Nightmare customer giving me grief

[dean.diy]

evening gap30, not very nice to hear of your predicament, particularly for the sole traders who subscribe to
the forum. It seems now a lot of jobs slurp up 1 or 2 hours of our unpaid time where we " verify" ? the
situation before we can even quote. I'm a junior member, I wasted 3/4 hour last week checking the
supply only to read the manufacturers' instructions which asked for RCD the customer did not want or
understand.

- - - Updated - - -

evening gap30, not very nice to hear of your predicament, particularly for the sole traders who subscribe to
the forum. It seems now a lot of jobs slurp up 1 or 2 hours of our unpaid time where we " verify" ? the
situation before we can even quote. I'm a junior member, I wasted 3/4 hour last week checking the
supply only to read the manufacturers' instructions which asked for RCD the customer did not want or
understand.

 

[gap30]

Guess which idiot is £130.00 out of pocket, bathroom company went to get paid and customer held back on £130.00 even after i spent an hour explaining why i was doing the work and the importance/safety aspect.

As other have said i should have checked before and i have learnt my lesson where it hurts most, but 99.9% of people would just say 'ok you are the spark, if it needs doing, do it'

Put this one down to experience methinks

 

[gap30]

evening gap30, not very nice to hear of your predicament, particularly for the sole traders who subscribe to
the forum. It seems now a lot of jobs slurp up 1 or 2 hours of our unpaid time where we " verify" ? the
situation before we can even quote. I'm a junior member, I wasted 3/4 hour last week checking the
supply only to read the manufacturers' instructions which asked for RCD the customer did not want or
understand.

- - - Updated - - -

evening gap30, not very nice to hear of your predicament, particularly for the sole traders who subscribe to
the forum. It seems now a lot of jobs slurp up 1 or 2 hours of our unpaid time where we " verify" ? the
situation before we can even quote. I'm a junior member, I wasted 3/4 hour last week checking the
supply only to read the manufacturers' instructions which asked for RCD the customer did not want or
understand.

I have honestly had times recently where i wonder why i bother - then i remember what it was like working for other people lol

 

[not clever]

Guess which idiot is £130.00 out of pocket, bathroom company went to get paid and customer held back on £130.00 even after i spent an hour explaining why i was doing the work and the importance/safety aspect.

As other have said i should have checked before and i have learnt my lesson where it hurts most, but 99.9% of people would just say 'ok you are the spark, if it needs doing, do it'

Put this one down to experience methinks

**** that, get some orange/red "this account is in debt, if account is not settled in 7 days debt will be passed to recovery dept" stickers made & apply one to the invoice & one to the envelope.

You've done the work & explained why it needed doing...............odds on NICEIC will say the 6mm to water will suffice.

 

[gap30]

**** that, get some orange/red "this account is in debt, if account is not settled in 7 days debt will be passed to recovery dept" stickers made & apply one to the invoice & one to the envelope.

You've done the work & explained why it needed doing...............odds on NICEIC will say the 6mm to water will suffice.

Will consider my options, have given customer the certificate as they were moaning about that too!!

 

[SAILOR48]

:christmaswreath:

Will consider my options, have given customer the certificate as they were moaning about that too!!

Don’t knock yourself out over this; turn it in to a learning event.
When you go self employed you are no longer an electrician, you are a business man/woman.
You should have sufficient knowledge/equipment, to carry out the works properly.
You need to get it in your head that the most important thing is to make money out of it, you should aim to make at least double what you would earn as employed.
You have to factor in quoting, travelling, call backs and all the other things you will have to do to get work. (This must be paid for in the long term.)
Your transport accountants scam scheme etc every thing for your business must be paid for by the chargeable work.
Look at your problem, make sure in future that if you quote itemise exactly what you will do for what price.
All ways put in a proviso that you are assuming that the existing installation is in a usable/safe condition. Such statements as we would be glad to quote extra to bring it up to standard BLA BLA.
On arrival to site check out the installation it should only take half an hour you know what to look for.
And quote for the extra work if necessary.
If you do this before you start, if it all goes rotten you can walk away.

A lot of this problem is caused by that bald dwarf on the telley and that ugly old minger who does that quiz program

 

[gap30]

Don’t knock yourself out over this; turn it in to a learning event.
When you go self employed you are no longer an electrician, you are a business man/woman.
You should have sufficient knowledge/equipment, to carry out the works properly.
You need to get it in your head that the most important thing is to make money out of it, you should aim to make at least double what you would earn as employed.
You have to factor in quoting, travelling, call backs and all the other things you will have to do to get work. (This must be paid for in the long term.)
Your transport accountants scam scheme etc every thing for your business must be paid for by the chargeable work.
Look at your problem, make sure in future that if you quote itemise exactly what you will do for what price.
All ways put in a proviso that you are assuming that the existing installation is in a usable/safe condition. Such statements as we would be glad to quote extra to bring it up to standard BLA BLA.
On arrival to site check out the installation it should only take half an hour you know what to look for.
And quote for the extra work if necessary.
If you do this before you start, if it all goes rotten you can walk away.

A lot of this problem is caused by that bald dwarf on the telley and that ugly old minger who does that quiz program

Cheers!! Should staple that to dashboard in van

 

[SAILOR48]

You will learn grasshopper :ihih:

 

[Des 56]

Isn't it just typical of what being a spark means to the public nowadays
A good spark doing a fair days work getting screwed and then becoming the villain in the saga

 

[sedgy34]

You should find a happy result from this situation
bond the gas for £65 she would rather pay that
and the Nic would say you should go back free of charge as you should have checked before you Installed any cables

also I used to do works for a bathroom company and they charged £60 for an electrical safety certificate even though I supplied it after works

 

[richy3333]

Some good advice on the thread. As was mentioned ask the ESC to send you a box of their leaflets on earthing. I hand these out to customers when pricing and it always shuts them up. To them it looks official and not like you are trying to rip them off because the ESC sounds so official.

Bite the bullet and recoup the lost money on the next couple of jobs you do for the bathroom company

 

[Kem]

Here you go

http://www.esc.org.uk/public/guides-and-advice/leaflets/

 

[SparkyJoe]

nevermind

 

[Robert Turnbull]

I never give a cert out unless been paid!

The bottom line i would use is you can't certificate the job without the bonding as its a requirement!

 

[oldtimer]

You just walked straight into that ie you or the bathroom company should have stated this before any work gets done and even do a pre survey as I get calls about a new CU and I always mention that I need to check the earthing and even send them a pick that megger made up showing it explaining that yep there has been no probbs with the house before the work commences but when they alter it they need to bring the electrics up to standard