10 Percent Surcharge has been cancelled
 

Being that 1 of the 6 people that came to purchase some items from me today stole 1000.00 in a envelope from my money till, I am now adding a 10 Percent surcharge to any purchases.
This will be in effect till I make back the 1000.00 dollars.
I apologize for the increase. However, I don't charge enough money to take a loss like this without having some sort of recourse.
I feel my prices are still more than reasonable.
If the person who stole the money reads this - there are a few things I would like to say that I am sure would be edited so I am not even going to try.
I just want to make it clear, I don't suspect anyone in particular. I apologize to those 5 of the 6 people who came to my home today that didn't take the money that you were even insinuated in this. that wasn't my intent in the least.
Please try to look at it from my perspective and understand why I made the calls.
I feel that this whole thing is a kick in the you know where, as I really try to make an attempt to help people with getting what they are looking for at a reasonable price. So I feel that this is a slap in the face for the effort I make to people.
thanks for the support
Neal

It's just not from your business but from your home, hope you figure who.

A GOOD ASS WHOPPING sounds in order

neal , that is so terrible.....

And ya your prices were so reasonble, always one that ruins it for all..

dirt rotten B*******D

Neal,
That really sucks! Is it possible that there was someone else besides one of the six that could have taken it? Sorry, at least I didn't ask "where did you see it last?"

Having said that, why don't you report it to the police? Seriously, the theft of $1000 from your home is a police matter... insist that they send a car and not just take a report over the phone because you do have names. The innocent 5 customers should be more than happy to cooperate and should understand the intrusion given the circumstances. I am willing to bet that the guilty one will have a record for this in their past. A regular person doesn't do something like that for the first time...

Also, before that, you might want to open the door for them to anonymously return the money (or what's left of it) without any further digging or repercussions... that might be the best solution. JMO

Edit: Also, if you can be pretty sure that none of your customers were wearing gloves while in your house, than you should have some nice fingerprints on/in your till. There's no reason for any of those customers to be touching the till right?...
If I were you, I wouldn't touch anything... post a notice and give the person a week to mail the money back to you, after which you will go forward with the investigation and charges... and the shame, don't forget the shame. Whoever it was that succumbed to the weak moment should decide that it is in their best interests to get your money back to you.

- Chad

So sorry to hear about this Neal!

I do hope you are able to recover the money! Also, I definetly agree with Chad's post. If there was anything they had to move in order to pull them envelope, prints should be on there for sure.

Good luck in the Recovery of the money!

Chris

You might decide to hold off for a couple days just to give the person the chance to return it first... you know, save you the time and hassle in court - save the forum the scandal (it's one of those things that we'd almost rather not know, know what I mean?).
Post your mailing address and let the person return the money - best of both worlds.. or let them contact you via made up hotmail account etc.
I't sounds like a spur of the moment thing as opposed to premeditated - that tells me that they probably wish they could take back their mistake, and this would be their chance...
If you don't get any results that way, then, by all means, take the ugly route and contact EPS (and we'll watch the show).

- Chad

Unbelievable. I would gladly pay a 10% surcharge to any future purchases to help you get this money back.

Some people suck.

Man that sucks. I sure hope you get the money back. I do know that if I had gone to see you that day I would be more than happy to speak to the Police just to clear my name and try to help you. Cause unfortunately those 6 people that come to see you, in the back of your mind there all guilty (Not to put words in your mouth). Man I feel bad for you.

My wife works for the RCMP in morinville. She suggests filing a police report as soon as possible in this matter. If you give the chance for this thief to spend the money it is possible you may not see it again.

I Hope it all works out in the end. A 10% increase in price is nothing for the service you provide to your customers.

man that sucks. You think you trust people and then they go and do that. I feel for you.

That is disgusting. Would this be a member on this board?

i appreciate the support
there were some members of this board at my home today.
Once again, I am not pointing any fingers and want everyone to know that was here that I have a hard time believing it was anyone that is from this board. Everyone that was here today from the forum has been in my home a few times and I haven't had any problems.
So I don't know what to think.
I do have the name and phone numbers of the people that were here. However, I really don't want to involve, incriminate or definitely judge anyone unnessarily.
I am truly sorry for those who have become inadvertently involved in this simply because they were at my home today.
Once again
thanks for the support
Neal

Good luck. I hope the person who did this drops off the money before the police have to get involved.

Anthony

Wtf
 

I hate to play devil's advocate, but man are you guys crazy? That money is LONG gone! Anyone daring enough to steal from under the nose of someone who is providing a generous service to others certainly will not have an ounce of remorse, let alone the morality required to return the money! :rolleyes:

Like Reefhawk1 mentioned, you should file the police report immediately and provide the names of all individuals who were at your home/store.

I'm sure the innocent would not mind being questioned on the matter, as the minor inconvenice is more than ofset by the clearing of their names and the resolution of your possible suspicions of them.

