I sold Trump $100,000 worth of pianos. Then he stiffed me.

[misterhighwasted]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/781186034621177857

John Harwood – Verified account ?@JohnJHarwood

I sold Trump $100,000 worth of pianos. Then he stiffed me.
http://wpo.st/MgZ02


Sucks that Wapo puts out another devastating revelation on Trump then makes us subscribe to read it. grrr

If anyone can bring it here, thank you.

[jehop61]

1. Try

Cleaning Safari before linking. Usually removes blocking cookies

[blm]

2. Yeah, but, who sells him the coke?

; )

[TexasTowelie]

3. Here it is:

At Monday night’s debate, Donald Trump was called out for stiffing the people who work for him. Trump has been accused of failing to pay hundreds of contractors. And so far, he hasn’t seemed very sorry. When asked about failing to pay someone by Hillary Clinton this week, Trump replied, “Maybe he didn’t do a good job and I was unsatisfied with his work.”

I take that attack personally. I’m one of the many small business owners who’ve been used by Trump, exploited and forced to suffer a loss because of his corporation’s shady practices.

My relationship with Trump began in 1989, when he asked me to supply several grand and upright pianos to his then-new Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. I’d been running a music store for more than 30 years at that point, selling instruments to local schools and residents. My business was very much a family affair (my grandsons still run the store). And I had a great relationship with my customers — no one had ever failed to pay.

I was thrilled to get a $100,000 contract from Trump. It was one of the biggest sales I’d ever made. I was supposed to deliver and tune the pianos; the Trump corporation would pay me within 90 days. I asked my lawyer if I should ask for payment upfront, and he laughed. “It’s Donald Trump!” he told me. “He’s got lots of money.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/09/28/i-sold-trump-100000-worth-of-pianos-then-he-stiffed-me/

[rurallib]

5. I wonder if there is some way an enterprising lawyer could get a class action lawsuit

going against Trump for ripped off businesses and workers?
Seems that individually it is too expensive, but maybe there is some way they could band together?

[ColemanMaskell]

10. That idea I like. Class action lawsuit.

Also some lawyers will accept cases on speculation, so to speak, for a cut of the settlement if any

[Cattledog]

4. Trump is a shakedown artist.

[bellmartin]

6. Could someone gifted with graphics make one of a grand piano falling from a great height onto Trump?

[TeamPooka]

7. Trump is a thug with good lawyers. nt

[demmiblue]

8. Snippet:

But when I requested payment, the Trump corporation hemmed and hawed. Its executives avoided my calls and crafted excuses. After a couple of months, I got a letter telling me that the casino was short on funds. They would pay 70 percent of what they owed me. There was no negotiating. I didn’t know what to do — I couldn’t afford to sue the Trump corporation, and I needed money to pay my piano suppliers. So I took the $70,000.

Losing $30,000 was a big hit to me and my family. The profit from Trump was meant to be a big part of my salary for the year. So I made much less. There was no money to help grow my business. I had fewer pianos in the showroom and a smaller advertising budget. Because of Trump, my store stagnated for a couple of years. It made me feel really bad, like I’d been taken advantage of. I was embarrassed.

Today, when I hear Trump brag about paying small business owners less than he agreed, I get angry. He’s always suggesting that the people who worked for him didn’t do the right job, didn’t complete their work on time, that something was wrong. But I delivered quality pianos, tuned and ready to go. I did everything right. And then Trump cheated me. It’s a callous way to do business.

Trump keeps saying that it’s time we got a businessman to run the country. Of course, I think it’s important to find someone who can bolster the economy. But I also think we need a president who cares about small business owners, and about honoring his commitments. That’s not Trump.

[renate]

14. "the casino was short on funds"

This part would get under Trump's skin more than the accusation of stiffing a small-business owner.

