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Double glazing company charging a call-out fee to replace a guaranteed item

Jim02
Posts: 147 Forumite


Hi all,
Five years ago I had a conservatory installed. The guarantee on the panels and workmanship is 25 years.
A couple of months ago I noticed that one of the glass panels had misted. Looking at it, it's pretty clear this is due to a manufacturing fault as the internal seal is distorted.
I arranged a service call, and eventually, today an engineer arrived. The first thing he did was to tell me there was a flat fee of £85 for a call-out. I disputed this and sent him on his way.
Neither my original contract nor my guarantee certificate mention a call-out charge. They do mention labour charges which I'm happy to accept (as the engineer told me it would be about ten minutes' work).
My question is this: Can a company arbitrarily charge a call-out fee to replace something that is defective and under guarantee?
Five years ago I had a conservatory installed. The guarantee on the panels and workmanship is 25 years.
A couple of months ago I noticed that one of the glass panels had misted. Looking at it, it's pretty clear this is due to a manufacturing fault as the internal seal is distorted.
I arranged a service call, and eventually, today an engineer arrived. The first thing he did was to tell me there was a flat fee of £85 for a call-out. I disputed this and sent him on his way.
Neither my original contract nor my guarantee certificate mention a call-out charge. They do mention labour charges which I'm happy to accept (as the engineer told me it would be about ten minutes' work).
My question is this: Can a company arbitrarily charge a call-out fee to replace something that is defective and under guarantee?
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Comments
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I suspect they would class the call-out fee as "labour". To be fair, even if it's 10 minutes' work to fix the problem, someone has to pay for his time to travel to and from your house, which could easily be an hour's round trip.
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Callout is a labour fee... they often, though not always, cover the first X minutes/hours.
A guarantee is in additional to any statutory rights and they are free to put whatever conditions they want in terms of what you have to contribute.
Go down the route of your statutory rights against the company that sold it to you and they cannot charge you for callout or labour (though they can ask you to get a report to prove its faulty but this cost can be added to your claim)1 -
Ebe_Scrooge said:I suspect they would class the call-out fee as "labour". To be fair, even if it's 10 minutes' work to fix the problem, someone has to pay for his time to travel to and from your house, which could easily be an hour's round trip.
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Sandtree said:Callout is a labour fee... they often, though not always, cover the first X minutes/hours.
A guarantee is in additional to any statutory rights and they are free to put whatever conditions they want in terms of what you have to contribute.
Go down the route of your statutory rights against the company that sold it to you and they cannot charge you for callout or labour (though they can ask you to get a report to prove its faulty but this cost can be added to your claim)
Although, are you saying that they can put additional conditions onto the guarantee after they've given me the guarantee certificate?
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Jim02 said:Ebe_Scrooge said:I suspect they would class the call-out fee as "labour". To be fair, even if it's 10 minutes' work to fix the problem, someone has to pay for his time to travel to and from your house, which could easily be an hour's round trip.0
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Thrugelmir said:Jim02 said:Ebe_Scrooge said:I suspect they would class the call-out fee as "labour". To be fair, even if it's 10 minutes' work to fix the problem, someone has to pay for his time to travel to and from your house, which could easily be an hour's round trip.0
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would they have charged you another £85 when they returned to fit it . I am surprised that they have put 25yrs on glass it is normally just 5 . Did they tell you when you requested a service engineer to call it would be ££
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Jim02 said:Ebe_Scrooge said:I suspect they would class the call-out fee as "labour". To be fair, even if it's 10 minutes' work to fix the problem, someone has to pay for his time to travel to and from your house, which could easily be an hour's round trip.Sorry I can't think of anything profound, clever or witty to write here.0
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