Upset customer wants refund

[Blackcatgas]

Id probably use the left jab to gauge the distance then follow up with a straight right to her husbands chin (I dont hit women) then maybe Id check that the room stat was turned up, the boiler hadnt locked out and needed resetting, shed turned it back on properly, there was gas in the card meter, the control was set to go on etc tec etc, Dont work all day till 9pm for £60 John.

 

[Dannypipe]

Oh dear. It's probably something simple like Blackcat has suggested. Did you work all day till 9pm for £60? Don't even consider refunding that. You've not broken her boiler.

A quick story for you....a plumber mate of mine did some work on a system, moving a rad. When he filled it back up, a rad wouldn't vent or fill. The lady of the house said it had worked before and insisted he fixed it. Long story short he discovered after much agrevation, it had been disconected from the system and there was no way it had been working for a long time, he traced the feeds back to cut off ends.

He sent them another bill for his time and got paid. There are a lot of guys out there who could have reacted violently and filled her husband in, but is it really worth getting in trouble with the law!?

 

[johnmcginty]

Cheers for the advice guys, and no I did'nt work all day for that it was actually just round the corner and I thought if it was cash I would do her a favour I did it about 11 and ended up til about half one so was'nt too bad for £60 cash as had two more jobs on in afternoon, checked stats and everything seemed ok so I though it may kick in later as it may have been programmer issue told her to phone me if it did'nt come on so she did screming and ranting the exact time I had a double viewing for a room in my house at 9pm oh dear . i'll bet it was something simple too and would have sorted it in the morn if she was'nt so rude and told me to get out her house, what gets me is she is council so does'nt that mean she gets a free callout from the gas man? was dodgy anyway no inhibitor or recent stickers on cover. Oh well looks like the verdict is in i'll have to spend that £60 just cant decide ...wet vac or pressure washer? Cheers for the input

 

[Avatar]

Plumbing basics:

- you only are responsible for what you work on. If her boiler is faulty, beyond venting air from the system, then I would ask to be paid more. You should have shut the boiler down yourself though - never let a customer do something like that (as you will be held responsible!)

- Always check the system first to see if it is working, and how the fault is.

- Charge more - it is always the bloody charity jobs which turn out nightmares! Used to do it myself - not anymore! Charge them to the max. I may have quoted £150 to replace a towel rad, as it could be an hour if you are lucky . . . 9 times out of ten you are not and you spend hours piddling around with the system trying to get it to work again . . .

NO charity work!!!

Some customer seem to think as soon as a plumber walks into their house, that they become responsible for every water appliance therein - wctch out for this!

In fact i remember a job where i was called in to replace a tiolet siphon to get it to flush. Told the customer that i was not happy with broken overflow and loose tiolet handle. I did do some (charity) work on the handle, and to cut a long story short, when the overflow pipe leaked all over the bathroom floor and through to the kitchen ceiling (like i told them it would day 1), I was duely blamed, and the chap became quite agressive demanding a refund. I then sent him a breakdown of my 'uncharitable' bill for all the extra work, plus the cost of a county court summons.

Didnt hear from him again!

In fact I will take before and after pictures, along with contracts on bigger jobs, but it is the small ones which trip you up!!

Good luck mate - Ps: go for the wet vac, its one of the best bits of kit I have!!!

 

[Phil]

This happend to me aswell, I drained down a system with an Ideal Elan regular boiler, upon refilling the boiler worked fine for hours but kept going to lockout. It was fine beforehand, I bled every single bleed valve including the ones on the top of the boiler, Just when I thought I had curred it she rang back again to say it had locked out.

She used to ring at 8:30am on the dot and at 8:25am I used to break out in a cold sweat in anticipation! This happend all week if I remember correctly. Eventually I got an RGI in at great expense and it was the high limit thermostat that had gone, just happend to go when I drained down?

She was a nice lady though and she re-embursed me the money and now she is a regular customer, in fact I was round there this afternoon, her basin waste had become uncoupled under the floor. She lives in a posh flat with a neighbour underneath!

Sorry John but your 'customer' is an unresonable witch!!