[ColemanMaskell]

9. Cookie recipes

http://www.exterminate-it.com/malpedia/remove-washingtonpost-com

Here is an excerpt from the above site:

To detect / delete washingtonpost.com cookie in Google Chrome
From the Chrome menu Google Chrome Menu Button on the browser toolbar choose Settings
Click Show Advanced Settings... link
In the Privacy section, click Content settings
Click All cookies and site data... button
Start typing washingtonpost.com cookie name in the Search cookies field and cookie list will be automatically filtered, or you can scroll down the list to check whether the cookie exists
To delete the washingtonpost.com cookie:
Hover the mouse cursor over cookie name in the list to highlight it
Click X button that appears on the right corner

[msongs]

11. best business practice is cash in advance, full payment nt

[barbtries]

12. i'm all out of free articles too.

wondering how much a digital subscription is. i already subscribe to a couple alternative media providers, but maybe it is time to sign up with this paper or the NYTimes, and pay for it. hmm

[mahatmakanejeeves]

17. I'm pretty sure that's how the whole "newspaper" thing works. But:

Your friendly local public library might subscribe to the Washington Post online. Have you tried reading it that way?

[barbtries]

18. no.

seems unlikely that they would make the digital version available to anyone remotely on a computer somewhere else?

[ColemanMaskell]

20. Library computers and Internet Cafes delete their cookies regularly

You can find out the cost of a subscription to NYT or Wapo just by clicking subscribe, then backing out.

NYT used to have a cheap introductory subscription. Wapo may too. By all means if you have the money, and a credit card or something that makes it feasible for you to pay online, then if you want to read it a lot you should subscribe, from an ethical perspective.

On the other hand -- there's always an "other hand" -- when a company makes the decision to limit your use and track that use by storing cookies, they are accepting the technical limitations of that approach. Some people delete all their cookies and other internet-related temporary files every time they shut down their computers, as a security precaution. Some people access the internet from public computers available at libraries and internet cafes; those sites delete temporary files including cookies regularly. So the companies planting cookies on your computer have to know that their method is makeshift and flimsy, and they've accepted that, knowing that most people will comply, and any people who seek to bypass the cookie control probably would not have found it within their budgets and abilities to pay for the subscription anyway.

In my many long years of working with computers and seeing people seemingly pirating things, what I've seen is that people prefer to pay for things if they find the price within their reach, and that people who use free copies of something (and like it) quite often later buy the thing when their circumstances permit. So I don't worry about it much anymore. People are mostly honest, oddly enough. (Wapo and NYT must know that, too; hence their decision to take a chance on using cookie technology.)

[Brother Buzz]

21. My Podunk library subscribes to Zinio

Many, many popular publications, including Washington Post can be downloaded at home for free if you piggyback through you library account. Check you library web page, and see if they subscribe (you will have to download a free app to make it work).

[ColemanMaskell]

22. Thanks for that info

Thanks, that's good to know, and it answers her question quite directly. Well done!

[barbtries]

24. i'll check it out, thank you

[ColemanMaskell]

23. Brother Buzz shared the best answer, but here's another possibility

If you don't want to delete cookies, and your library doesn't do what Brother Buzz's does, then if your computer has an operating system like Windows 7 that allows you to set up multiple users on one physical computer, then you can try that (though it's more work).

The multi-user facility allows a family to have one family computer used by multiple members of the family, and have each family member's files kept separate -- including browsing history and cookies.

So if you set up an extra user name for your grandmother, she -- or you on her behalf -- can read ten articles, and then if your great-grandmother also has a separate user name set up, well, she can read another ten. Or you can read them to her aloud during a seance, if she has passed on to the other side. You get the idea.

Obviously if you have the ability, then subscribing is the way to go. Otherwise Brother Buzz's idea is the best. If the public library doesn't do it, a nearby school or college might have a library that does. There's always some way forward, we just have to find it.

[Vogon_Glory]

13. We Ought To Make This A Constant Drumbeat: Trump Has A History

Of ripping off small contractors and small businessmen.

If you're looking for signs of a Republican voter here in Texas, look for someone in a full-size pickup truck with a metal toolbox straddling both sides in the back. They tend to be building contractors and they almost inariably have stickers for some right-wing politician or other.

And those are the sorts of guys the Donald has been ripping off for decades.

[spiderpig]

15. When I worked for an ad agency the cardinal rule for political ads was "cash up front"

Has anyone ever heard of a single positive Trump deal with a vendor?

[mahatmakanejeeves]

16. I'm pretty sure that's how the whole "newspaper" thing works. But:

Your friendly local public library might subscribe to the Washington Post online. Have you tried reading it that way?