You can seize control of physical assets if they fail to pay you.
Honestly, why are you guys so committed to this idea that contractors are these criminal masterminds who will thwart your every attempt to sue for damages? Small Claims is an incredibly routine and straightforward process, and pretending that it isn’t only serves to dissuade people from making use of it.
Oh, did they shove it into those pneumatic tubes to send it somewhere else? That sounds like fun but not very lucrative
Which is fine unless they know the system and how to play it - eg by telling the magistrate the second time around that they've made partial payment & have more coming, just need some time, etc.
Are you speaking from past experience? This is something I hear repeated on Hacker News all the time but I’ve never seen evidence that it’s particularly common.
Because it isn't, for small claims court. Does it happen? Absolutely. But it's rare.
It's much more common outside small claims, where the stakes are higher.
Filing those claims is time consuming and expensive, and if they fight or ignore, it ends up costing more than your claim is worth, even not including time.
And this wasn't even with movers.