Thought's on this chaps?

[Fallon1982]

Attended an emergency call out last Sunday - Travelled 42 miles - Got there and the woman was too drunk to answer the door despite calling me the day before to book this job as a priority - Travelled 42 miles back home.

She phones me after the 84 mile round trip to say "oh i am home can you come back?"
I said no as I have other booked jobs but I can come back the next day to which she agrees.

Ok so the next day I travel another 42 miles - leak under the bath - overflow is split and disconnected. I stripped out the waste and trap, renewed overflow pipe, sealed and tested. Job done. 42 miles home again.

I told her from the first phone call that my charge would be £50. If it was a simple fixing of a leak then I would only charge for any additional parts, which there wasn't.

A week later, her so called gas/plumber ex husband has said that I have ripped her off and a simple job like that should cost no more than £20! She said that I have taken advantage of her and ripped her off and that she will contact Checkatrade to tell them so...

I will let you guys share you thoughts now.......

 

[rpm]

Are you on Checkatrade for starters and did you get paid?

 

[SimonG]

Would have been a double charge to start with anyway.

As for the ex, shame he couldn't have fixed it for her if he's wanting to get involved, but then again maybe it's beyond him 🙂


Don't worry, you will have your say and a right to reply if they put a crap review on checkatrade.

 

[ShaunCorbs]

168 miles for £20 😀 joke tbh i think you were too cheap at £50

 

[Plumbstar Tom]

Try and deal with it professionally with a response but the issue here is people see you at their house for 20minutes and think "I'm not paying him £50, he's not worth £150 per hour". You need to advise why it costs £50, tools, insurance, labour, PROFIT, etc.

42 miles x 4 journeys at 11p (The government recommend rate for 1.6-2.0 diesels) would mean the £20 offered would pocket you £1.52 🙂

 

[hammers4spanner]

So your on checkatrade,

This is the problem i am finding with that site seems to attract head bangers,if a report goes in you do get to answer what they have written .

 

[Fallon1982]

Are you on Checkatrade for starters and did you get paid?

Yeah I joined up a couple of months ago. Must admit it's been pretty good so far. Yes got paid for the job.

 

[Rickster123]

You went back?! I wouldn't of returned after a wasted trip.

 

[Fallon1982]

You went back?! I wouldn't of returned after a wasted trip.

Do you know what, I wasn't going to bother but I had a free day and I thought £50 will pay for my diesel for the week at least.

 

[SimonG]

You always get screwed over trying to do a good deed.

 

[hammers4spanner]

That is the problem with these internet based rating sites sometimes you feel like your treading on tip toes around customers and eventually you will always get one nut case.

 

[Fallon1982]

You always get screwed over trying to do a good deed.

Ain't that the truth mate! And it's always the ones who seem nice as pie who turn out to be the screwers!

 

[Fallon1982]

You will never win. You try to earn an honest living and someones always waiting to shaft you for it!

 

[rpm]

That is the problem with these internet based rating sites sometimes you feel like your treading on tip toes around customers and eventually you will always get one nut case.

Funny you say that, was talking to a customer last week after fixing his sani and that is exactly what he said about his line of business.

 

[firemant]

Attended an emergency call out last Sunday - Travelled 42 miles - Got there and the woman was too drunk to answer the door despite calling me the day before to book this job as a priority - Travelled 42 miles back home.

She phones me after the 84 mile round trip to say "oh i am home can you come back?"
I said no as I have other booked jobs but I can come back the next day to which she agrees.

Ok so the next day I travel another 42 miles - leak under the bath - overflow is split and disconnected. I stripped out the waste and trap, renewed overflow pipe, sealed and tested. Job done. 42 miles home again.

I told her from the first phone call that my charge would be £50. If it was a simple fixing of a leak then I would only charge for any additional parts, which there wasn't.

I will let you guys share you thoughts now.......

My thought is that you are nuts agreeing to go that far for £50!
When I do Local Authority contract work, I get 45p per mile. So I would have been paid £37.80 PER ROUND TRIP, in addition to my hourly rate, which would have been paid for the travel time as well.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publi.../travel-mileage-and-fuel-rates-and-allowances

 

[hammers4spanner]

Funny you say that, was talking to a customer last week after fixing his sani and that is exactly what he said about his line of business.

What did he do?

 

[rpm]

What did he do?

Lambretta scooters of all things, nice guy though and made good coffee.

