Call Out Charges help!

pods1811

Hi there,

My cooker broke down and I phoned the electrical shop over the road to ask if they did repairs. The engineer asked about the cooker and said it sounded like the element so I asked him how much to repair it and he said it would be £75 and that included fitting. I said fine to come out.
When he got here he took out the element and said it all looked fine so must be the electrics that were broken and they couldnt do much about that and left.
They have now sent me a bill for £60 for a call out! I phoned and complained that they didnt tell me there would be any charge and he said the problem is that most people dont specifically ask if there is a call out charge. Then said if we bought a new cooker off him he would forget the call out charge!

Is there anything I can do to get out of paying for nothing? Literally the guy crossed the road to come here. I can see the shop from my living room. Even when I asked on the phone how much he didnt mention a call out charge.
If they had fixed it I wouldnt mind!

Any help would be appreciated, they sent us a final demand today and I dont want to end up with a CCJ.

Thanks
Leah

MX5huggy

Well you can wait till they take you to court you wont get a CCJ until you are invited to court and either not attend or lose. (which based on the facts as you say them seems unlikely).

baldelectrician

Two sides to the coin

You asked someone to come out and check the cooker and they partially dismantled it and found no fault.


They performed a task of work (found your cooker was not faulty) and should be paid

Other side

You asked someone to fix your cooker and they did not. Did you assume it was the cooker?

discuss

mikey72

Don't pay them.
If they didn't advise you of the callout charge, that's down to them.
They haven't done the job you asked them to.
If it's not the element, (which it usually is in 90% of the case) it's the controller or wiring. All repairable, at a reasonable cost
"so must be the electrics that were broken and they couldnt do much about that" isn't worth paying for.
I would take the element somewhere else, and get it tested to see if it is ok or not, if you buy a new one from whoever you can get to test, or get it fitted by them they normally wouldn't charge for testing.

dander

I'm afraid I side with the shop here. They came out and looked at your cooker, why would they do that for free?

rachbc

He didn't ask them to come and look at it, he asked them to come and fix it!

£60 call out fee is perfectly reasonable....if they had said there is a £60 call out fee to check and diagnose and then we will give you a price to repair it

gas4you

I will have to sit on the fence with this one.

I always tell prospective customers I charge £60 + VAT for the first hour or part of, but then often if I cant fix it or it is beyond economical repair, I then don't charge at all, or may just £10 or £20 to cover travelling etc.

I usually judge it on the customer once I am there.

baldelectrician

I usually charge a minimum of £37.50 for the first hour (total for me and an apprentice)

The rules are if I do work (fault find / use tools) I charge.

I give free verbal quotes (usallually over the phone if I am busy)

S001WY:

To play devils advocate -
How many hours fo you think the cooker repair man should work for free this week?

How many hours do you work for free per week?

The call out charge is irrelevent (in Scotland anyway).
The Mcnair vs Donohoe case ruled that if you invite a tradesman in to your house you should expect to pay a fee.

ormus

offer them 30 quid.

mikey72

baldelectrician wrote: »

I usually charge a minimum of £37.50 for the first hour (total for me and an apprentice)

The rules are if I do work (fault find / use tools) I charge.

I give free verbal quotes (usallually over the phone if I am busy)

S001WY:

To play devils advocate -
How many hours fo you think the cooker repair man should work for free this week?

How many hours do you work for free per week?

The call out charge is irrelevent (in Scotland anyway).
The Mcnair vs Donohoe case ruled that if you invite a tradesman in to your house you should expect to pay a fee.

You'd expect a decent fault finding as well, and a cost to fix it. If the shop was good enough, and were stumped when it wasn't the element, they've failed, so I wouldn't pay for that. It could still be the element for all we know.

baldelectrician

When I read the initial post the cooker repair company seemed (to me) to suggest a supply problem (ie the cooker fixed wiring, external to the applaince)

If this is the case then the cooker company can not be responsible for the outside of the cooker