Union Rental

Kept mower for two weeks. Said they were waiting on a part but a check of online parts suppliers shows delivery of the item in 2-3 business days. Did not call the customer to let them know what was happening - customer had to call them. Delivery of repaired mower was supposed to be on a Thursday, but did not happen until Friday. Owner of business took customer credit card number three different times, but kept transposing the numbers - so the credit card would not go through. After Friday delivery, customer mowed for about 15 minutes and a metal piece shirred off and the mower stopped. Customer called business and they said they didn't know what happened but they would bring a rental mower out the following day. Saturday morning the owner called me and said it couldn't have been anything they did wrong (without even looking at the mower) and then said the metal piece shirred off because we didn't change the oil enough. Rental mower arrived and the business did not charge the customer a fee. When they dropped it off, they spoke with my teenage daughters and asked them to come outside so they could show them what was wrong with the mower. My teenage daughters were not the customer and should not have been asked to go outside with them. Customer called the owner and told him that the rental would be left in the garage with the side door open for pick up on Monday. Union Rental called me on Tuesday wanting to know how they could get their mower back. I reminded them that it was in the garage...with the side door open. During that phone call I asked to speak to the owner to see if we could come to a resolution about the expensive repair that lasted 15 minutes. They said that the owner would be out on Tuesday but would be in on Wednesday. I said OK - I will be there around 4:30. When I arrived on Wednesday the owner was gone. But I could talk to Mike (the owners son). Mike insisted that the reason the engine stopped was because the oil had not been changed. I told him that was true - the oil had not been changed for a couple of years, but no one knew for sure why the metal piece came off and the engine blew. For that reason, I asked him to take the replacement parts off the machine because they were brand new and just return my money for the parts. I also told him that even though I knew there was no ill intent - no business owner should ask teenage girls to come out of their house when they knew there were no parents at home. Mike was very defensive and I reassured him multiple times that I knew his Dad (owner Frank) didn't mean any harm. But in this day - you just can't do that. He calmed down, we shook hands and he said he would talk to his Dad (Frank) about buying the parts back or possibly using the old machine as a trade in. He would call me back. That was a Wednesday and I finally called the business the following Tuesday. Mike said that his dad was "not too happy" about my comments about my daughters and that we probably wouldn't want to pay the labor fee for them to come and remove the brand new parts. Hmmm. Pros of this business: very proactive about getting a rental mower out to me so I could mow the following day and did not charge me a fee for this Cons of this business: Missed deadlines, did not communicate with customer, complete lack of professionalism, defensive