Plumber Charging Missed Call Out Fee Even Though I Was In The House?

RefluentBeans

Hoenir said:

RefluentBeans said:

Appliance_engineer said:

ArbitraryRandom said:

Appliance_engineer said:

Sometimes, I get a call out of the blue from somebody who hasn't visited the website and just has my number. I'll call round within a short time if I'm nearby. I'm really not going to start emailing detailed terms and conditions to a potential customer in those cases. It may be required in contract law but this is the real world, and this thread has got jammed up with contractual regs and mentions of 'durable formats'. What nonsense.

And you don't have to... but you need to understand that if you don't and they refuse to pay the callout fee then you have lost your legal right to enforce your T&Cs. 

They 'should' pay you - but they don't 'have' to pay you. 

Morally they should. Imagine a barber having to get a customer to sign a form agreeing to the price of his haircut before doing it. It's nonsense.  Traders operate differently to other businesses.  Implied trust is part of the 'contract' in my opinion, and it works both ways.

Nobody is saying that the original poster can be compelled to pay, and for £30, nobody's going to pursue the amount legally, but morally and rightly, the OP should pay.  Anything other than settling the £30 charge says everything you need to know about the OP.

Everyone has said that morally they should pay. But the contract, as you have now admitted, is unenforceable without stating what the charges are before the contract is agreed. 

Fines from private companies are a terrible idea and we should really not encourage the erosion of consumer rights to protect consumers from hidden charges. 

Consumers though are the first to claim compensation these days at the slightest inconvenience. A case of the kettle calling the pot black.  As long as somebody else incurs the cost not my problem. 

Compensation has to be material and actual damages from a breach of contract. Compensation from breach of contract, fundamentally, attempts to restore the scenario if the breach hadn’t occurred. For example, if I pay for a painter and decorator and they only paint half of my room and leave the other half unpainted I should be in the position I was as if the breach hadn’t occurred - I.e. to either have the room fully painted as per the contract or restored to how it was before the breach occurred. 

In this case - the contract was for a quote (note: not the actual work) and the consumer failed to allow the contractor to complete that quote. Thus, the breach can be restored by allowing access, or terminating the contract with any fees associated with that (but these fees should be told to the customer). 

Companies write these contracts, not consumers. In a lot of contracts there’s cancellation charges and mechanisms for the company to adjust prices and get more money. Consumers thus have more protection to stop them from unfair terms, like a limitless fine. If I leave Sky TV half way through my contract, they charge a cancellation fee, but they can’t charge a fee of £1000 without telling me first. If they did, then no one would sign up for it (or if people did, they may argue the term is unfair). Simply, companies have a lot of power over consumers and in any sort of relationship like that, the consumer needs additional protections. Hence why these rights don’t transfer to B2B. 

sheramber

As far as I can see we only know the OP arranged for a plumber to call at his house.
There is no mention of the reason for the visit. No mention it was for a quote.

However, since he has not logged on since 24 December I think he has made up his mind what he is going to do.

IrishRose12

Plumber should have knocked AND rang the doorbell.
Unless you expect someone to sit by the window or the door for 4 hours, or whatever the timeslot is, common sense tells you they aren't sitting staring out the window.  They could be in the kitchen making something to eat or a drink, in the bathroom. On the telephone for all they know.

I find it more and more that people are just lazy, be it delivery drivers, postmen/women, couriers etc if it means they actually have to stand and wait for a minute they can't be bothered.

I have a huge sticker on my parents' door stating for people to use the bell and to WAIT for the door to be answered.  They are elderly and not as quick as they used to be.  They can't hear a kock on the door or a window, that's why there's a bug black dorrbell stuck on the door.  Batteries are checked every 2 days to ensure the bells works.  Yet the impatient people still knock the door, some must knock with a feather as I even don't hear my door getting knocked sometimes.

And yes, if something is being delievered to my parents home, or someone is calling on them for an appointment, their house phone number is provided to ring if they don't answer the door.  Because They don't own a mobile phone, and they will hear the phone, if ignorant people ignore the huge sign and doorbell telling them to use it.

However in the case of the OP.  Theres no question on paying the £30, the wife ignored the phone call.  

ArbitraryRandom

IrishRose12 said:

They can't hear a kock on the door or a window, that's why there's a bug black dorrbell stuck on the door.  Batteries are checked every 2 days to ensure the bells works.  Yet the impatient people still knock the door, some must knock with a feather as I even don't hear my door getting knocked sometimes.

Separately from the discussion, might I recommend the ring doorbell (or similar product)? The basic function is to ring the doorbell if it detects someone approaching, so no issues with people tapping on the window - and you can adjust the range of detection/sensitivity using the app so you don't catch people on the street. 

Your parents/you may or may not also appreciate the ability to see who is at the door before opening/when you're not at the house and speak to the visitor remotely (so if you've just popped to the shops during that window and the trader calls you can say you're 2 minutes out or whatever). 

I'd check the battery every 6 months, but you can check it on the app at any time. 

Appliance_engineer

Most of these replies to my posts seem to miss my point, and none of this is about a doorbell!

I don't dispute that not having a written and signed agreement on paper makes getting payment from a customer who refuses to pay, difficult, and that it's preferable in law and that it's technically the correct thing to do, etc.

My point is that in my trade, and in many others, like window cleaners, chimney sweeps, patio cleaners, oven cleaners, cleaners in general, computer help people, etc, etc, we just don't work like that. Jobs are generally so low in cost to the customer that a refusal to pay won't elicit a legal response from the trader. It just wouldn't be worth it.  Hourly labour charges are likely to be in the £40 - £80 range and in my case, the average invoiced amount is around £90 for the average completed repair. I'm never going to take somebody to court for that amount. It wouldn't be worth my time and energy!

In the case of something major,  like an electrical rewire, or a new boiler being supplied and fitted, or, for example a kitchen installation, or even house decoration, then a contract being signed on paper is completely sensible, due to the amount of work and materials required, and no business should be carrying out substantial service work without such a signed and written agreement being in place as that is a considerable amount of work, materials, resources and money being employed, and in those cases, a customer refusing to pay would certainly then  justify legal action to obtain payment.

However, it's important to understand that for small one-off jobs like cleaning or appliance repairs or home computer assistance, then the result of a non-paying customer isn't a large loss of money to the trader, particularly if any materials or parts are charged in advance, and any losses to the tradesman on any one particular job is likely to be small, and recovery via legal action would be a non-starter.  So, just as in the case of the £30 visit charge, if the OP doesn't pay, then it's not a huge loss to the plumber. He can just make sure that he doesn't do any work for that person in future and move on.

This whole thread was about whether or not a £30 charge was justified and whether the OP should accept the charge as legitimate.  I believe that it was, and that the OP should have paid the amount requested.  The OP didn't state that he had booked a free quote or indeed a free visit, so the assumption should be to expect to be charged for the wasted visit.

Services like mine operate on trust, and we assume that the customer has integrity and enough intelligence to realise that there is an expectation of payment for visits to their homes, unless the visit has been specifically advised as without cost.  That's the default position, i.e, don't expect free visits unless they are advertised or advised as such.