Safestyle quote experience.....

ShatteredDad

Forgive me if this has been done to the death but I had a pretty unsavoury experience with a Safestyle rep yesterday and it's bugging me. I need to know if I over reacted and I suppose if I'm being a bit deluded / naïve!

Bought my first home almost 12 months ago, needs work. New kitchen, bathroom and windows. Not got loads of money but managed to cobble together some savings and noticed safestyle have a 'huge' sale on at the moment where they are offering £200 off every window and £300 off every door....sounds wonderful I thought, and having 6 windows and 2 doors I'm thinking I just may be able to afford it with a whopping £1800 worth of discount. With high hopes I call and arrange a quote.

Safestyle rep comes round, nice as pie, showing us the brochure and talking us through options whilst taking (very inaccurate, in my opinion) measurements. After probably about an hour we get down to price. First thing he asks is how much I think it's going to be...not the way I do business. I just asked had he taken off the advertised discount and he told me that discount only usually works out at 10% but he was going to give me 30% off....alarm bells are now ringing, surely £1800 worth of discount couldn't equate to 10% otherwise we are talking £18k for 6 windows and 2 doors.

He tells me the list price is £12500 but he will do it discounted at £8500, at which point I paused for a moment and told him that was astronomical. It went south from that point because instead of explaining how he'd arrived at that figure he got on the defensive telling me he gets paid regardless, he does £150k of business and basically insinuating my measly £8k meant nothing. I asked for a break down of the cost and he just said its £988 per item (his maths is clearly terrible) and I didn't ask for the average anyway. He left on very unsavoury terms telling me I was the rudest person he's ever dealt with. My wife apologised as he was leaving and told me she was mortified at how rude I'd been when he'd gone. Needless to say I now feel awful but I felt like he was taking me for a mug and basically wasting my time.

I did my own research beforehand and I came to the conclusion for 6 windows, rear French doors and a new front door I'd be looking at somewhere around £6k, and with the supposed £200 off per window and £300 per door it would bring it nearer £4k. Am I deluded? And would anybody else be offended by someone coming into their own home trying to take them for a fool?

A few of my windows are quite large but even so. Measurements below in cm height/length - thanks in advance

Living room - H 147 / L 290 (toughened glass required)

Kitchen - H 102 / L 154

Bathroom - H 102 / L 127 (frosted glass)

Bedroom - H 102 / L 252

Bedroom - H 102 / L 255

Bedroom - H 104 / L 125

Rear french Doors - H 204 / L 178

Front door - UPVC with minimal glass

Loanranger

Just go to a local DG company and get them round for a quote. Then ask another local firm and get their quote. Then you'll be able to see if his quote was outrageous or not. National companies such Safestyle and Everest etc have massive marketing and advertising budgets, who do you think pays for all those ads? We do if we are daft enough to go with them.
Stop fretting and get those other LOCAL quotes.

Kiran

Numerous threads on here of a similar type of experience. The best piece of advice is take your measurements to them, that way you can get up and leave at any time. As above, go independent and do your research into what system they are proposing

HampshireH

Walk away. I got a quote from them through one of these schemes that are advertised. I was promised it was a company called safeglaze.

The salesman slipped up and used safestyle as his employer. When challenged he denied saying it.

I declined their 1st 2nd and 3rd quote (1st was 10k 2nd was 6.5 and finally 3rd when they call me chasing was 5k) .

I have since been getting cold calls from safestyle. Ive called back twice in the last 4 days and requested my number be removed. Last call was about 10mins ago.

Don't feel bad because regardless of what you may and may not have said they are more than likely going to hassle you going forward.

Unless of course you were abusive etc which just isnt on.

ShatteredDad

No I wasn't abusive, I was just very abrupt and direct. I didn't necessarily mean to be but when I feel like I'm being taken for a mug I get a bit stressed out. I was basically telling him the price was wrong and he was taking umbrage at me telling him how to do his job. As my wife pointed out afterwards, if that's their price then that's their price which I suppose is right but it immediately felt like a sales tactic and I felt like he was wasting my time. Especially when he had casually told me it's typically between £400-£600 per window during our previous conversation. Even allowing for the fact some of my windows are larger than average, the numbers just don't stack up do they? It just felt like he plucked a figure out of the air and he didn't like it when I challenged him about it.

ShatteredDad

Feel happier now. First local company has provided me with a rough estimate of £3800, not including the front door because I forgot to ask. Thank god I am now dealing with realistic people!

Kiran

ShatteredDad wrote: »

It just felt like he plucked a figure out of the air and he didn't like it when I challenged him about it.

There's a good reason for this, and that's because he did. the measurements are more for show than anything else as windows are priced in bands rather than individually to the mm. The sales people cant necessarily measure them correctly which is why they send a surveyor round once you decide to proceed. As an example, I've got 2 bay windows consisting of 7 windows each. I had one of the sales lot round who said "we only do 5 bays, I'm not sure if we can do this window. When I pointed out that you just add 2 windows to the as a bay window is constructed out of separate windows she looked at me like I was stupid and said that couldn't be the case". I took pleasure in seeing her face when she called the office and asked for advice!


That was a company called Homestyle so may be a similar thing as above. The wife invited them before I had a chance to say no so I did it in person when I heard their first stab at the price. Lost all credibility with their sales person regardless of what the quality of the windows would have been like.

Beatle_Ray

Hello,

We have had Safestyle and Crystal round our house the past week, just looking for a new front door but according to them I need to replace the window next to it as its in the same frame, anyway Crystal came in at £2400 and Safestyle for a white UVPC door and window was £1280 or an extra £200 if we wanted non white, have a local firm coming tomorrow, the Crystal rep went on forever about all the restaurants he has been to and about his house in Spain, sadly he had a 12 year old SUV with the key held together with tape so I'm not utterly convinced everything they say

spadoosh

Your safestyle quote experience has just begun!

Id like you to report back every time you get a sales call from a blind fitting company (that is a company that fits blinds as opposed to blindly fits) and make this thread HOT!!!

macman

The price with the nationals is the actual price, then they add whatever they think they can get away with charging, minus a couple of thousand 'if you sign today'.

thebigstillmeister

Definitely always go with a local company, we've had 2 doors and some bi-fold doors put in by 2 local firms within the last year, both times they came and measured up and didn't do any type of hard sell at the time. Both occasions we simply got fair quote via email a day or so later, no one ever chased us up and the only other times we spoke to them was to place the order and then arrange fitting,

I absolutely hate those types of pushy sales people who seem convinced you are falling for their sales pitch and will be astounded by their amazing deals they can do for you,

Funniest one ever was when my wife arranged for Thomas Sanderson to come and quote 1 set of blinds for a bay window,

won't go though the whole story as I have commented on here before about it, but basically in a nut shell, got inundated with calls even though we had already made an appointment, when the appointment comes the guy spends the first 10mins telling us about his sick mother then about 1hr later gives us a quote for about £300 more than our new bi-fold doors cost to put in.

After saying that it was alot lot more than we thought it would be he mentioned he could take the furniture off, after looking slightly puzzled and asking what furniture we were told that we get some 'free' garden furniture with it, but if we don't want it he can take the £250 cost off?

found the whole experience really really odd,