 

[REDSAW]

my emergency rate is £95 per hour for 10 mile radius but yours is your.

tell her it was £25 and you knew it was a 10 min fix...however
you had to do it twice as you were too ****ed for you to complete it the first time so you hqd to charge twice as it was a 42 mile trip.

 

[rocketmanbkk]

I wouldn't travel 42 miles for anyone other than family or friends

Second, the woman wasted your time & costs first time

Third I'd have charged £80

Fourth, block her number.

She's a mental bird who's on the pop too much

£20, the ex must be drunk too

 

[rocketmanbkk]

You will never win. You try to earn an honest living and someones always waiting to shaft you for it!

Agreed, I've been there.

People want to pay cheap and then they start the threats.

No good

 

[Billy Bob Bob]

for 50 quid are you nuts? would be double rate and i would charge for my wasted time,take your fuel out and you only made 20

 

[Millsy 82]

Anything out of my area they get charged travel time there and back. Funnily enough not many people are happy with paying £70 before I start.

 

[Millsy 82]

As for the customer just say politely that you agreed to my charge before I started then leave it at that.

If she leaves a bad review then reply to it but politely.

I had a bad review left for me and it has made no difference as a lot of people know you get cranky people who just moan at everything.

 

[hammers4spanner]

Millsy how you getting on with checkatrade?

 

[Best]

84 miles round trip is probably a 1 1/2 hour trip at least. Then you had to do that twice because she was drunk. Plus I bet it took you longer than 20 minutes to do the job? Any job, other than the most simple will need an hour.
So that's 4 hours at least I reckon actual. Then take your fuel off that. Looks like £10 per hour you charged to cover all your other costs and try to get some money out of it.
I would put in the reply that she wasn't able to answer the door when agreed as too drunk.

 

[firemant]

Ahem. I've just noticed this was a SUNDAY!!

Fallon, it is easy for us all to get on our high horses and take the pi$$, but it can be tough geting established. Have you been at it for long?
When I started, I found it difficult to confidently charge decent rates, but unless you want to be a busy fool, you probably need to review your charges. I don't charge as much as some guys claim to, but I would rather lose some jobs, and get paid more for for those I do. The problem with travelling so far is that domestic folk don't want to pay travel time, and if you have a recall, you will end up actually losing money. For me a long distance job is about 20 miles, and I normally work within 10 miles. Of course, the state of the route is important - I don't want to spend an hour driving at 10mph.

 

[Millsy 82]

Millsy how you getting on with checkatrade?

Picking up quite a bit. A few timewasters but majority ok.

There is nobody else who does breakdowns near me so I pick up a few of them.

 

[plumben]

My emergency price is worth having water issing through the ceiling for an extra day,

Tell her straight you went round twice therefore she's actually got a good deal as it should be double for your wasted time,
Depending on the roads that's 30minutes each way so an extra hour on the job, and if he's mate reckons you've ripped her off why didn't he sort it FOC


This is why I dont tell customers about the website where I get reviews left unless they've found me from there,
I wait a week or two and send them my curtsy message and if there happy ask them to leave a review

 

[lame plumber]

like everything you get good and bad reviews, most people know this so dont worry, my favourite was a customer who called me pricey, nice to know I have my pay structure set right, I;d hate to be too cheap🙂

 

[cr0ft]

Pricey is the best compliment on your hourly rates you can get. It's expensive enough to raise eyebrows, but not so much that it puts people off. It means your rates are probably spot on!

On the subject of travelling to jobs, we will happily travel anywhere in Lincolnshire or Nottinghamshire to change a tap or something. All we ask is the customer covers our costs to get to them. In essence, the hours spent on the job start from when we leave Lincoln (or the job before) and continue until we are back in Lincoln. TBH we give them a price by tapping their postcode into Google Maps and seeing how long the journey will take us for the round trip. On top of that our large runs cost around £1 per mile when you work all the costs out so they have to pay that as well. As a result we don't get too many tap replacements in Nottingham etc but customers understand the costs incurred once explained!

 

[firemant]

but customers understand the costs incurred once explained!

As I've always said, communication is everything!

 

[Leo21]

You always get screwed over trying to do a good deed.

Wouldn't know.

 

[Fallon1982]

Having spoken to her friends she realised she was wrong to accuse me of ripping her off and couldn't apologise enough!!

I replied saying not to worry and if she has any further plumbing problems to ring someone else... Funnily enough she didn't thank me??!