Was this a breach of the Sale of Goods Act {services} ?

Jay_23

Hello there guys, long term reader/listener, first time poster.
Any and all advice would be welcome, or direction to the specific part of the law.

My situation is this, I manage a tourist hostel in Scotland and our washing machine stopped working for an unknown reason. I contacted the local private electronics shop and asked urgently for contact details of a Domestic Aplliance Repair person early in the day. I got contact details for someone and left my member of staff with the details and they were asked to find out if they were available that afternoon and to get a quote, so I could call back and make an appointment.

Now, the staff member isn't the most confident on the phone, however the exchange that took place was that she asked the questions but was padded off, no answer on quote or appointment was given {he sounded like he was busy while on the phone}, and some non-commital 'I may be able to squeeze you in this afternoon' was given before he hung up and said he would call back.
No call back occurred, and the man appeared later that day out the blue. He was let in and went to look at the machine {which had, as it does in it's old age, randomly started functioning again}. After a minute of looking at it {I had come downstairs} it was clear he was just playing around with it. I said it was working fine and joked about how it magically comes back on depending on the weather, he said 'It's all the same to me son, I get paid regardless' - at this point I thought my staff member had misunderstood my instructions and made an appointment.
Again, no quote was given, no appointment made.
He bought some {awkward} time doing basic and unnecessary checks which I'd done before anyway, and weren't needed since it was working, so it appeared he had done something. When I went to speak to him about this he was on the phone about another job and rushed out after leaving a scrawled bill for fourty two pounds for 5 mins work, qhich we hadn't agreed an appointment for, and no quote had been given ahead of time.

Basicly, do I have grounds to dispute the charge, since he wasn't asked to come {but only if/when he would be able}, and didnt give a quote?
I appreciate the call out in itself is a service regardless of action needed, but he just showed up, spent half the time on his phone, did nothing and left. The staff member made no appointment...

Any and all help would be welcome, apparently we used this guy in the past and stopped since he's a bit of a cowboy. Invoice itself is half done, the approval for work coming from 'staff' he rode over...

unholyangel

B2B rules apply and businesses don't have as much protection as consumers do.

The contract does of course have to be fair, but whats "fair" in a b2b contract is completely different to whats fair in a consumer contract since businesses deal with contracts on a daily basis.

ThumbRemote

From one perspective, if you don't pay he'll have to take you to small claims court, and there's no guarantee he'd win. For £42 it's unlikely he'd even bother.

From the other perspective, you phoned him up and asked him to come out, if you know he's a cowboy why did you call, he's spent his time and money coming out so you owe him for that.

Takeaway_Addict

For £42 you may as well just pay it and learn from it and make sure staff are aware NEVER to call him again.

McKneff

How could he possibly give you a quote when he has no idea what the work involves. He would have to look before giving a quote.


Like someone else said, if you think he was a cowboy, why did you bother ringing him.


Its not just 5 minutes work, he has to get there in a van and he has to get back.


I would just pay him to be honest, £42 doesn't actually seem out of the way to me.


And next time, it would be better if you rang yourself. Its likely he said to your staff, 'ill pop and have a look this afternoon' You said yourself that the staff member wasn't too confident so you really should have made the call yourself in fairness.

Jay_23

thank you for the replies, let me clarify a couple points though? : )
-I only found out about the cowboy attitude after the visit
-he wasn't asked to come out, but only asked about his availability in the afternoon
-the quote was about the Call Out charge alone {not any parts or extended time spent, etc}
-on the phone to the staff member he said he'd call back since he was busy but didn't. Something about possibly being able to fit us in since he has other work near by, again, nothing arranged or certain, he said he'd call back and hung up

Do I have protection under the Sale of Goods Act since no agreement/appointment was made, nor quote/information of charge given, and that he just showed up and billed us, and if so, under what articles?

Many thanks.

Jay_23

P.S. While the staff member could be more confident on the phone, this dosen't change the key information and requests given/not given. It's that h may have steamrolled her in order to collect some easy money is my concern.

stebiz

I have to agree with the others. I very much doubt he'll chase this debt but it's also unlikely that he or any associated businesses will call out again in the near future if you don't.

You wanted somebody to call out over CHristmas urgently to give a quote?? You mean you panicked and wanted a job done quickly in case it never corrected itself.

A fair thing would have been to tell him when you arrived it's okay now and give him £20 for his trouble.

Buzby

SOGA is an irrelevance, you didn't buy goods, but a service.

Next - what were you wanting? A binding quote over the phone? If the item is faulty and you require his services to resolve it - what relevance has making an appointment. If he came and you were not there, this would be his lookout.

Now, when he did call, there was no issue found? He is still entitled to be paid off his time and travel to visit you - next time, call him out to a real existing fault.

Calling him a 'cowboy' seems particularly harsh as you wanted his services, he turned up quickly, and you complain because he was scheduling other jobs whilst with you? YOU probably spoke to him whilst he was at a previous customers call-out, would you rather have got his answering machine?

He even trusted you to pay his bill, so if seems you are the one unprepared to pay for a call-out be she's there was nothing for him to fix. It doesn't work that way - and the capability or otherwise of your staff member is your business alone if has no relevance. If they cannot do the job you delegated, do it yourself.

powerful_Rogue

Ive always found that plumbers, electricians etc all seem to know each other.

If you fail to pay, yes he might not take it to the small claims court, but be prepared that no other plumber etc will want to do any work for you in future.

Jay_23

This was early november.

I want to know if we're liable for his call out if we didn't ask him to come. It was left with him hanging up on the staff member saying he would call back, while she asked him about his availability, then the next thing was him showing up out the blue and looking at the machine.

He was never asked to come, but came and looked at the machine anyway, so are we financially liable for his actions? As far as we're aware, no spoken contract or agreement was made, he just decided to leave it open on his end, didn't call us back about what was only an equiry of availability, then thought he'd bag an easy end of day call out on his way home.

I want to know if under these circumstances we are liable for his deciding to come by unasked for.