Stonemason

Nick2016_2 · 31 August 2016 at 1:59PM

Hi, first thread post. Here's the situation (it's quite a long story to tell but anyway...)

In November my Mum passed away, it was sudden, she was way too young, and obviously I'm still trying to pick myself up after it (mental breakdown and all).

Earlier this year I started to contact stonemasons regarding a memorial. I was desperate to get this right for my Mum. I also thought it would be good to sort out headstones for my Mum's parents and her Mum's parents too. All three grave sites are at different locations. I drew a special emblem for my Mum's gravestone - I wanted this carved or engraved on the stone above the text.

First stonemason replied, we sorted out the look of the stones (the two other stones would be simple but smart, my Mum's would be a little bit more elaborate but not overly so). They prepared a diagram of the stone featuring my emblem design.

I then re-drew this and used my new drawing to get quotes from other stonemasons. As I contacted each company I requested that they do not contact any of the memorial sites as I was still obtaining quotes.

One of the companies applied for a permit to undertake the work, regardless of what I had said. I was informed of this by one of the other firms.

I then asked the initial firm if they had done this. They obviously took great offence and sent an incredibly obnoxious, condescending message to me saying I was using their design to send to competitors and had accused them of applying for a permit without their consent. I replied with an obnoxious email of my own (I was fuming) explaining that the only design element was the one I had done and that I had re-drawn the monument anyway, even using a different font.

No reply was forthcoming. I wanted them to acknowledge they were in the wrong - I know it probably sounds extremely childish. I am deeply wounded, their message was adding insult to injury. My question is do I have any recourse? No money changed hands so that's not an issue - so trading standards would not be interested. It's just that these people should know the impact that such messages can have on bereaved people.

How would I be able to gather accurate quotes for an extremely expensive process without getting each stonemason to price for exactly the same specification?! This was impossible for this company to take on board, it seemed.

I thought about stonemason's guilds, or associations as a route to make a complaint, but I haven't been able to find anything. Any advice would be great, many thanks.