irrate customer!!

[REDSAW]

went to this 64 year old womans mansion yesterday to get the heating working.

the woman has been on the tinternet and studied all she needed to know what was wrong with her vaillant unvented system. upon arrival she spent an hour telling me whats wrong with it, how to service her boiler, the roomstat is broke and she has ordered a new one etc.
starts to work and she has her head over me in the airing cupboard for 15mins eventually telling her to bog off and give me some air. sorted a loose wire out and turned up the boiler controls that were set to 35 degrees for heat and water!.
i got the heating working for her for the first time in 4 days. also i got the fire lit for her as she couldnt do it for the last 5 months as a coal dropped onto the pilot, some 2 & 1/2 hours later charged her ....£50 and left!!!

just got a call from her and it went something like this.....

"is that martin?, now shut up and dont speak, listen to me and dont bloody interrupt"!!! (i not said a word since hello)

"the boiler switched off 10mins after you left (house was warm for 1/2 hour before i left) you told me a lie that you fixed it. all you did was turn the controls on the boiler up to max and robbed me of £50 and i want my bloody money back you con artist. alright, you got my gas fire going again so call it £40 then".
me not even uttered a word but now have put the phone on loud speaker so all the family can hear. lol

"you are a cowboy, i told you what the problem is with my heating system like i told you what i have researched from the internet (diynot.com) i have 2 degrees so i should know what i am talking about, i am not stupid!. blah blah....

by this time the wifey rushes into the lounge, nicks the phone off me,
the ex customer still going on......

"i am going to report him to gas safe i believe thats a fraudulent number he's using and he can forget any of those other jobs he was supposed to do for me and my neighbor"

takes it into the kitchen and rips into the woman lol wtf?

what the moron failed to realize is i only charged her for an hour (and she got a lot more) also, i was planning to call there friday to fit the room stat free of charge for her!!!!!!
i would of also popped around f.o.c to see if there was actually a problem in what i done or to explain about the stat if she was not too damn rude lol.:speechless::speechless:

to sum it up my total conversation was..........................................hello!

 

[Dotty]

Evil old cow.

 

[Guest123]

Don't worry about it Martin, everyone comes across a muppet like that at some point. If she knew so much about fault finding through her internet research, then she should have saved calling you out and done it herself (illegally). I wonder if the members of diynot.com realise that they are giving gas advice to non gsr's. Maybe we should send Croppie over with his big thread closing stick.

 

[plumber0808]

What's all that about .................£50 for 2 1/2 hours?

 

[Destroyer2813]

Ring her up and tell her you got a few problamatic jobs can she research the causes for ya

 

[REDSAW]

What's all that about .................£50 for 2 1/2 hours?

its called reading a customer,
she also tried to say that she will pay me in a weeks time when i had done the other 8 farty jobs for her.
i told her no i want paying for today and she argued the price of that too.lol
i think i hit the tipping scale there as there was no way i was going to get £80

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

just tell her to go fk herself silly old witch

 

[REDSAW]

just tell her to go fk herself silly old witch

the wife did.lol

 

[Ray Stafford]

just tell her to go fk herself silly old witch

I believe that there are websites where she could research that as well.

Just going on what other people have told me, obviously... 🙂

 

[Guest123]

The lesson to be learned here is to agree a price in principle BEFORE doing the work. Any unforeseen extras that crop up while doing the job can be added on after discussion with the customer. At least that's the way I do it, probably a lot more members do this too.

I'm on a bathroom install where after lifting the floor boards, I found nearly every joist had been sawed in half by the previous installer and those that were left were notched so deep that the joists were unsafe. This was not priced for in the original quote but now after showing the customer this major problem, I've got extra on the contract to replace and pin the damaged joists.

 

[plumber0808]

I went to quote a new boiler gravity to combi and a bathroom install, quite a nice large house. Basically the chap wanted it done for nothing and he was keeping the copper cylinder to weigh in.

having a laugh.

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

Don't worry about it Martin, everyone comes across a muppet like that at some point. If she knew so much about fault finding through her internet research, then she should have saved calling you out and done it herself (illegally). I wonder if the members of diynot.com realise that they are giving gas advice to non gsr's. Maybe we should send Croppie over with his big thread closing stick.

dont you just love changing the bath and finding theres been a leak forever and rotted the floor and joists out

 

[mickie]

this is why im starting to feel like these helpful sites aimed at the public to help them along their DIY way is a bad idea..

loads more people doing it themselves now and i'm having to turn upto a job and blank stare at them as they begin to talk ********.. bla bla bla this is the problem, i read if my pressure goes down theirs a leak.. me: how long did it take to go down, her: 2 years.. rrrrrrrrright..

i also read i have cancer, turned out trapped wind..

 

[plumber0808]

The lesson to be learned here is to agree a price in principle BEFORE doing the work. Any unforeseen extras that crop up while doing the job can be added on after discussion with the customer. At least that's the way I do it, probably a lot more members do this too.
.

I find it hard to do this all the time as you just don't know how things will unfold. There is also a element of trust from both sides needed.

some people do think you can work for nearly nothing though and that is where the problem will start

 

[REDSAW]

dont you just love changing the bath and finding theres been a leak forever and rotted the floor and joists out

lol.

did this job on tuesday, water pouring down kitchen ceiling.
they had a bathroom fitted out by a builder!!!!!

14 pushfit and one compression within 2 meters of the wall plate joist with a 75mm gap to work in 6 hours later!.
pushfits not seated correctly.

fungus and rotten joist was the result.lol

 

[Kev the gas]

I had something similair last year, my 14 year old daughter took a call whilst me and the wife were out.
The customer started having a go at my daughter because I had not contacted her regarding her rental property gas inspection that was overdue.
When my daughter explained my wife was in hospital, she said " there is always an excuse, 2 years ago you claimed the mother in law was in hospital" ( mother in law passed away 2 weeks later)

I arrived home to my daughter in tears, I phoned the customer and gave a full mouthfull, and advised I would not be visiting her sh.t hole of a rental or her sh.t hole of a home anymore, funnily enough she went quiet. Maybe went a bit far when I suggested I would meet her husband after work for a chat!

 

[Ray Stafford]

I reckon we should staff the entire diplomatic service with plumbers.

That'd sort the world out. 🙂

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

i reckon we should staff the entire diplomatic service with plumbers.

That'd sort the world out. 🙂

north korea would permanantly glow in the dark by now

 

[REDSAW]

north korea would permanantly glow in the dark by now

good idea!, solve street lighting costs.lol

 

[Ray Stafford]

north korea would permanantly glow in the dark by now

Not if we used the welsh branch of the foreign office. It would just have a huge Axe sticking out of Pyongyang.