Honest men painting the side-walk themselves after politicians have stolen all the money.

I had a situation with a motorcar dealer who would not give me an honest answer about my excessively rusted exhaust system on my new car. I tried and I tried but to no avail.

Eventually I had to make enquiries and contact various parties and the motorcar company itself decided to replace the exhaust system at no cost. It was a bittersweet victory in that I think they just did it to keep their name out of the news.

You see, the problem is that when something like this happens you lose trust in the business.

I was having a conversation the other day with two experienced business people and they were talking about all the millions being made by illicit trade. They mentioned big names and massive sums.

As the one business person said, he will only do business in an honest way. He’s never done business any other way and will continue to have honest business dealings.

Think of all the smaller transactions that happen with various retail stores and contractors and how they rip you off in various ways.

I had a situation where two contractors on site fought with each other about who had broken guttering on my home. I was able to solve the main part by sitting down with one of the contractors but after he completed the work, he never came back. He left a certain part of the roof in an absolute mess with his workers’ plastic cool drink bottles and debris.

I certainly won’t be contacting him again in a hurry for any roof repairs.

It seems almost stupid to be discussing honesty in business. One would think that it is a sine qua non. But unfortunately it’s not so.

I could go on and on. There are so many examples of large companies that “fleece” money from you without a blink of an eyelid. And they’ve got a long list of terms and conditions to protect themselves if you dare to try and protest.

It’s actually got worse and worse over the years.

I think those businesses that have made honesty in their business dealings part of their business are doing better than those who haven’t. It’s especially so in these economic times when you have to be extremely careful about who you deal with.

It’s up to you to decide how you want to run your business. But it’s one thing saying yes, everyone is honest in my business and it’s quite another practicing honesty day in and day out with every business decision you make.