Thirty years ago I had a client who wrote me a bad check for several thousand dollars. When I asked the state attorney's office about filing charges the first thing they said when I told them his name was "Where is he?" He had outstanding warrants for other bad checks as well as a failure to appear for the felony convictions he's already incurred.
We helped the authorities locate and arrest him and while we waiting for our turn in court I did background research on him. He was a Canadian citizen in the US on a visitor's visa but he was still trying to operate an air conditioning/heating business. Without a city, county, or state license of any sort. Even so, he managed to get a contract with the state to refurbish the systems in the old Florida Capitol Building AND a contract to put in a new system for the Tallahassee Police Department.
I was highly amused that TPD and the people in charge of the Capitol complex had no AC over that very hot summer since they had not done their due diligence to check the credentials of their low bidder.
In the long run, I ended up being the only person known to the State Attorney's Office to get any money out of the man. After he was convicted and sent to Raiford Prison, he told them he also had warrants out for him in Pennsylvania. Since Florida needed to reduce their prison population, they checked with his victims to see if we were OK with sending him out of state. The person who called me was astounded that I had gotten every penny of my money.
Of course I had leverage - I had put liens on the four horses he was boarding at my farm. He paid me off (partly with a check that was a down payment for another AC job - that never got down) and carried the horses off to another stable. They got cash for the first month; the second month the guy was in jail and his family was back in Canada so the horses were declared abandoned and the stable owner got ownership. I had been owed so much money it had not been worth it to me to do the same.
That man and a Swede who also abused his visitor's visa are why I will not do business with foreign nationals.
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