"My Builder" Tradesman totally bodged laying Vinyl Floor Tiles!

Chris56000

. . .My friend Stephen used the "My Builder App" to find a Tradesman to level our kitchen floor with Self–levelling Compound and lay new Luxury Vinyl Floor Tiles, and to say the job was bodged was an understatement!

. . .The self levelling compound wasn't mixed according to the instructions on the bag, the stuff was just dumped on the floor any–old–how leaving bubbles, holes and many differences in level everywhere, and to make matters worse, this character ruined many of the tiles trying to  cut them to fit in the process – I counted what appeared to be four packs of tiles ruined at a cost of about £120 per pack!

. . .This character went by the name of "Muhammad Imran" and My Builder refused to give my friend Stephen an address of where he could get hold of him, and we subsequently found out he had a reputation of using a number of different addresses or names!

. . .My friend paid £1100 for the job cost and labour and then this character wanted another £380 for "materials!"

. . .This appalling job was carried on on 6/7 November 2023 – he was only at our house about two hours at the most!

. . 
Has my friend got any redress or steps he can take to try and get the money back from this character or are we chasing a lost cause?

. . .(Unfortunately my friend Stephen didn't pay him by Credit Card as he said he didn't want to use it!)

. . .Have we any chance of taking this character to court? I do have a very large gallery of pictures of all the mess he made and of all the packs of ruined tiles he left, etc.

. . . What's worse, my friend Stephen is finding it very difficult to find someone willing to take all the mess up and begin again properly – We've tried advertising again and telephoning round and we've not had any quotes so far!

. . .Can my friend apply for a "chargeback?"

pinkshoes

November 2023? So not far off 2 years ago? If it was so bad then why hasnt this been chased a long time ago?

You'll need to get contact details of the person who did the work. Proper name and address. What did Mr Builder say?

MyRealNameToo

Chris56000 said:

. . .My friend Stephen used the "My Builder App" to find a Tradesman to level our kitchen floor with Self–levelling Compound and lay new Luxury Vinyl Floor Tiles, and to say the job was bodged was an understatement!

. . .The self levelling compound wasn't mixed according to the instructions on the bag, the stuff was just dumped on the floor any–old–how leaving bubbles, holes and many differences in level everywhere, and to make matters worse, this character ruined many of the tiles trying to  cut them to fit in the process – I counted what appeared to be four packs of tiles ruined at a cost of about £120 per pack!

. . .This character went by the name of "Muhammad Imran" and My Builder refused to give my friend Stephen an address of where he could get hold of him, and we subsequently found out he had a reputation of using a number of different addresses or names!

. . .My friend paid £1100 for the job cost and labour and then this character wanted another £380 for "materials!"

. . .This appalling job was carried on on 6/7 November 2023 – he was only at our house about two hours at the most!

. . 
Has my friend got any redress or steps he can take to try and get the money back from this character or are we chasing a lost cause?

. . .(Unfortunately my friend Stephen didn't pay him by Credit Card as he said he didn't want to use it!)

. . .Have we any chance of taking this character to court? I do have a very large gallery of pictures of all the mess he made and of all the packs of ruined tiles he left, etc.

. . . What's worse, my friend Stephen is finding it very difficult to find someone willing to take all the mess up and begin again properly – We've tried advertising again and telephoning round and we've not had any quotes so far!

. . .Can my friend apply for a "chargeback?"

Why did you get a friend to sort out a trades person to deal with your kitchen floor?

Why have you waited 2 years to bring the matter up?

Chargeback no, you are well over the time limit for that and its not clear they paid by debit card anyway.

You can attempt to take him to court but from the outset you're going to have problems with identifying the defendant correctly. Presumably you engaged him as a sole trader? Is his real name per the instructions or was that one of his pseudonyms? 

Even if you get a court order, do you know if they have any assets to go after to attempt to get repaid? Court can be an exercise of simply increasing your losses if you sue someone with no money or the wrong identity. 

Chris56000

. . .My friend has been trying to sort it out on and off almost every week or two since the job was badly done, and he has been back to "My Builder" quite a number of times with no success whatsoever – I've been with him into Santander to enquire about it amongst other things!

. . .My Builder, not surprisingly, are very reluctant to communicate either with Stephen who originally commissioned the job, or me – all they gave us was  their usual "copy–and–paste" weasel–words about how sorry they were, etc., but virtually no help trying to get comeback from that character!

. . .(The only reason I got involved is because I have a some knowledge of Consumer Rights and my friend Stephen does not!)

. . .Stephen has just informed me that that Tradesman is now no longer available on "My Builder" and all his reviews have been deleted!

sheramber

MyRealNameToo said:

Chris56000 said:

. . .My friend Stephen used the "My Builder App" to find a Tradesman to level our kitchen floor with Self–levelling Compound and lay new Luxury Vinyl Floor Tiles, and to say the job was bodged was an understatement!

. . .The self levelling compound wasn't mixed according to the instructions on the bag, the stuff was just dumped on the floor any–old–how leaving bubbles, holes and many differences in level everywhere, and to make matters worse, this character ruined many of the tiles trying to  cut them to fit in the process – I counted what appeared to be four packs of tiles ruined at a cost of about £120 per pack!

. . .This character went by the name of "Muhammad Imran" and My Builder refused to give my friend Stephen an address of where he could get hold of him, and we subsequently found out he had a reputation of using a number of different addresses or names!

. . .My friend paid £1100 for the job cost and labour and then this character wanted another £380 for "materials!"

. . .This appalling job was carried on on 6/7 November 2023 – he was only at our house about two hours at the most!

. . 
Has my friend got any redress or steps he can take to try and get the money back from this character or are we chasing a lost cause?

. . .(Unfortunately my friend Stephen didn't pay him by Credit Card as he said he didn't want to use it!)

. . .Have we any chance of taking this character to court? I do have a very large gallery of pictures of all the mess he made and of all the packs of ruined tiles he left, etc.

. . . What's worse, my friend Stephen is finding it very difficult to find someone willing to take all the mess up and begin again properly – We've tried advertising again and telephoning round and we've not had any quotes so far!

. . .Can my friend apply for a "chargeback?"

Why did you get a friend to sort out a trades person to deal with your kitchen floor?

Why have you waited 2 years to bring the matter up?

Chargeback no, you are well over the time limit for that and its not clear they paid by debit card anyway.

You can attempt to take him to court but from the outset you're going to have problems with identifying the defendant correctly. Presumably you engaged him as a sole trader? Is his real name per the instructions or was that one of his pseudonyms? 

Even if you get a court order, do you know if they have any assets to go after to attempt to get repaid? Court can be an exercise of simply increasing your losses if you sue someone with no money or the wrong identity. 

My friend Stephen used the "My Builder App" to find a Tradesman to level our kitchen floor

Sounds like OP and Stephen might share the floor

Aylesbury_Duck

Stephen needs to get a quote for correcting the work and then work on small claims action to recover what he's owed.  However, I suspect Stephen doesn't have the builder’s address and even if he does, is he confident that the builder has the means to pay emissions court action were to be successful, which would take around a year from now.