Locksmith Company Charged My Card Without Doing The Job?

ARandomMiser

Sorry BK700, the failing is yours. Do not make appointments if you don't think you can keep them. They have every right to charge you for wasting their time but not for the parts that they did not use.

ThumbRemote

BK700 wrote: »

They never said the charge would be £196 for attending. They said that we do not have a call out charge, the hour of labor will cost £160 plus any additional charges for replacement lock parts. They also stated that my card would only be charged after completion of the job. They did not state that they would charge my card if i wasn't able to attend.

Given this, I'd suggest a chargeback would work. If there is no call-out charge, and they performed no labour and used no parts, there is nothing to bill for.

Rotor

bris wrote: »

You made an appointment and you failed to meet it, they are entitled to be paid.


What we need to know is what the £196 payment was actually for. It seems very high to be a call out charge. Was there a lock involved? They should mitigate the loss, any hardware should either be deducted ( at their ridiculous price ) or given to you.

Yes an appointment was made but with conditions attached (contact customer before coming). If these conditions were unacceptable to the plumbers then the time to state this was before the agreement was made ; they didn't and so implicitly agreed.

No contract has been signed so the implied contract is the terms agreed in the phone call

They broke these conditions and no payment is due.

How you prove all this is another matter though.

unholyangel

OP did they provide you with information via durable means before they attended? If not, just ask them to prove that they complied with the various requirements of the CCRs - which stipulate that a trader needs to provide you with certain information before you are bound by that contract.

Also unless it was urgent repairs/maintenance (which i'm guessing it wasnt if you were telling them to call before they came and were at work instead of being at home waiting on them), they should have advised you not only of your cancellation rights, but that by requesting the service to begin early, you would lose the right to cancel once the service was performed in full/would be liable for the cost of services provided up until you cancelled.

If they didn't advise you of any of that then you are not to bear the costs involved.


You are completely right though - if a trader wants to apply terms to a contract, they need to provide those terms to you BEFORE you agree to the contract. They cannot retrospectively try to apply those terms and it wasn't your place to go searching for them.

pinkshoes

BK700 wrote: »

. They also stated that my card would only be charged after completion of the job.

I would ask them for the recording of the call, proving that they gave you the T&Cs.

If they stated that you would be charged once the job was completed, then they still need to complete the job.

macman

Did not the fact that they wanted your card details upfront before even attending indicate to you that they were likely to be unscrupulous? It's not unreasonable for them to apply a call out charge, what is unreasonable is a ludicrous hourly rate of £196. Did you not ask the hourly rate/charges when you booked them?
And a dead phone is your responsibility alone.

BK700

unholyangel wrote: »

OP did they provide you with information via durable means before they attended? If not, just ask them to prove that they complied with the various requirements of the CCRs - which stipulate that a trader needs to provide you with certain information before you are bound by that contract.

Also unless it was urgent repairs/maintenance (which i'm guessing it wasnt if you were telling them to call before they came and were at work instead of being at home waiting on them), they should have advised you not only of your cancellation rights, but that by requesting the service to begin early, you would lose the right to cancel once the service was performed in full/would be liable for the cost of services provided up until you cancelled.

If they didn't advise you of any of that then you are not to bear the costs involved.


You are completely right though - if a trader wants to apply terms to a contract, they need to provide those terms to you BEFORE you agree to the contract. They cannot retrospectively try to apply those terms and it wasn't your place to go searching for them.

Thats the thing mate, they never made me aware of any of that whatsoever. The booking conversation gone like this.

Me: Hello, can i book a locksmith for tomorrow afternoon.

Them: Yes we can have a engineer out between 11 and 2pm.

Me: Great how much is the total for the job? Can you have the engineer call me 30 minutes before coming out as i may not be able to make the appointment time?

Them: Yes no problem i will add that note to the system now. It will be £160 for the hours labor and any additional for lock parts can i take your address and post code?

Me: Yes sure ect ect

No terms and conditions was stated or agreed upon over the phone. They said i would be billed after the job was completed and that there was no call out charge.

I will definitely be disputing this on Tuesday, unfortunately the transaction has to actually show on my statement before i can issue the dispute with the bank.

pinkshoes wrote: »

I would ask them for the recording of the call, proving that they gave you the T&Cs.

If they stated that you would be charged once the job was completed, then they still need to complete the job.

Oh no don't worry the supervisor i spoken to on the phone, completely agreed that they never gave me the T&Cs she replied with, yes its 2016 the T&Cs are clearly displayed on our website its your job to find them not for us to read you them on the phone. I replied with, are you serious? i booked over the phone and found your details on yell.com how am i ment to even know your website exists? lol.

PenguinOfDeath

Why did you give your card details over the phone?

Why did you agree to an appointment time that you didn't think you could make?