overcharged by electrician

Gewens

You weren't prepared to do the job, but don't want to pay a trained professional a reasonable amount to fix it for you? 

The guy would have spent years training, has to have his tools of the trade, vehicle, insurance, potentially a premises and pay a wage to himself and maybe admin staff.

I think what you have been charged is reasonable. 

If you had called my company it would have been £145 for the 1st hour, and £45 per hour after that plus VAT so we would have charged £282 Inc Vat plus parts.

I think you have been charged a reasonable amount and should pay the electrician. Put this down to one of life's lessons and ask for a quotation before you ask any trade to carry out work for you in the future. 

dil1976

It doesn't matter if it is  "a fairly common problem" no electrician is going to know the problem until they arrive and investigate the issue. You looked online for the part which you say was £20 but the part wasn't purchased online as it was purchased from an actual store which would have high over heads for carrying the part unlike a online only supplier. You can query all you like and ask but if you was to ask me for a breakdown of my costs I would be charging you a admin fee for such thing as only my invoice is included in my price anything further than that isnt worth my time

theoretica

It sounds to me as though you called someone and did not agree over the phone what the price would be - and what scenarios of what they find might change that.  Always a wise thing to do - and check if there will be VAT on top.

Ibrahim5

It's an interesting mix of DIY and get someone in. I would have googled it and fixed it myself. Other people would just get someone in and pay the bill. You can't really mix the two. The only thing you can do is try and negotiate a reasonable reduction. You would have to pay a fee to take it to the small claims court and then you would probably lose because judges have very high fees and are not likely to do much DIY.

Section62

melb said:

Our EV charger suddenly stopped working so we rang a local electrician.

In the meantime I had done a lot of research and thought the likely cause was the RCD within the charger which was a common fault on the rolec charger which costs about £20 to buy plus fitting which would take less than an hour to fit according to people's experiences online.

Did you do the research before or after calling the electrician?  The best time is before.

One of the issues with people online is they are either DIYers, who discount most of the time they spend on the project (e.g. ignoring research time and buying parts), or they are customers who only count the time from the moment the tradesperson enters their property to the moment they leave.  Providing a professional service has more to it than the average person gets to see.

melb said:

...they said they would fit us in at the end of the day sometime after 4.30 pm. At no time did we say it was an emergency and we would have been happy with an appointment the following day.

Did you specifically say there was no hurry, and they could come whenever they could fit the job in? For example, some time next week?

What if the electrician deems a next-day appointment an "emergency call out" - would you have been Ok with the bill then, or would you have gone without the charger for longer?

For many people getting any trader to come out to do a small job is quite a challenge at the moment - a same week visit is doing quite well.

melb said:

We will not be paying the bill although his terms that unless payment is made upon recipt of invoice there will be a £30 late payment fee which just makes me think he is a chancer.

I'd suggest the indication of a £30 late payment fee has more to do with the trader being fed up with chancers who ask for work to be done then quibble about payment.  It happens all the time.  What it means is everybody ends up paying more for services as the traders decide to cover off the risk and actuality of non-payment by increasing their charges, and their increasing reluctance to take on small jobs for new/unknown customers.

melb said:

Does an 'electrical call out' have a specific meaning among electricians please?

No.

£256 doesn't seem excessive for the work involved, bearing in mind £43 of that will be handed straight over to the VAT man.  For an 'emergency' call out in the current climate I wouldn't have been surprised if you said the bill was close to £1000.

henry24

I think if I'd a problem like yours and even though you say it wasn't desperate he turned up the next day and sorted everything out and only charged what he did I would have quickly paid in case I needed him again 

grumbler

greyteam1959 said:

I think that is a pretty fair price for the job.

Fuel is £1.50 a litre, plus all his other associated business costs.
Time is a minimum of £65 an hour plus Vat.

So, are you saying that £124K p.a. (65*8*5*52*11/12) is, generally, a normal gross annual salary for an electrician?

And don't tell me about the "associated business costs" as you listed them separately.

Doozergirl

grumbler said:

greyteam1959 said:

I think that is a pretty fair price for the job.

Fuel is £1.50 a litre, plus all his other associated business costs.
Time is a minimum of £65 an hour plus Vat.

So, are you saying that £124K p.a. (65*8*5*52*11/12) is, generally, a normal gross annual salary for an electrician?

And don't tell me about the "associated business costs" as you listed them separately.

The fact that they are VAT registered strongly suggests that this is a company, not a one man band.   You want a one man, you'll still probably be trying to get one to answer the phone after 24 hours, let alone have it fixed.  

That is the sort of rate we've paid to get our Saniflo serviced every year by a specialist company.  It cost me £60 plus VAT for the man from the domestic appliance co to tell me that the top of my dishwasher was dented and that's why my drawer didn't work properly.  He popped it back up and left.  

We're lucky enough to have trade long standing relationships ourselves that are bought and paid for, but if I want any of our subbies to do something, we save up half a day's work and go and get the stuff for them! 

 

TELLIT01

dil1976 said:

It doesn't matter if it is  "a fairly common problem" no electrician is going to know the problem until they arrive and investigate the issue.

That is so true.  My wife has a problem with her car, but it doesn't affect the ability to use it.  I've looked on t'interweb and it points to one likely cause.  I wouldn't call an auto electrician and tell him how to fix it.  I would describe the symptoms and leave them to diagnose and fix.

NSG666

If it was a straight RCD swap it does seem a bit expensive (look at Pimlico Plumbers charges) but it sounds like the overheating RCD might have affected some wires that needed modifying however:

Pay the bill and the next time you need a tradesperson remember to ask appropriate questions regarding labour rates beforehand but I think there will be few who give a free diagnosis