Seems to me at the end of the day a lesson has been learned hopefully. :frown:

That seriously bites. I hope you file a police report and the person is caught. I suppose the $ are long gone but I sure hope the low life get caught.

very sorry to hear this!
how can someone do such thing to a nice person providing them with such great service!
anyway i would not mind paying 10% more, see you in a few days.
--Davy

Holy shat......Thats Bullshat I would get a hold of the police try to get them to do their job and flush them out if someone could steal that easy I image they will have a dirty past that will come out in an investagation and hopefully get your money back.

Yep I agree, call the cops. They broke the law and deserved to be punished. I'm sure the innocent bystanders won't mind a bit if it means catching a thief!

How completely craptastic. I'm sorry to hear about that, Neal. In addition to everything else, it puts a cloud of suspicion over a bunch of innocent people.

Okay, my two cents
 

Sorry to hear about the loss.

Based on the fellowship you receive from this site, I think you must be a pretty decent person ... but, I do have a `but' for you ... I'd feel `funny' buying stuff from you that has a 10% stealing surcharge added to it. I didn't take anything, so why should I be paying for that?

Brian
Regina, SK

Sorry to hear about that Neal, your are a good guy that does not derserve this. Unfortunatly there are those in this world that would, and do take advantage of a persons kindness and friendship. I would hope that this individual would return the money. What a crappy thing to happen to someone that saves us all money on a regular basis.

Will

Sorry to hear about your loss. I would call the cops if I were you.

Same reason you pay for it at every vendor in the world. All the big box stores (walmart etc) have a shopifting tax on their goods. Its unfortunate for those of us who follow the law. But it goes for every facet of life. Everything has a anti-theft tax or markup on it. From insurance to grocerys.
Most just don't tell you...they claim higher prices from their suppliers or distributors etc. If they have a store where someone can steal the markup is there period.

As well,
No offfence, but at this point, anyone that doesn't feel that they should pay the 10 Percent, they can go and shop at the other stores and pay another 50 percent.
I still beat them hands down in pricing.
Neal

Insurance
 

First off, that really sucks to hear you had a criminal in your house. I hope that you took others advise and called the cops. Although you may not get the money back, it's always a good idea to have the authorities involved when criminal activities occur. On another note, as you are applying the 10% hike, which I understand why, I'm guessing you don't have insurance, or it was denied. If it is the case of not having insurance, have you ever looked into it? There are a couple of issues of not having insurance. Obviously, you don't have coverage for losses like this if there is no insurance, but since you are out of a home, if you own the home or rent it, your home/tenant's insurance will not cover most losses because you are operating a business out of it. Slip and fall claims are more common than most people think, and although $1000 is something that most people can't just absorb, including myself, what would happen if you were faced with a client that fell off your front step, and sued you for $10,000? Also, what would happen if a tank sprung a leak and you were faced with replacing flooring, ripping out walls, and clean up expenses? Insurance is not cheap, but it could save your but in case something major happens. If you do have home/tenants insurance, just beware that if you haven't told them about this business and call them now, you could face the possibility of it being cancelled for not disclosing this to them, or it isn't a type of risk they write. Still, I would look into getting coverage somewhere for the business. If you haven't guessed by now, I am an insurance broker(ducking from eggs/hate mail). By no means am I writing this to solicit your business. I would recommend contacing whoever you deal with for your insurance right now and discuss coverage with them. I just want to see a fellow reefer be protected in case something like this happens again.

Hey Neal, you sound like a stand-up guy. I'm sorry this happened to you.

I've been following this thread and everyone here is giving super good advice. I hope this works out in the end for you.

man that really is bad ,Neals trying to run a business and a light finger A$$ has to come a burn him like that ,Sorry to hear about it Neal

I agree with a fellow poster, you shouldnt charge others for failing to secure your money. You cant trust others to come to your place and have envelopes of money available to them. learn from your mistake and move on. Your business will suffer if you try stuff like this. Just my 2 cents

I have to disagree with those who think the charge is unfounded, its a standard practice and every business does it, if they don't good for them. However, generaly speaking, we pay a "theft" tax on every item we buy, its just not advertised, its worked into the markup.

On that note, althought its great to trust those whom we do business with in this hobby, it is up to you to secure your money.

Its shame and depressing that someone in our community would do this.

Best of luck

just because there's money in an envelope doesn't mean it's available to them...just like his tv, computer, stereo etc are not available to his customers either. someone stole from him and thats wrong, being in business, that's his perogative if he needs to recoup money lost, no matter how it was lost. customers still have the option of shopping somewhere else if they feel they're not paying a fair price.

sorry you had to go through that Neal and good luck getting your money back.

I highly disagree with this statement. As a business owner we do not markup our products to include a "theft" tax. We markup our products to cover our bottom line, and make a couple bucks as well. If something is stolen, then it is our responsibility to secure our items more, and not pass that loss on to other customers by charging more.

I have no problem what Howdy is doing as he has the right to do it. He has great product and puts alot of time and passion into it. I will fully support him in the future.

Steve

To all those who think he should not be trying to recoup his money and think that it is HIS fault that someone stole from him, I say..............


WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?


Maybe he should just shut everything down to us honest people who are willing to buy from him. That way things won't be "there for the taking" EH????

GEEZ....the things some people say REALLY PI$$ me off!!

