Scrap yard fixed their mistake, but I learned a lesson

Saturday was a busy day for us. We brought two loads to one of our local yards, GLE Scrap Metal in Warren, MI, one a 1440 pound load of steel and one a 2600 pound load of mixed ferrous and non-ferrous.

When we were having our non-ferrous materials weighed, somebody else besides the guy who was working with us came in and tweaked something on the computer at the scale. There was a bit of an argument between the two workers over "whose ticket" the materials were going to appear on, and then the original guy continued weighing our stuff.

Well, to make a long story short, we got our pay-out and didn't really look at the ticket until today, and wouldn't you know, about 50# of aluminum wasn't on the ticket. Since it was a big load for us we missed it while we were still at the yard.

When I called them this morning, the first person I talked to gave me a variation of "too bad, so sad, shoulda caught it then." And in a way, I guess she was right, but I persisted and got to speak to the manager. Lindsey listened to my description of what happened, and promised to look into it and call me back.

The good news is that they are going to credit us for 50# of aluminum. She called me back, earlier than she had promised, and will make it right as best she can. She reminded me that we need to check the ticket over carefully while we're still at the yard, and I agree with her, but they were able to establish that somebody new had messed up the transaction and gave us the benefit of the doubt.

So, couple of things here:

• One, don't take the first "no" you get for an answer. Persist -- politely and calmly -- when there is a problem with a ticket and you know you are right.
• Two -- review your ticket carefully before you leave the yard. I'm going to have to bring a checklist to make sure I have something to compare my ticket against.
• And three -- the people working at GLE in Warren MI went above and beyond for us and did the best they could to make things right for us. Detroit area scrappers: these are good folks.

--Geoff