What to do if your vending machines are stolen
Hello everyone Randall here with How2vend.com. I hope that you all are wrapping up a wonderful week as I am. Please do not get me wrong this was a great week however, every great week has hard spots. I am finishing my week strong and I am looking forward the revenue from the locations that I landed the past couple days.
Locating and Servicing
Thursday was a little service collecting and relocating and today was strictly relocating. I am always looking to relocate our slowest machines. Thursday and Friday we (my helper and I) worked two long ten hour days relocating 8 S and B 27 inch ball cranes. We did so and that felt great but like I said it wasn’t easy and it came with lots of hard work. 1 machine we had to bring home and another was stolen along with a kiddie ride by a Mexican market owner who has a church above is market.
Robbed
We were so pissed and surprised that it happened. I was there at that location 3 weeks prior to this happening and the location was slow. Very very slow and so we decided that was one of the last locations we had to service and relocate. The store owner has a large BBQ that he cooks chicken on. Dino is a 300 pound Hispanic guy who cooks his BBQ chicken from a motorized scooter because he is lazy to walk. Nothing against him I just want to set the scene for what happened.
Matt and I approached the store and walked in knowing that our kiddie ride was gone and replaced be new ones. Also our crane machine was nowhere to be found. I mean it was gone. In its place was a Sugar Loaf plush crane that had one’s, fives, tens, and a hundred dollar bill inside it. We were very upset and confronted Dino. I explained to Dino, “I was here 3 weeks ago and now my machines are gone where did they go?” (California a sunny place for shaddy people) “I have no idea” said Dino.
Retaliation- The right way
A long debate ensued as Dino lied to us time and time again about where the machine was and what happened to them. I was upset obviously. It was about $4500 dollars in equipment, product, and cash to be in the hole. Dino said, “Your machine was broken”. My response to everything he said was, “Give me my property back. Im not going to argue with you I want my property back.” Finally he said you bring $300 dollars and I will have your machine here on Wednesday. I said, “Put that in writing.” He was like, “No, but I will shake on it.” Matt and I left to check another location. During that time Matt and I decided he was probably lying about returning our machine and that he was working on keeping the machine.
So Matt and I drove back to Tratorilleria Santa Cruz and parked facing the building out front. Dino rolled around his BBQ a little worried. Fumbling stuff in his hands and making a mess. Matt and I just sat in the truck staring at him. The first meeting between us was caused a scene with all the church people coming into the market from the upstairs church they run. Our conversation was heated to say the least and we were calling him a liar and a thief in front of his congregation and the argument spilled into the parking lot. There were not a lot of people around that did not here our argument. It was great.
So to make a long story short we came back about an hour later after the sun went down to call the police to make a report so we can get everything in order for a civil suit. Needless to say it felt great making a guy like that nervous. He called some gang banger guys to come blare their music and stare us down. Maybe they thought we were going to be violent or something. It was hilarious when the police showed up. If you have any doubt that dog turds could grow feet and start running its true. It happened last night when the police showed up. The officer spoke to Matt and I and we gave him the story “They stole our machines and they are running an illegal gambling operation. That was a curve ball Dino was not expecting to have to hit. The cop told him that there would be an ongoing investigation into the market and I am stuck having to take the guy to court for the loss of the machines. I hope nobody has to deal with this. California is hit pretty hard by the great recession and people are eager to make a buck. Even church owners and wheel chair bound people.
Remember
• Call the police and make a report
• File a small claims action against the location for the missing machine, missing product and estimated missing revenue.
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sort of odd question but whats
your opinion of the S&B ball cranes?
I run a whole bunch of them and have a real hard time keeping them running. When you buy them they show up on a pallet boxed up so you cannot actually see the condition of the crane’s before you accept the delivery. Many of them have many things broken after opening them up. I really felt like they sent cranes that were shipped to clients they actually cared about and had rejected. I’m not stating that as fact just as my opinion based on the condition of the cranes. They sent replacement parts and it has been nothing but replacing parts on the cranes. Ron is the name of the tech support guy and he is very nice and he will answer his phone at all hours of the night. So that is good. But sucks because many of the cranes will not last a week without breaking or going bananas as I like to call it because of a voltage issue.
Another benefit to the S and B 27″ crane is they do not take a lot of floor space and are easy to land locations for.