Discuss Ever get the feeling customers think your out to rip them off? in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

Welcome to ElectriciansForums.net - The American Electrical Advice Forum
Head straight to the main forums to chat by click here:   American Electrical Advice Forum

T

timo

Hate it when you go to do a simple job and then somthing pops up and you go to tell the customer and they look at you blank. Like your making it up or tying to get more work out of them. :( Some times could do without the hassle of finding faults that need to be sorted out just too busy.
 
Depends on your attirude , your customer will make his mind up aboutyou in the first 30 seconds of meeting you
So be nice have chat and instill confidence, don't oh **** your in trouble installations **** but rather
IM alittle bit concerned about blah blah blah , come and have a look , - i think WE should check the reg's and out pop's the little red book -- boom boom
 
Last edited by a moderator:
Cheers fellas

Yeah i know what you mean when you say it worked before. I've had people say well its been working all these years, but trying to explain there was no RCD to protect and detect the leakage from the fault.

I never tell them bad things like your installtions is ** or such, normally just explain what i have found and why it wasnt picked up before. Noramally all is well but normally 1 or 2 i just get a feeling. Suppose im too much of a careing kinda guy lol
 
all the time

i did a job for a friend of a friend somebody had took down 1 of her lights down to put in a loft hatch and since then only 1 of her lights has worked

i made daft mistake of saying oh they must of got loop and switch wire wrong or wire poped out oh how wrong was i

they had boarded out the loft and had trapped or screwed through wires and all brittle when stripping them i said it really needs a re wire as cables were nakered said she will think about it

then i come to put the landing light up and it was the type were you screw the hook to ceeling then hang fitting on the hook (fancy crap) the hook was missing from whoever took it down and i asked where it was and said there wasnt 1 and i was ripping her off

iv learnt my lesson and will NEVER work for family or close friends as here to much trouble
 
I turned the power of to a lighting circuit at a family friends house to put up a couple of fittings in the kitchen for them as a favour,that evening got a call that the security light outside wasnt working. Turned out the sensor...an expensive german 'watchdog' one had packed up. Of course first thing was , 'well it was working before you came'....tried to explain that all I had done was turn that circuit off....hadnt touched any of the wiring to the sensor at all...it was pure coincidence that the thing had failed at that time.
To cut a long story short I ended up coughing up for a replacement just to stop the whinging....they are no longer family friends.....moral?...dont do favours.
 
I did a CU change on a house of someone I know VERY well.

Did it all by the book, detected shared Ns on landing light, no main bonding to water etc...

Did a really pucker job.

Now I know the fancy induction hob was working before the change.

Owners wife went nuts that I had killed the induction hob.....................................................................................................................................................................

How can you explain it, its my house, my hob and my wiring I did nothing unusual and it was a clockwork CU change, I did not fry the hob with 500v or anything like that???????

Coincidence???? It was a stoves, renound for poor quality????

Could you imagine if that had been a customers, I still maintain I did nothing wrong or diferent £600 lighter though!!!!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Lifting a tongue & groove board onthe landing (cut nails) I was met by Ppsssssss :eek: Oh $#!? who-ever had put the board down last had punched two nails through the boiler circuit pipes. By the time I had managed to find & turn of stop cocks etc & get the full board up the ceiling was destroyed.

I know they didn't believe me that I wasn't putting nails in if I was lifting the floor board, I paid for the repair to the pipes, luckily the mate who had got me in to alter the circuit was a (excellent) plasterer
 
I t
To cut a long story short I ended up coughing up for a replacement just to stop the whinging....they are no longer family friends.....moral?...dont do favours.

How right you are
The thing is, many people would have put two and two together and come up with that conclusion

Very annoying
I suppose trying to explain whilst thinking"they dont believe me" would be irritating to say the least
 
I was doing work in a house when the customer complained that a whole outfit including shoes and bag had gone missing. what does she think, that we were rewiring her house while wearing her gear?
 
We were working in the house of a couple we knew well...lifted a carpet in their bedroom and came across a considerable stash of tenners underneath...clearly the husbands secret supply hidden from her ladyship. When the carpet went back down the stash was resited to the opposite corner:p.....when hubby gets home and finds we've lifted this particular carpet first thing he does is check his wad is still there:eek:...cant ask his missis 'cos she doesnt know of i'ts existence and we denied all knowledge of seeing it...(Wot money mate??).
The fun lasted several days till we put him out of his misery:D
 
did anyone see that bit in the paper a few years ago where someone wired a single socket under the floorboards of some customers house who kept messing them about over money, they then went to tescos and purchased a cheap mobile and plugged it in and rang it randomly for 6 months
 
Quoted a bargain price to do a rewire of a flat that was wired in VIR and the insulation was totally screwed. Customer started moaning how expensive it was before I'd even explained what it cost and what was involved!

Should've walked away but guy I was working with weakened and offered to wire up the shed in the price (the garage board & wiring was already in place, but I'd disconnected and condemned and supply cable, which was 2.5 T&E in a hosepipe).

