Helping my mum with a tradesman who has taken advantage

boots_babe

Hi all,
Hoping for some advice on what's best for my mum to do. She paid a local fitter to install a brand new TV aerial 2 years ago. There have been on/off problems since with her calling out the fitter 2 or 3 times due to loss of signal in the months since, and they fixed it each time.

More recently they had total loss of signal, but only to one of the 2 TVs connected to the aerial. - the other cable from the same aerial to a TV in their bedroom, was still functioning just fine. They use BT TV, so as a first step contacted them, and after doing various checks BT sent out a brand new BT box. Still the same problem.

So clearly the aerial was functioning, as the upstairs TV was still ok, and the BT box had been replaced so that was ruled out, so they asked the original aerial fitter to come back again.

On inspecting he said he thought it was related to an area of flat roof which the cable to the living room had to go across (mum didn't get any more detail as to why this was an issue), and so he proposed fitting a SECOND aerial on the other side of their roof, so that the cable didn't have to go across this flat roof. So they'd have 2 aerials, one on each aspect of the roof, each feeding a different TV. Mum agreed.

After fitting the new aerial, the fitter said there was no signal whatsoever and it wouldn't work, so he would have to revert back to using just one aerial in the original location on the roof for both TVs. Here's where it gets very dodgy. Instead of leaving up the perfectly good, functioning aerial that was there originally, he REPLACED it with this new aerial that he'd originally tried putting up at the front of the house. He's also replaced the cable, and changed the route that the cable takes from the aerial to the living room. TV now seems to be working just fine.

He has taken away the 'old' functioning aerial (without agreement from my mum, or even asking, she only realised after he left), so he'll clearly use this perfectly good aerial to charge another customer for fitting I would imagine. He charged my mum £300, this is the worst bit. The initial fitting 2 years ago only cost £180, so how it can cost £300 for what he's now done, it's just not right. Had it been me I've had asked costs up front etc, but mum is unfortunately too trusting and didn't. When paying, the man came into the house and as my mum has been shielding she was very nervous, as he was quite near to her, sat down without asking when she'd have preferred he didn't touch anything (again she's too polite to speak up), and was sweating and coughing and wiping his face. Being the polite person she is, she didn't say anything, she simply paid from as much distance as possible via her card, and tried to get him out the door as quickly as possible. 

It was only after he left that she realised how much it cost. I know that all of the above was silly, and this situation could have easily been avoided had my mum asked for costs up front, or even checked the cost before paying . But she's not very savvy unfortunately and trusted this man. I asked if she has an itemised receipt, she does but it's illegible.

On top of the main issues above, there are other minor things which I won't go into, which point me at the fact that this person doesn't sound like he should be trusted. For example, he had an apprentice with him, and told my mum he'd been with him for 12 months. After he left, mum noticed that outside he'd left piles of mess and rubbish, and also hadn't correctly fitted the fitting which makes the cable watertight when going into the building. She called and got him to come back and sort the cable fixture, but on return he blamed the apprentice, saying he'd done it and 'had only been with him for 6 weeks so was still learning'. As I say, there are numerous little things like this my mum has told me, that just add up to someone I wouldn't trust. 

So what can my mum do to try gain a bit of redress here? I know that on one hand, she hasn't got a leg to stand on as she didn't agree a price up front    But then he 100% should not have taken the existing working aerial away, which was my mum's property, without consent. And surely it is right to question why the original install was £180, yet to just replace one cable has cost £300, and she has got a new aerial she didn't want or need - or consent to. She'd agreed to trying the new aerial on front of house, but not to replacing the existing working aerial.

Sorry for the long post, thank you if you are still with me!

Sandtree

Sorry, not still fully with you. It was also not 100% clear if they fixed the TV that wasn't working and/or broke the TV that was working

It is a complicated situation as you have little statutory rights to "try" something, outside of mail order or a cold caller. You generally agree to pay for something and if it doesn't fit or you don't like it etc that is your loss (clearly many companies are more generous than the law requires them to be). 

I've never used BT TV and their website isn't exactly what you would call clear about what it does... it seems to suggest it is a combination of both Freeview and Video On Demand via the internet.  Most TVs bought in the last decade or more will have built in support for Freeview so if both TVs are still not working have you tried removing the BT box from the chain? Are you sure its an issue with the aerial rather than with the internet?


A standard aerial is about £20 and so the majority of the fee you've been paying in theory is the fitting. If they were brought in to fix a problem rather than to do a specified job it gets into that grey area of if it was reasonable for them to try the actions they did or did they intentionally inflate the time taken... I wouldn't get too hung up over the cost of the aerial itself.

JJ_Egan

He will probably dump the old one .

Prices go up have you not noticed that since Covid .

Not sure what you want engaged somebody to fix TV signal and done just that .

But really your post has to much that has nothing to do with the question of redress .

boots_babe

Sandtree - I'm sorry for not being clear, I hate long unclear posts so sorry that I seem to have done this myself. But they HAVE fixed the TV that wasn't working. But by replacing the existing working aerial, which mum didn't agree to. It was the cabling that was causing the fault, as advised by the fitter himself. 

BT TV uses the terrestrial TV signal so if the aerial isn't working, you cannot get the channels.

boots_babe

JJ_Egan - I strongly suspect he won't dump the old one. He mentioned when on site that he makes good money selling scrap metal to a scrapman, so he's not going to be daft enough to waste a good functioning aerial, which he can install elsewhere and get paid for it. That's irrelevant though really, he has taken that aerial without my mum's knowledge or consent. I'd have helped her to sell it second hand to at least get a bit of cash back.

