Unedited
2/15/09 |
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Close In Dealing
Using social ties to get in close to a client and exploit them is an age-old strategy for selling. This questionable ethical situation works both ways. The client can take advantage of the small business person as well. A contractor for example has a wife who works in a large office that promotes his company. Another woman working in the office hires the contractor. The contractor takes advantage of her by playing on the intimacy of the relationship between the two at work. For example, the client wants a room added to the house. The contractor says he will draw up a set of plans ostensibly to show her. Instead he takes the plans to the city building department and gets a building permit without showing her the plans. He asks payment of $2000 for the plans. She is so struck by the quickness of the moment she cannot respond or complain because she has a relationship with the contractor's wife that could be threatened if she hastily says something inappropriate. In reality the plans took the contractor less than three hours to draw up making the value of his work $660 an hour in a profession that is paid less than a hundred and fifty dollars an hour. The contractor has, in effect, overpowered her, taken liberties, and price gouged her. Note:
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