charged for free glazing quote

kenshaz

Aiadi wrote:

You seem to completely ignore the fact that the OP called out the glazer for a FREE QUOTE- its completely ridiculous that the OP was supposed to guess that he'd have to pay for the bit of plastic - if the guy said 'I'll put up a bit of plastic but it'll cost you £110' then there wouldn't be an issue. Since when do companies send invoices to people without the customer first having agreeing to paying for the work?

This one did,£110 for a piece of plastic,yer having a laugh.I do not know the posters circumstances but,that £110 would feed a family for two weeks.
Why did the guy not request payment at the time ,why an invoice,because if you have work done ,contact them and have the glass replaced,you do not get charged for the plastic.Never was a free quote

kenshaz

bestyman wrote:

Good Morning,

Mr.T that was sooo funny, really did make me laugh.

Where it all fell apart was when she agreed to BM making it safe ( agreed to him working on her windows)

Anyhow, I have been rudely awaken by a potential customer this morning at 8 am who has a plumbing problem. When I return home later today with some money from saving someones house from flooding which I will spend on kids shoes etc. please dont think any less of me.

My heart bleeds,perhaps we could organise a whip round

ben500

kenshaz wrote:

My heart bleeds,perhaps we could organise a whip round

No problem I have two fuschia plants and an old wheelbarrow he can have for the garden :rotfl:

kenshaz

I have a tube of silicone and a roll of ptfe tape,and a few fibre washers,and yes a pair of tap revivers,and a broken TRV
:rotfl:

MrT_5

bestyman wrote:

Good Morning,

Mr.T that was sooo funny, really did make me laugh.

Where it all fell apart was when she agreed to BM making it safe ( agreed to him working on her windows)

Anyhow, I have been rudely awaken by a potential customer this morning at 8 am who has a plumbing problem. When I return home later today with some money from saving someones house from flooding which I will spend on kids shoes etc. please dont think any less of me.

Glad you took it in good spirit as it was meant. Got some old wellies here if they are any good?

kenshaz

He does not need the Wellies he fixed the leak

pinkstellacat

:T Thank you to everyone for your posts - I seemed to have caused a bit of an argument, but you did make me smile! I have taken your advice and have sent a letter recorded delivery, in which I've also told them that I will be contacting trading standards to see what my rights are in the matter. I was obviously quite naive in the situation, and the good thing is that at least i've learnt a lesson. More than anything, I will be happy if I just get a reasonable request for payment from the company, after all, if an invoice for £30 had dropped through the door, I would have thought nothing of it and payed it immediately - a fair amount I'd say for 15 minutes at my house and a piece of film!

Anyway, thanks to all of you (even bestyman as you have shown me the other side and I'll never make such naive assumptions again!) - this is a fab site I wish I'd found it sooner!

bestyman

Hi,
Happy to help pinkstellacat :rotfl:

Please could you post back what trading standards say that I can

a) know not to talk nonsense in future or b)can tell the others on this site to stop talking nonsense in the future.


Bestyman

Alfie_E

bestyman wrote:

Please could you post back what trading standards say…

I, too, would be interested to know. While bestyman is absolutely right with his quantum meruit, it’s not at all clear what the “worth” bit means. Looking at case law on the Internet, it’s either the cost plus profit or market value. That is, should it include an element for a callout charge? It seems complicated. pinkstellacat’s instinct seems fair to me – that the company can’t make a call out charge, because their employee was already there. But, there are cases where market value was used. This would make the company entitled to a callout charge, even though there wasn’t any extra cost to them, because you’d have to pay it, if you’d used a different company to patch up the window.

bestyman

In response to Alfie E and the callout charge.

No plumbing / glazing companies that I am aware of charge a callout nowadays as customers again expect something for nothing. The idea of paying a tradesman to drive his van to thier home would have most homeowners ringing the next advert before you could say Watchdog.

Many years ago I used to charge £18 callout and £18 an hour. To me this was fair, The £18 callout covered time travelling, van and petrol and £18 an hour was a reasonable rate for my labour whilst there. I then started getting phonecalls asking if there was a callout charge, when I said yes the customers hung up . A look in the yellow pages showed all the big companies advertising no call out and getting all the jobs. The big companies were charging £40 per hour so in effect more expensibve than me ( even more so in a 2 or 3 hour job)

So a look at my adverts nowadys says " NO callout charge" and my labour rates have more than doubled. = happy customers and happy me.

Im always amazed how people actually think that things are free. Like the double glazing ads that have buy one get one free.. do these people really think that the cost of the free one has not been added to the paid for one?
Like the furniture sales where everything is half price, do people really believe that these companies are so succesfull by selling things at 50% of there value? Carpets with free fitting is another example, I could go on .
Going off topic now ( rant over ) .

Edit , just to add most comapnies that I am aware of charge per hour or part of , 1 minute is charged as 1 hour , etc.
There may be a few that do half hour billing but not around here. Hourly rates ( plumbers) for emergency call out seem to be £50- £70 during normal hours.