Our builder won't give receipts for materials

Careful_girl

I heard a lot of German explitives from the German OH-kept well out of it!! He wasn't very pleased until the end!!:rotfl:
England tomorrow!!:T
Peace and harmony...
CG

Careful_girl

OOh what a cooincidence!

Careful_girl

Mine didn't speak to me for a week after the spectacular 5.1 game!
Hehe!

MyUserNamesTaken

Careful_girl wrote:

Mine didn't speak to me for a week after the spectacular 5.1 game!
Hehe!

I heard a lot of shouting coming from the living room (most of it was German swearing). I decided to watch the match on my PC. Strange, really. The OH watched it in English, I watched it on Das Erste in German.

I'm not even allowed to mention the 5-1 result. I tried to get him to watch that match the other day - he refused. Oh, he also insists that we cheated in 66. :rotfl:

bigchasbroon

ye im scottish and as such im confused about who i should support. trinidadnad tobago have a player called scotland and few of them play in scotland, but I generally like the English people (apart from a bad experience in berkshire) and players. Gerrard is fantatsic as is rooney and lampard.

The only thing that gets up my nose is the past weeks is where every news program has carried a five minute rport on rooneys metatarsel and its kind of becoming boring.

MyUserNamesTaken

bigchasbroon wrote:

ye im scottish and as such im confused about who i should support. trinidadnad tobago have a player called scotland and few of them play in scotland, but I generally like the English people (apart from a bad experience in berkshire) and players. Gerrard is fantatsic as is rooney and lampard.

The only thing that gets up my nose is the past weeks is where every news program has carried a five minute rport on rooneys metatarsel and its kind of becoming boring.

Support Us! If we hadn't qualified and you had, we'd all be backing you...
As long as a UK team is there, we should back it regardless of it being England, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. (I would say that - I'm English. )

woodbutcher_2

Now the Poles are virtually out of the world cup,they could always come over here and earn a living on a building site near you.

Wig

Bulk discount is not as simple as 50 items or 100 items, sure it is in principle, but bulk purchaes may take place over mulitple transactions in an infinate amount of time, it can't simply be pigeon holed into black or white, there is a huge grey ara in between. This grey area is made up of the following, How much does this customer want to buy from me in this transaction? am I likely to get more trade from this custmer, what are the expected future sales to this customer if I discount this single sale? Should I infact sell this as a loss leader to gain the future sales of this customer? There are a multitude of prices and discounts to be considered.

I know how it works, I just said I disagreed with it in principle, where is my lack of comprehension?

Tesco being a large supermarket retailler will have employed at some stage, a time and motion study on how long each member of staff takes to process a particular item or customer, so fundamentally you are paying for an hourly rate of every employee with a markup to cover fixed overheads other than staffing costs, it's just calculated in a different way. Tesco's prices are based on what they feel they can sell an item at, how much damage it can do to their competition without invoking the wrath of the monoploies commission and what margin they feel they can comfortably operate at. You think Tesco are in business to make you, the customer, happy or make money and put down it's competitor?

If you notice I said "you don't get charged *seperately* at the till for hourly wages"...which was my point...that the analogy used was of a different business model. Anyway you just repeated what I had already said about how Tesco works. No lack of comprehension here.

Licenced taxi drivers are governed by pre set policy passed at government level, they are not free to charge as they wish,their cost per mile per person is set and they are not free to alter or discount their rates, as a result they are allowed certian extra dispensation with fuel and servicing costs.

Private hire drivers can charge what they want, but they don't factor in additional amounts. Taxi drivers can charge what they want out of licensed area, and can give discounts if they want to anyone anywhere. They aren't "allowed" discounts on fuel and servicing for any other reason than they are a tradesman getting a trade discount, which I think is wrong, but it's only my opinion. Anyway it was a bad example to use. No lack of business comprehension here.

The board I was referring to was WBP Plywood not internal quality plywood, for 25mm it retails from £45 up to £60 per sheet plus VAT, trade I have found it available in the low to mid £30's, Internal ply is approximately 30%-40% cheaper (my prices being based on the area in which I live - Surrey - so these may fluctuate throughout the country)

OK forget the plywood, I was just saying it's easy to get trade at TP, no lack of comprehension here.

