Plumber Unfair Invoice How to handle it!

keystone

roses wrote: »

I agree. I would never pay a call out charge unless I was explicity yold before hand, even if it was £20.

Find out what the guy did to fix it. Then decide whether you will pay. Yes £47 is cheap but if he didn't inform you beforehand then they can't force it on you now for going to your house & not fixing anything (if they are charing for a call out and nothing else)

You are ignoring the fact that whatever happened they entered into a contract albeit a poorly drawn and poorly agreed one. The firm might have had a reasonable expectation of being paid his call-out fee despite the OP not remembering it. The OP asked the plumbing firm to attend. The firm agreed. If neither of them were savvy enough to mention paltry little matters such as finances then they are equally at fault. The OP has now had a rant. The plumber has not been given the opportunity to put his side of the story. He should before anyone takes anything less than a neutral and balanced viewpoint.

Was it definitely not a tenant error of not putting a setting correctly and the plumber corrected it?

I'm not sure I see how that is relevant. Based on input from the tenant the landlord contracted the plumber to attend. If the landlord thought that the tenant was a numpty and couldn't operate a switch properly then the ball is in the landlords court to check it himself before contracting the plumber to visit and thus potentially wasting his time.

HTH

Cheers

phlash

Sell your BTL to a decent LL.

I bet you have no problem with taking £100 off your tenant for "unreasonable wear and tear".

Please just pay up, you sound silly.

If you worked in the industry you would understand call out charges. How does someone in that trade make money if they had to go round ten houses like yours in a day, just to fix a small problem. They're not superman, every minute they are round your house is a minute they could be doing a more lucrative job, he may have turned down decent work to be at your house. So of course a call out charge is ok. Just be thankful you have never needed a locksmith - you'd end up in court over the call out charge.

roses

I have called out many plumbers and never had a call out charge! All I do is go to the corgi (now gas safe) website, find 5 people within 5 miles of me & call them up.

BitterAndTwisted

Roses, the total bill was £47 as confirmed by the PO''s first post. Call it what you will, attendance fee, call-out charge or anything else the fact is a qualified professional was called-out, they attended and they fixed whatever was f*cked, all for a total charge of £47

Seems entirely and reasonable to me. If the workman had attended and they phoned him and told him what was needed to be done even if the OP had declined to authorise it the charge wouldn't have been any less.

keystone

Well the OP had his rant and hasn't been back since. He prolly isn't that bothered then.

Cheers

G_M

Oh he's bothered!

But doesn't like the slant taken by most posters.

He came looking for support for his view that he shouldn't pay, and didn't get it.

Radiantsoul

Like everyone else I feel this is far. But I suppose your best bet if you really must push it is not to pay, go elsewhere in future and get them to sue you.

moneysaver

I agree that £47 is cheap to get your shower working, but I would still like to know what was fixed & included in the call out charge. What if the same thing happens again, surely it must be a guaranteed repair.

Just another point, if anyone was to buy an item on the internet & was charged £47 for delivery, with no mention of this on the site would you just pay it?



Moneysaver

michaelvintner

£47, Bargain. What you moaning about.

As for the bit about being ripped off if you want I will come round and fix the shower for you. You will need an entire new shower unit, come to thing about it the bath does not meet current safety regulation and the toilet is a death trap. It will all have to be skipped. I will quote you £5000 for the entire job which I want all up front and then you will never see me again. That is a rip off.

£47 for a call out and repair, can you please reccomend these people to us.

Mischa

You should have been made aware of the costs of any call out charges prior to having the plumber round, however, as you had just had work don eby this company you would likley have seen the call out charge costs on the invoice you had just paid. This is a miscommunication - nothing comes for free - everybody charges a call out charge and as i assume you were not there, you cannot be aure what was discussed between the plumber and tenant.