12-May-2008

Fed up with rogue tradesmen

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I'm sick to death of being ripped off rogue tradesmen. For example, I had a new kitchen fitted recently and it took them three months to finish the job. They turned up after 10am each day (if at all) and knocked off work each day before 3pm. As if this wasn't bad enough they wanted paying up front for the full amount before they even delivered the kitchen!

They also had to replace four drawers because when they put the worktop on the glue melted the plastic! Why didn't they take drawers off when they put the worktop on?

On another occasion a tiler was working in my bathroom and decided to take a stroll around the rest of the house. As it happens my cleaning lady was in the spare room and he turned up in front of her frightening the hell out of her! When challenged as to why he was just wandering around he couldn't give me good reason. He also let himself into my house one morning and I found him standing in my kitchen when I came downstairs. I screamed, at which point he packed up his stuff and was never seen again!

There are a lot of rogue tradesmen about...

One guy wanted to charge me £1,400 to change some radiators and wanted 50% up front luckily I didn't pay him because he didn't turn up anyway. My advice to people is don't trust anyone - even if they look nice, drive nice car etc. There are a lot of rogue tradesmen about who will take your money and either extend the job so long you chuck them out or they don't turn up at all and run off with your hard earned money.

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Did you set up your contract correctly with the tradesmen?

Was it written? Did you get them to sign it?

Do you have their formal address?

Did you set a time limit for the whole job to be done?

Did you have an independent inspector to verify the job was complete?

Did you have a programme to give them 25% for each quarter phase of completion of the job, retaining 10% till the job was verified at the emd?

Did you refuse to pay them cash? Cheque or Credit Card only?

Did you take up references?

Or were you totally duped into believing these cowboys were cheapos?

Wake Up You Fools 05-Jan-2008 09:16

Anyone who's stupid enough to pay 100% up front before work is started deserves to get ripped off. That is just sheer idiocy. I agree common sense needs to be used.....unfortunately the government has decreed common sense has no value.

overfiftys 25-Dec-2007 17:09

Best thing to do is to only use tradesmen that you can trust and that have at least been recommended by friends or some professional body. There's no need to end up with rogue tradesmen if you use common sense

Jeff 24-Dec-2007 18:04

From what I gather, the best thing to do is to get people in that come with personal references from people you know.

Joy of living in a fairly small welsh town is that I always know someone that knows someone that can do the job, be it put up some shelves or replaster a wall.

They may not be the best but they'll do an ok job - if they don't everyone will know.

Only downside is it's like working with family. You do have to make some allowances and you do have to be nice.

Ariarnia 21-Dec-2007 01:44

If they look nice, dress nicely and drive a nice car, and they are only manual labourers they must be ripping people off.

Look at the Reality 19-Dec-2007 23:58

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Fed up with rogue tradesmen

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