damage to goods fitted

welnik

My husband has a company fitting garage doors. He fitted on yesterday while the customer was at work and posted the keys and invoice through the door. He has since had a phonecall this afternoon, to say that there is a scratch on it! It was perfect when he left there over 24 hours ago!

He usually returns on the evening to collect payment to avoid this scenario, but the football was on.

So, either the customer has damaged it to try and get it for nothing or she has had a jealous neighbour/vandal damage it. Its just a bit supsicious that she didnt ring last night or evening 9am this morning.

The supplier is a witness that the door was perfect when it left their factory but then he is saying that it could have been damaged in transit.

Where do we stand. He has public liability, can he claim on that?

People always rant about rogue traders, but what about rogue customers!

bigchasbroon

im a builder and in the past I have caused damage and there has been damage not caused by me Ive just offered a discount. Most people have been reasonable and its worth £100 or so to have a happy customer and avoid getting into legal wrangles.

First thing is go see it. It might be tiny which might mean you say look It was nt like that when I left it but Ill knock 50 quid off as a gesture of goodwill, notic you are not admitting to anything. Or it might be huge then you know that there is something amiss if its huge call thier bluff say it must be vandalism we'll have to get the police. see what happens. The WORST thing that you can do is to refuse to budge. Always be relaxed and cool appear to be as reasonable as possible most people soften.

aslo make sure that you keep a record of events in the (hopefully unlikely )event that you need to take legal action it will help your case if everything is recorded conversations times etc, the time delay in them notifying you of the damage is significant.

Avoid arguement at all costs otherwise an easily resolvebale situation turns into a full blown court case thats not good for anybody.

My view is that it doesnt matter if Im in the right I just want to get a thing resolved as quick and as easy as possible with minimum fuss. But I do need to get paid obviously

welnik

Thanks for that, its so annoying when you are just trying to earn a living. I think tradesmen should do a series on ITV about nightmare customers. I think there are far more of those than rogue traders!