Listen to your gut
It just didn’t feel right, but I went ahead anyway since the risk seemed minimal. It turned out to be yet another confirmation that it’s best to listen to your gut.
I was out weeding the lawn one day near the driveway, and a man pulled up in a pickup truck that was obviously a work truck. He leaned out the window and asked if that was my car parked in the driveway. When I said yes, he said he could take the dent out of the door for me if I wanted. I told him no thanks. He then said he could do it for $300, and that it would only take a little while (maybe a half hour?). I told him no thanks again. He came down another $50, and I said no again. This continued until he got down to about $80. At that point I thought, well, maybe he CAN take the dent out, and I know a shop would charge about $700 to completely fix the door. (I’d had a few quotes on it.)
My gut was saying “oh geez, don’t do it, that’s a pretty big dent, never pay someone that just appears at your door, you’re just going to be out $80, etc.”
But the old “oo maybe I can get a deal” voice in my HEAD was louder, so I went for it. He got to work on the dent, and I went inside. Pretty soon the doorbell rang, and he told me he was done, and asked for his money. I went out to look at the car, and about HALF of the dent was actually gone. There was some paste on the other half. He said “that’ll need to sit for a few hours, and then the rest of it will be pulled out”. I thought “yeah right” but went ahead and paid him.
So I wound up paying $80 to have half a dent removed. I later had a body shop do the rest of the work. So this “bargain” actually cost me $80 more than I should have paid.
