A bitter bill dispute has resulted in legal action after a business owner left 26 mattresses on a customer’s driveway when they refused to pay an invoice they thought was too much.
According to a claim lodged in the Victoria Civil and Administrative Tribunal, Melbourne man Jarrod Maultby contacted a rubbish collection service junk.com.au about removing a pile of debris from his property on June 23.
He was provided a quote for the service which included a service fee plus additional fees for collecting household and light industrial waste.
According to the claim, when the company did not hear back from the customer he was offered a discounted service fee, which the customer agreed to and the job was booked.
Junk.com.au sent a driver to the property who talked to Mr Maultby on the phone to let him know they would send an invoice once the job was completed.
According to junk.com.au owner Richard Furnari, the driver loaded 2.5m3 of building waste onto the truck and the customer was invoiced for the discounted amount he was quoted.
But the business claims that when the office called Mr Maultby he refused to pay his invoice which totalled $516, telling the business he was only prepared to pay the discounted service fee of $39.
Mr Furnari said he explained to the customer since they had already processed the waste they were prepared to return the value in waste in the form of 26 mattresses, which equated to $520 invoice he owed.
Furnari claims Mr Maultby said “that sounded fine, deliver them to me rather than paying”.
“I tried a few more times without success,” he said.
“We then delivered and neatly stacked the mattresses at the property at our return cost.”
Mr Furnari claimed after dozens of mattresses were “neatly stacked” on Mr Maultby’s driveway he repeatedly contacted the office, which resulted in junk.com.au collecting the items then lodging a claim in the Victoria Civil and Administrative Tribunal to settle the dispute.
Mr Maultby’s partner Laura told Yahoo News Australia when they received the invoice they went back through all the communications and found the price buried in the documentation.
“The pricing was ambiguous,” she said.
Mr Maultby was contacted for comment.