is this right?

red_devil

I called an engineer as i couldnt connect to the internet. They said no call out charge. When they came they were only here 2 minutes it turns out it was a problem with orange not with my computer and they told me to contact them.

I did and its now sorted so they were correct however they charged me £35 which im not happy with.
Are they entitled to charge this when they didnt actually do anything apart from check pc for me to confirm it was with orange the fault and not with my pc?

Thanks.

fiddiwebb

You need to take into account their time, travel/transport /fuel.

Did the engineer diagnose the problem with your isp?

red_devil

he said problem with connection nothing wrong with your livebox etc phone orange. He was right i still think abit steep especially when they say no call out charge.

A.Penny.Saved

Why didn't you call Orange if you couldn't connect? Who was this engineer working for?

Inactive

red_devil wrote: »

he said problem with connection nothing wrong with your livebox etc phone orange. He was right i still think abit steep especially when they say no call out charge.

He identified the problem for you, so you should pay him, do you honestly expect them to work for nothing?

DatabaseError

if you'd called out openreach the cost would have been well over £100.
Much as £35 does seem steep for a couple of minutes work, I'd hope they had made their rates known to you, perhaps that was the cost per hour or part of?
For future reference you pay your ISP for a connection - if it fails they should be the people you contact first, the guy you contacted almost certainly didn't have the skills or authority to do anything much beyond checking that cables were plugged in.

shellsuit

Why didn't you check with Orange first?

If I have a problem with mine, I ring Virgin as that's who I pay.

The guy told you what the problem was and charged you for that, which is fair enough.

If he'd said £35 and £30 call out fee, you would be even more unhappy wouldn't you.

red_devil

Inactive wrote: »

He identified the problem for you, so you should pay him, do you honestly expect them to work for nothing?

no but sounds a bloody job to be in at £35 for doing not much.

kwikbreaks

He has to drive to yours and back which costs money and takes time and stops him working on anything else.

I'd say getting a £35 charge for calling somebody out to work on your PC is fair and would still be fair if all he did was plug it in.

No callout charge usually means that there won't be £40 or so on top of whatever minimum charge is applied (usually half an hour).

fiddiwebb

To be fair to red devil they probably thought it was a problem with their computer and not their isp, sometimes it can be difficult to confirm where the problem lies especially if you are a novice with computers.

red devil
The £35 would need to cover the engineers time and travel, okay he only took 2 minutes to solve the problem but you have to include his travel/transport time as well so not as steep as you first thought.

If you have any techie problems just come amd ask on the boards, you may not have been able to with this recent problem especially if you had no access to any other computer but help is always here for free.

paddyrg

You got a deal - £35 for the first hour or part thereof, and he solved your problem without going into the second hour...