Vauxhall are promoting their products in a hope that your next vehicle will be a Vauxhall, the incentive is that they will discount parts required as they define you as closely associated with the motor business, indeed this confirms exactly my point, that trade discounts are a grey area that are subject to negotiation. In this case Vauxhall are using the "Discount" as an advertising cost.

They only give trade discounts to people in trade, but it's fairly easy to get them as joe public as described. No lack of business comprehension here.

Becuase we don't live in a communist state (thankfully) we are free to trade as we wish, it is one of the most basic human traits that we will try to obtain a deal if we can, and as long as democracy regins that will never change. Only one major monopoly exists on this planet that goes unchallenged - diamonds, DeBeers control so much of the planets resources that they can charge what they like, they are so wealthy and powerful that governemtns turn a blind eye to how they trade. If DeBeers released there mined stock of diamonds onto the world market now, the average diamond would be valued at £0.01 per carat, consider that next time you pass a jewellery store. [/QUOTE]

I agree a free market allows free trade, I was only expressing an opinion. Part of that opinion was that *ideally* builders etc should not have to make hidden profits on the materials they buy, that if the idea of "trade discount" was thrown out the window, the world would not stop spinning and traders could quote purely on labour and know that the materials will be billed to the customer at cost. No lack of business comprehension here.


So once again, if you don't mind me pointing out you failed to answer the question. Where is my utter nonsense and lack of business comprehension?

Alan_M_2

MyUserNamesTaken wrote:

You simply don't get it, do you? All the risks you've stated are the same for people who employ cowboy builders or Dave who advertises in the local rag with only a mobile number. In 18 months time, when something goes wrong, can you be sure that Dave will still be about for you to contact him? Get it yet? None of the risks you've stated apply only to "immigrant" workers. I say Polish because you singled out Poles in your earlier replies. It doesn't make a slight bit of difference if the contractor is still in the country or not. If he's gone bust, you're up !!!! creak without a paddle. If he's moved on and become uncontactable, you're still up !!!! creak without a paddle. You face this risk regardless of the nationality of the contractor. As it stands, I am more inclined to take on a Pole who has been recommended to me than some bloke who sticks a leaflet through my door.

Incidentally, any UK resident can !!!!!! off to another EU country to live whenever they like. So, even there the risk is the same. Can you assure me that Dodgy Dave hasn't upped and moved to Spain? No. Can you prove that the Pole who built my conservatory isn't a UK resident? No.

Is that clear enough for you now?

Again, which risks apply only to "immigrant" workers?

Do you think I'm some form of racist or something? My wife is an Immigrant, She's Russian, so from that point of view I'm more than aware of the predjudice that exists in our society.

Also you've just reiterated about 90% of all my previous posts, about being aware who you are employing no matter what their nationality, I made that clear, you made that clear again....

However, I'm more likely to employ a Ltd company of 30 years standing with a registered address and account posted with companies house as I am than anyone that advertisies in a local newspaper, or the Yellow Pages for that matter.

I've clearly expalined the hightened risks involved in employing immigrant labour and not going to repeat them yet again.

Roll on the day when we regulate the construction industry as the Americans do, none of this conversation would be necessary.

Alan_M_2

Wig wrote:

So once again, if you don't mind me pointing out you failed to answer the question. Where is my utter nonsense and lack of business comprehension?

I couldn't have answered the questions in a clearer manner, the nonsence and lack of comprehension is the notion that clear and transparant transactions could or would ever exist in a free market economy.

However I for one would be absolutely delighted to see the construction industry regulated, where only VAT registered Ltd companies qualified for any discount, non registered trademen wouldn't exist and wouldn't legally allowed to operate, this is the direction the industry is moving and it can't come soon enough.

It's desgined to protect the consumer which it does admirably, but it has a side effect, it removes competition and prices go through the roof. This is the route the USA have taken and we'll be adopting the same in the very near future, the flip side of this is prices will double overnight.