We had to work 10 hour days to get it all done. When it came to getting paid, the customer kicked up a huge stink about the materials bill and resumed complaining about the agreed labour cost (which was a bargain).

Total loonies... thought they could get a sparky for £80 a day. If I get another one I'm going to tell them that my price has just doubled and they should get some other quotes. When they come crawling back they can kiss my feet and beg me to do the work for the original price.

Thankfully that's been the only one who thinks that they're some sort of charity case and tradesmen should work for free. Handing over the cash so begrudgingly when you've received the agreed services is bang out of order.

What makes me even angrier is the fact that I do lots of little jobs for poor pensioners, and I barely cover my costs on those ones because I do have a conscience and a charitable spirit. To be accused of being a rogue trader when you've cut your margins to the wire for some ungrateful ignorant fool... makes the blood boil :mad:
 
i know what you mean!! i did a PIR and found the rings to be open in 2 places one on Live other cpc only one intack was Neutal!!! after spending 3-4 hours finding the exact fault locations at customer request she then asked if i wil lbe charging her for the fault finding!!! eh!! wtf.. also told that garage was unusable and i made the isolation switch.. pitty because i wanted to isolate the supply but some clown tapped into the ring behind some wall tiles and took a spur off so that ment that the ring would be isolated and it was one of them daft rings that feed up and down!! also wired in a horrendous design so trying to find which socket folows what was crazy!!

when i agreed that i would include the 3 hours for extra 20 quid on top of my PIR report i got the evil eyes as if i had just robbed a Old Lady!!!

truth be know i enjoyed the up and down stairs stuff as it was some hand experience for if i ever go back ..! but i though extra £20 was nothing!!
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I turned the power of to a lighting circuit at a family friends house to put up a couple of fittings in the kitchen for them as a favour,that evening got a call that the security light outside wasnt working. Turned out the sensor...an expensive german 'watchdog' one had packed up. Of course first thing was , 'well it was working before you came'....tried to explain that all I had done was turn that circuit off....hadnt touched any of the wiring to the sensor at all...it was pure coincidence that the thing had failed at that time.
To cut a long story short I ended up coughing up for a replacement just to stop the whinging....they are no longer family friends.....moral?...dont do favours.

Someone pulled the same scam on me about 6 months ago. Doing a garage conversion didn't even touch or go near said security light. Got a phone call from main contractor he wasn't happy I'd "messed their light up". They decided they were going to tell the NIC, I still never coughed up and stuck to my guns. Never heard anymore.
I also don't work with this contractor anymore, my choice he was a cowboy. He ripped the roof felt on the porch (same job) and said "Well when it starts leaking we won't be here" Also their carpentry works dreadful, skirting boards didn't fit, door didn't fit etc.
Don't really want people like that bringing our name down.

Jim
 
I know what you mean!...my elderly neigbour wanted a shower wiring (too old to get in and out of bath) he was 97! He got a grant from some scheme or other, he didn't even have to pay for it. We were good neighbours, no problems he liked us!...untill I priced for shower. Old porcelein fuses, all earths twisted and in a screwit connector above the plywood fuse board.

Err, I cant' wire a shower into that, you need a new board, in fact you need a complete rewire, the wiring is dodgy.

Accepting the fact he was real old and realising the disruption involved in a complete rewire, I said I could do the shower alone and quoted for a new board dedicated to the shower only.

The price was £75.00, he had to pay 50% of the cost (this was 10 years ago) he never spoke to me or my wife again, he told other neighbours I was a con man and was exploiting the grant scheme. He eventually got a full grant for other works 2 years later, ch, new roof, kitchen, rewire etc. The rewire cost was £2800...not bad even today for a 2-bed semi. He died 1-week before his 100-th birthday, we had been neighbours 20-years on good terms, I did a few garden type jobs over the years for him for free...but electrics I'm a con man

btw it was an rcd 1-way, even before mandority
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Reply to Ever get the feeling customers think your out to rip them off? in the Electrical Forum area at ElectriciansForums.net

OFFICIAL SPONSORS

Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Electrician Courses Green Electrical Goods PCB Way Electrical Goods - Electrical Tools - Brand Names Pushfit Wire Connectors Electric Underfloor Heating Electrician Courses
These Official Forum Sponsors May Provide Discounts to Regular Forum Members - If you would like to sponsor us then CLICK HERE and post a thread with who you are, and we'll send you some stats etc

Electrical Forum

Welcome to the Electrical Forum at ElectriciansForums.net. The friendliest electrical forum online. General electrical questions and answers can be found in the electrical forum.
This website was designed, optimised and is hosted by Untold Media. Operating under the name Untold Media since 2001.
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Sure, ad-blocking software does a great job at blocking ads, but it also blocks useful features of our website. For the best site experience please disable your AdBlocker.

I've Disabled AdBlock