You're right, she did want it fixing, and it is fixed. But the issue is that the originally agreed method of fixing it (2nd aerial on other side of roof) did not work. So without agreeing with my mum, he chose to switch out the existing aerial for a new one, which was totally unnecessary! That's the nub of the problem. I've only mentioned other behaviour as this indicates to me that it's not a simple 'misunderstanding' or 'mistake'. I'm pretty sure he has knowingly done this unnecessary work, in order to get extra money.

At the very least my mum should be able to get back her property - the old aerial. And surely there is a huge discrepancy when fitting an initial aerial from scratch, cabling etc cost £180, yet REPAIRING it when it's faulty cost a lot more than fitting from scratch?

Sandtree

Sorry, wasnt saying you were being unclear just that I hadn't read everything... I know when you are close to something you want to spell out all the detail whereas when reading it as an external party you want just the crux of it.

As I say, the aerial itself is probably worth less than £20, the most expensive one a well know provider sells if £34 and that's before any trade/volume discount. Therefore the majority of what has been paid for isn't the replacement of the aerial.

I won't say £300 was a fair price to charge... though our recent engineers visit would have cost £100 from the second they walked in the door, but you need to see the fee as being virtually all time rather than the cost of the aerial. Without knowing what was said between the parties it is difficult... is what they tried at your mothers request or was it a reasonable attempt to fix? They clearly resolved the problem in the end but was the cause obvious from the outset? Both ends of the cable were fairly remote so testing there were no breaks in the cable isnt the easiest of jobs unless you are paying the hourly rate of two people... plus given how aerial cable is its surprising that cable itself can be faulty unless its literally cut through. 

BT TV certainly doesn't only use Freeview if you are using it to subscribe to the likes of Sky Movies or Netflix

DoaM

BT TV (if you have the recordable box) uses 2 TV receivers in the box, so it splits (and balances) the incoming signal internally in the box. Therefore you need a high quality, high strength signal to the BT TV box for it to properly see the TV transmission and output it to your TV via HDMI. However you'd still expect to see some signal - i.e. see the channels to be able to tune them - if the signal strength/quality was there but sub-optimal; the display on the TV would likely just be blocky..

boots_babe

Thanks Sandtree. I agree without knowing the ins and outs of the conversations, it's hard to know. It just seems to me that £300 for 2 hours on site, and doing some work that wasn't authorised, seem wrong. But I guess from some of the responses on here, people don't seem to think it's that reasonable, so maybe I've got unrealistic expectations.

Re BT yes you're right, they can (and do) use Netflix via the TV, but without the terrestrial aerial working, they cannot watch or record any other channels - which is what they mostly use unfortunately.  

boots_babe

Hi DoaM,
On the BT box itself, you can go into the Settings and into 'TV Signal Quality'. It gives you a 'Signal strength' %age, and a 'Signal quality' %age. Looking at my own one now, these show as 100% and 94% respectively. My mum was only getting 3% and 7%, so no wonder it wasn't working!

It wasn't that they could get a picture but it was unclear/blocky/fuzzy, they just couldn't get anything at all as it was that bad.

Sandtree

boots_babe said:

Thanks Sandtree. I agree without knowing the ins and outs of the conversations, it's hard to know. It just seems to me that £300 for 2 hours on site, and doing some work that wasn't authorised, seem wrong. But I guess from some of the responses on here, people don't seem to think it's that reasonable, so maybe I've got unrealistic expectations.

£300 for 1 person on site for sub 2 hours would certainly be high... if its 2 guys then you are talking £100 call out and under £50 per hour per person and whilst toppy it starts to feel more reasonable. Naturally companies tend to bill per full hour (or at best per half hour) so 2hrs 5minutes can be 3 hrs in billing

The Consumer Rights Act requires where costs are not agreed up front that fees for services are "reasonable"... the issue is that it provides no guidance on what reasonable really means. Even if they charged £100 per hour on top of a call out fee, there are plenty of organisations that charge much more than that for someone and if that's "reasonable" is difficult to argue (a former client used to subcontract me out for more and one a "business day" so the fee was the same if it was 30 minutes or 10 hours).

I don't think you have unrealistic expectations, though the number of people who came out isn't clear, but expectations are often tempered by prospects of a positive outcome. As they say, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

boots_babe

Just to close the loop on this, I helped my mum draft a letter to them to ask them to explain the charging breakdown, and indicating that she would take further steps to pursue if a satisfactory response wasn't given. Immediately they responded offering £100 refund! I smelt a rat, as if you charged correctly, you wouldn't just immediately refund £100 without being asked would you. 

I Googled the company, and unfortunately they seem to be a well-known scam, who were even on Watchdog recently. Here is a thread on MSE about it: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6025915/aerial-force-warning/p2

My mum went back to them, still asking for a breakdown of costs and an explanation of what work had been done, and this time they replied straightaway offering £150 back! So if that isn't an indication that they know they are in the wrong and don't want things taking any further, I don't know what is.

My mum's taken my advice to accept the £150 and be done with them, if she tries further to obtain an itemised bill it's only going to cause her stress and worry and it's not worth it. She agrees, and is going to take the refund and try to forget about them.