Trucking company out $103k after brewery fails to keep promise of payment

A North Carolina trucking company says they are owed nearly $105,000 after a brewery stopped paying for their deliveries and then shut down. 

Topline Trucking owner Rickey McKinney says that he started working with Catawba Brewing in Morganton, North Carolina about one year ago. When the brewery was bought out, their contract continued, but the payments stopped. 

“They kept promising to pay us, and then eventually, they walked into the Morganton location and just shut it down overnight,” McKinney said to ABC 13 News.

One day, the company showed up with their regular delivery and were turned away by people who told them the building was being shut down – This was back in January. Now, McKinney says he still hasn’t been paid, and he’s getting worried he never will be. 

In addition to delivery invoices, McKinney says the company owes Topline for work on one of their box trucks. 

“We did a bunch of work to it,” he said, “and they promised if I took the box truck back to their location in Asheville they would pay me the hundred something thousand they owe me.”

But Topline dropped the truck off, and never heard from Catawba again, even after a company audit. 

“It was promise after promise and never did get paid,” he said. “We have all the documents stating we’ve got all the runs and all what they owe us, you know, on paper,” he said. “They did the audit themselves and it’s 100% they owe me the money; they just won’t pay it.”

“They won’t contact, won’t say nothing, help us out. With them keep going in, shutting other businesses down, makes me think, ‘Well, are they going to file bankruptcy? What are they going to do?’”

“I need to get it out there and maybe help someone else from doing the same thing and get too far deep with them and they never recover their money,” he said.

A representative had only this to say about the situation: “On behalf of Catawba Brewing Company, I was told that there are disputes on the Topline bills that have not been resolved between the parties, which is why it remains outstanding.”