I live in Illinios... I made the mistake of hiring a lawn service owned by one of my husbands coworkers to do some work this past summer. There was never a contract signed but the owner sends monthly billings. After I received the first billing I called him to ask him not to come anymore because of the outrageous prices that he failed to mention for spring cleaning etc... I sent back the invoice with a check that indicated that the account had been paid in full, shortly after I received another bill from him that said that I owed an additional $45 for services preformed on a date in which I don't think that he showed up... the notice states that the debt is subject to the Fair Debt Collection Practice of Illinois. Does anyone know what my rights are since there was no contract signed?

I don't know what you mean by your rights - he has the ability to sue you in Small Claims Court (if he wants to go through the time/bother for $45) at which time you would defend yourself. I "assume" your argument would be that he did not do the work.

A verbal agreement is binding so you would argue there was no meeting of the minds verbally and he would argue that there was.

Can you prove that he got your notice discharging him before he did the extra work or that he did not, in fact, do the extra work?

You have full rights to a court hearing before he can get a judgement on this.