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September 8, 2007
Dirty Plumber or SOP?
I've had a couple of plumbers over to bid on a job. All of them were in and out fairly quickly except one. This guy hung around for about an hour, taking notes, measurments etc.
I thought it was a good thing, then he started to go through what would need to be done to complete the job. Turns out he had a very complicated idea on how to approach it. When I mentioned a simple, more direct fix for the problem (what another plumber told me)he kind of scratched his head and said something like "yeah that will work too, interesting."
As he wrapped it up he said he'd talk to his boss and get back to me with a bid. Then when he was about to leave he casually asked me to sign a work order/invoice. When I asked why he needed my signature he said "if you decide not to accept our bid you'll be billed a service charge"
What? Of course I said I'd never heard of such a thing and I wasn't going to pay him for giving me an estimate for a job. He tried to make a bit of a fuss, called his office and then told me "it's ok, no charge"
I've never had any type of contractor or plumber ask me for a "service charge" fee for giving an estimate. Has anyone else heard of such a thing?
Comments
What a load of BS!
Posted by: guest at September 8, 2007 10:30 PM
Yes, and I was also surprised. The plumber who did a full-scale reno on our house will charge us a $59 "service charge" for any time they are called out to estimate work. The fee is not deductible even if they do get the job. They explain this as what it costs them to respond to the call. For emergency calls, the fee is baked in.
Posted by: guest at September 9, 2007 10:56 PM
Free estimates is a big discussion even among contractors. I hear of many that charge for an estimate but refund it if they are awarded the job. I think it should be up to the customer what they want. For a free estimate, you get what you pay for, "an educated guess". But if you want a written, detailed estimate there would be a charge involved. Doesn't that sound fair?
Posted by: guest at September 13, 2007 8:41 AM
Welcome to the future. Free estimates are becoming a thing of the past. I was hesitant to pay the service fee when I had an electrician to my home but I found that I got the best price and I was VERY happy with the quality of the job. Some companies even have memberships so you do not have to pay the service fee. You get what you pay for.
Posted by: guest at September 20, 2007 5:41 PM
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