinance and he told me I shouldn’t have paid the electrician. I realized the electrician hadn’t cashed the check yet and the attorney recommended that I stop payment the check, which I did. I called the electrician and let him know what I had done.
The credit card company decided to change the balance-transfer check to a cash advance and honored the check when it was deposited. I have a record where they charged me $29 for the stop payment. I’ve called the credit card company, but they will not make this right. What can I do?
Kim in Greenville, SC
Dear Kim,
I would go back to your attorney and ask him for advice on this situation. If you’ve got documentation that you requested the stop payment, then you should not owe the money for this check they paid out. Be aware, though, that it is possible that all of the fine print in the agreement you originally signed with the credit card company states that there is no guarantee on stop payment actions or gives them the power to change the balance transfer check to a cash advance. If that’s the case, you’re going to be stuck paying the bill for this money. When you sign up for credit card, they’ve covered every contingency they can imagine in that fine print.
You can try to call some managers at the credit card company’s actual office – as opposed to calling their toll-free call center – and see if you can pressure those people into paying this money and dropping it from your bill. You can at least raise $600 worth of cane with those folks. However, my guess is that you’re going to be paying some stupid tax on this.
-Dave
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