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LadyEllen -> RE: house 4rent,but no illegals or sex offenders car torched (1/9/2008 6:27:36 AM)
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As you'll know R, I'm all for the ending of discrimination - but I see huge problems in extending that to private contractual relationships. Who I buy from or sell to is my decision, not a decision that the law should make for me - unless the law also wishes to cover the losses I might accrue from having to deal with those who in normal circumstances I'd prefer not to deal with.
I own a business, and I can say now that there are certain groups I would rather not contract with. Not because I'm a nasty person who has something personal against these groups, but because of recurrent experience of dealing with them - and sadly its a 100% record with them of them paying late or not at all, changing the goalposts throughout the contract and finding fault where there is none to renegotiate price after delivery. Naturally we're not allowed to discriminate, but we are allowed to price our service and payment terms according to risk as we perceive it - and this puts them off. It says it all really, when, on their first order we now ask everyone to pay in advance to show goodwill, and these same certain groups will then go elsewhere, whilst everyone else has no problem with it, and indeed expects it.
All we are interested in is providing a good service at a profit and getting paid on time - religion, ethnicity, nationality, gender, sexuality etc are irrelevant. But it would be wrong of me to say that certain groups have not shown themselves to be unreliable customers and remiss of me to deal with them as I would others who have not demonstrated such a record.
And before I get jumped all over for saying so - I am not going into which groups and I can assure you that twenty years' experience has gone into the policy I have adopted, and more than that its a common experience with these groups across our industry and beyond. Maybe its a cultural thing, but its not the way we do business.
E
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