Dodgy tradesman and othe (non)useful contacts

[wylie]

Great post Gecko. We have over the years worked on relationships with kitchen makers (now retired), painters, plumbers, electricians and no longer ask for quotes because we just use our trusted tradies.

However, I am curious to ask the tradies on here what they think about tradies spending half the time on my job, with me paying them, on the mobile phone. I must admit that I try to call my tradies early in the morning or later afternoon, because I respect the fact that they have a family and don't want to be fielding calls all night. Before mobile phones, they didn't have a choice, but now I call the mobile and if it goes to message, I wait for them to call back. Our tradies know that I have their home numbers for anything really urgent.

Obviously if others are avoiding calling them at night, they have to take the calls during the day, but sometimes they spend more than half the time on the phone.

One tradie in particular, on the last few jobs, spends a LOT of time taking calls. I have never asked him if I am paying for the time he is on the phone, because I don't want to upset the relationship, but I cannot imagine that I am not paying. As his business has expanded, he tends to bring in another tradie to help, so I am paying two licenced people. Sometimes the second person is needed, but they always seem to be there for longer than the particular job requires.

It is getting to the point where I think I will look for a "one man show", which this person started as, so that we can keep the costs down. The more men this chap has on his payroll, the more he is charging as he obviously has to cover his costs, trucks, payroll taxes etc.

But it is the mobile phone calls that really annoy me. (I know that I am paying for them sometimes when I can pinpoint the hours actually spent on the job. Other times, it is hard to gauge whether he actually takes off any time for his calls.)

 

[gecho1]

Wylie

Ok Wylie, if you are paying a tradie for a job he/she has quoted, then it is up to them how they spend their time on your site/project. If they spend half of it on the phone, then that is their loss, not yours.

However, if you are paying an hourly rate (Something which works well for some investors as they have a great relationship with their trades) then it is not on. You are paying them to work on your project, not field calls.

For myself, i field calls during the day, however if they are enquiries from customers, i tend to direct them to my site. At the end of the day i print out all of my enquiries, and contact them and organise a time to meet.
This is done after hours (Yes unpaid work )

When i am on site,i like to get the job done, and don't like the distraction of the phone, a very unfortunate yet necessary evil

I really hope that the post improves relationships, and helps both good investors and good tradies find eachother.

Adrien

www.mametconstructions.com.au

 

[Evad]

Sounds like all the tradies are on the defense. lol

I belive that if you are paying for a service you should get what you ask for.

A very simple Philosophy

 

[wylie]

However, if you are paying an hourly rate (Something which works well for some investors as they have a great relationship with their trades) then it is not on. You are paying them to work on your project, not field calls.

I agree. This is a real shame, because for quite a number of years we have had a really great relationship with this tradie. It is only now his business has grown that he spends lots of time taking calls, and/or directing other tradies working for him on where they need to be next etc.

I am too much of a whimp to say something and to be fair, he has done some nice things in the past, like unblocking our loo on Christmas Eve for no charge. I dropped around a slab of beer as a thank you, and was very grateful for what he did. He is a genuinely nice guy, but he probably needs to stop doing his trade and become a proper "boss" because that seems to be what a lot of his time is spent doing, organising and directing his workers. I would feel bad asking him for a quote, because he would wonder why we are suddenly querying his charges or thinking we don't trust him any more, which is certainly not the case.

(We do ask for a ballpark figure, so that we can budget and plan, but never ask for a "quote" as such.)

Anyway, we will see what happens. I don't want to sever the relationship because it is a good one, but I am just getting a little annoyed with the constant phone time.

 

[gecho1]

Sounds like all the tradies are on the defense. lol

I belive that if you are paying for a service you should get what you ask for.

A very simple Philosophy

No Evad, not on the defence, just trying to help investors and trades alike.

At the end of the day, the smart investor develop a relationship with their trades, as they know how important good tradies are to thier portfolio.
The rest cry foul on internet forums.

Just simple information, designed to develop empathy.

Do what you will with the information

Thanks to the other tradies posting in this thread.
The savy investor will find that through the tradies posting on these threads, a whole network of qualified, quality, and fully endorsed trades exist.


Adrien

www.mametconstructions.com.au

 

[kidd1]

Sounds like all the tradies are on the defense. lol

I belive that if you are paying for a service you should get what you ask for.

A very simple Philosophy

As gecko has put it, it's all about building the relationship between the two. Luckily for both trades and investors, there are tips in doing so.
Neither are worse than the other, a lot of the time it's miscommunication.

Either way, theres bad apples in both camps. I hope this thread (3-4 posts really) help those in need and just gives a general food for thought really.

 

[BoatBoy]

Sounds like all the tradies are on the defense. lol

I belive that if you are paying for a service you should get what you ask for.

A very simple Philosophy

And if they charge for an hour, they should spend an hour on the job, check the other taps, check the wiring, or like one I am trying to get done at the moment that fixed a built in wardrobe half arsed and now 12 mths latter has to come back out and fix it again. Looks like lack of screws and glue the first time to me.

Same with a plumber we had a while back, 3 callouts in 6 months for the same toilet, 20 minute jobs each time, surely while in there he would have seen other parts starting to fail. Ended up costing more in callouts than a new toilet install.

Dave

 

[The Fence]

Sounds like all the tradies are on the defense. lol

I belive that if you are paying for a service you should get what you ask for.

A very simple Philosophy

Mee too ....but.....Try that with a hellava lot of PM's in this country.....same reason folks like to do their own repairs on their IP's....they know it will be done properly...!