As for NEAL.......10% on YOUR prices is NUTHIN. I would GLADLY pay an extra 10%

As for the person or personS who did this...........THIS is what should happen to YOU....:snipersm:

END RANT!!!

Sorry if I offended anyone else here. :redface:

It find it hard to believe that as a business owner you fail to see how stolen goods affect your bottom line. Like you say, you have the responsibilty to secure your items. Ok, so lets look at that. You install cameras, maybe hire a few more people so your retail space is covered. Now you have incured higher costs, and now you must raise your prices in order to compensate for the additional costs.

Call it whatever you want, either way your adding a cost to your product so that you can be successful.

I conceed that as a small business owner, they may want to absorb the costs because their products have such a small margin for profit as it is. And by adding an additional cost will alienate some customers, but I certainly challenge you to find a large or medium retail outlet such as Walmart, and tell me they do not take into consideration theft and damages for that matter, and add that to their markup prices.

Sucks to be a small business in this sense.

you would have been better off to just up your prices and not tell anyone its because of a theft tax. It truly sucks that you got taken for, but as others have said you cant just make people pay for others crimes. Maybe you have great prices but its not the point. its great you have support from people saying they will pay your 10 percent, you obviously have loyal customers and friends. If your prices are soo great then just tack on another 10 percent. If I knew what I paid before and now found out I am paying another 10 % theft tax I wouldnt be a customer anymore. Sorry Just my 2 cents. Oops your car broke down.... tack on another 20 !! MY PRICES STILL CANT BE BEAT!!!! Eat it Man your a business owner. SHIT happens !!!

I think it's funny that anyone who doesn't agree with the additional charge, mostly has a problem with it because they are being told what it's for.
Your right, a business owner has the right/responsibility to increase prices when their bottom line is threatened... it happens all the time, prices are always creeping up, never down.
I think it is a little bit refreshing that this vender is actually telling his customers the reason for the increase... maybe ignorance is bliss, but I think it's easier to take the increase in a case where "jeesh guys, I wouldn't normally do this but X happened and now I have to..."
He has also stated that the increase was a temporary measure until he has recouped the loss... also a really decent gesture.
I've never seen his operation, but I am assuming that he has to sell a lot of coral to make $1000 profit. In this hobby we have seen too many LFS go out of business because it wasn't profitable for them... if this is what it takes to make it worth his time to stay in the business, then I say go for it! Unless, you like ordering your livestock online, we need good local venders.

- Chad

surcharge Cancelled
 

It is funny how this has sparked a controversy.
It is getting to be counter-productive, so I am going to try to put this to rest.
What I have learnt out of this is that obviously I am too honest and trustworthy of people.
Number one mistake is that, yes, I was trusting of people when I had put my money away into a envelop into a money box on my counter. Obviously that was a big mistake and trust me, I paid dearly for it. Maybe I should start hiding my stereo system, the big screen TV, or my laptop when people come in so that they aren't tempted by that either.
Second, I was honest with people and told them that, because of this loss, I was going to temporary increase the prices to compensate for the loss. I would have obviously been better off to just increase the prices with no clear indication as to why.
If you think that places like big Al's don't have to compensate for theft with their pricing, you are living in a dream world. They just call it overheard verses what it is really for - theft of merchandise.
It is always about the bottom line, and let me tell ya, it wil probably take about 3 months for me to even break even again with this fish business because of this lodd.
I have 2 businesses and I work fulltime in the army. I spend the most amount of time on this fish stuff and yet I receive the least amount of compensation back for it.
I do this because I love this hobby.
Because of this love of this hobby, I am going to cancel the 10 Percent Surcharge. Thankfully I make more than enough money elsewhere that this isn't going to make me lose my house because the 1000.00 bucks was my mortgage payment.
Ultimately, this isn't about the money to me. (a thousand bucks ain't going to make or break me, which is why I am cancelling the surcharge.) It is about the fact that I have learnt that I can't trust people. It is about the fact that there is now a air of suspicion around people that shouldn't have it on them. That is what gets me.
thanks again for those that showed support and for those that showed me the opposite side of things as well. everyone is entitled to their own opinion.
BTW, as an aside.
1. Yes, I do have house insurance for a small business.
2. I did contact the police and was basically told that it wasn't worth the time to fill out the paperwork. They aren't going to fingerprint for a 1000.00 bucks and even that probably wouldn't show anything.
3. Anyone that did pay the 10 percent, I will compensate you that money back, just contact me and we will sort it out.
Anyhoos.
thanks for reading
Neal

One of life's most important lessons, if you give the yammer-heads something to yammer about it'll never end. I actually thought it was pretty cool that you were being so up front about the whole thing but wasn't especially surprised that it ended up how it did.

People need to realize that they pay a little bit more for everything they buy because of this kind of thing. Every retailer does it, they have no other recourse.

Maybe setup a 'donation jar' or something similar at your counter or whatever. Have a note saying that it's an attempt to recover your $1000 dollar loss. You'd be surprised how many people would donate a few bucks. This would probably work out a lot better than a mandatory surcharge.

...if everyone donates something... keep a close eye on the guy who dosen't. lol