There is a lot of 'churn' in all businesses...everywhere....for the unwary it's bad luck, even in this day & age of regulation...

 

[JBells]

Anyone else have any horror stories?

Drama after drama after drama !

We contracted Oxford to do our bathroom and after getting the quote and was assured the bathroom would ‘bling’ when finished left us with a second rate job.

The demolishing of the old bathroom started and at the end there were protruding nails poking through two adjoining rooms through the wall. They said from the start that that would be taken care of. All was going ok but their schedule was way off the mark. Not once was someone there when they said they’d be.

Then the tilers installed the wrong wall tiles…totally unacceptable. Oxford was pushing for us to accept the wrong tiles and after lots of negotiating we settle of a deal to keep the wrong tiles. The owner offered a decent discount and we accepted. The next day the operations manager called up and tried to weasel his way out of the deal saying it was too much and we should be more accepting and take a lower offer. I told him to speak to the owner as he has already agreed but in the end the reneged on the deal and decided to remove the wrong tiles.

This operations manager was rude, demanding and then tried to blame us for the wrong tiles when it was their fault. Then they blamed the manufacturer by saying the wrong tiles were in the right coded box but as we signed the contract we should be more accepting of the tiles they already installed. Customer service right out the window.

So, there’s another week behind in schedule as demolition, waterproofing, drying and re-tiling and drying again. I wasn’t happy with this as they left the floor tiles and just cemented in the gaps and tiled over the top.

The tilers took off the door architraves (frames) to put in the tiles but because the tiles were a few millimetres thicker the architraves didn’t fit back on properly so they just left nails sticking out where they tried to put it back in and left it almost hanging off.

The final day and they put up the roof cornices where the tiles meet the roof and the carpenter (a subcontractor) didn’t have permission to fix the other things that the previous contractors had done so he made a call and they told him to fix but we had mentioned all the wall protrusions many times and they kept saying yeah no worries, we’ll sort it.

After some phone calls they have admitted that they don’t have painters and trying to get these walls fixed and painted has become part 2 of the Oxford Bathroom nightmare.

Now we have been told we’ll have to paint the roof cornices and the roof itself because painting isn’t included in the contract. This is the biggest SCAM. So much for the bathroom having the bling they bragged about.

They should sit you down and go through the contract step by step, this is normal & good business practice. They should hand us a work schedule to let us know what date & what time to expect workers and not say the day before…”tomorrow at 7am to 9am” then no one arrives until 12pm or doesn’t show up at all.

We have discovered that there is no filling between the doorframe and tiles and the gap is wide enough for a 5c piece to slip through. This means water and steam can get in easily and start to do long term damage. One the top of the frame it was at least 4cm gap. Unbelievable.

We demanded that they use a less aggressive tiler contractor as they would turn up at 6am when it was supposed to be 7:30am and hang out on the front lawn until time as we couldn’t let them in as we had to prepare for work, kids ready for school etc so they had to wait and they were loud, argued in the own language (Arabic) way too much but would swear in English every third word. So embarrassing for the kids to have to listen to them.

They showed no respect towards our family.

I invited the owner to come and inspect but he couldn’t care and has not attempted in any way to rectify the problem or contacted us regarding it.

The shower screen was to take 6 to 8 days but after 14 days it was installed with a further 2 days of non use due to drying. In their contract it states that all delays will be addressed to the client but we have heard nada. They do not care.
This was the worst experience & customer service ever.

This was the worst organisation process and timetable ever. This company is run by apathetic money grabbers.

They have no idea how to turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer. Basic business acumen.

We lodged a complaint with Fair Trading as their clear arrogance can only be addressed with the power of Fair Trading.
When we first approached them the bragged about an award they won which is 5 years ago now as clearly they are declining in standards and Backyard Bob contractors on the cheap which do substandard work.

Every subcontractor had to come back twice to fix their mistakes and some three times.
Two gentlemen from Fair Trading came out to the house and made them fix their mistakes which they tried to get out of doing and hide under the contract which we signed but an arrogant company will always be set straight when Fair Trading officers lay down the law.

THIS WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE IN THE HISTORY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. TOTALLY APATHETIC TOWARDS THE CUSTOMER & ABSOLUTLEY NO IDEA HOW TO RENOVATE A BATHROOM.

I am gobsmacked as to how they stay in business.

Sorry for such a large post but I thought you should know the terrible experience, workmanship and customer service of this bathroom renovations company.

 

[Hickson]

wow what a great first post, Welcome to the forum

Quite sad to hear.

Did you have a look at some of there previous work?

 

[John_]

Photos.......?

 

[Tim86]

Drama after drama after drama !

We contracted Oxford to do our bathroom and after getting the quote and was assured the bathroom would ‘bling’ when finished left us with a second rate job.

The demolishing of the old bathroom started and at the end there were protruding nails poking through two adjoining rooms through the wall. They said from the start that that would be taken care of. All was going ok but their schedule was way off the mark. Not once was someone there when they said they’d be.

Then the tilers installed the wrong wall tiles…totally unacceptable. Oxford was pushing for us to accept the wrong tiles and after lots of negotiating we settle of a deal to keep the wrong tiles. The owner offered a decent discount and we accepted. The next day the operations manager called up and tried to weasel his way out of the deal saying it was too much and we should be more accepting and take a lower offer. I told him to speak to the owner as he has already agreed but in the end the reneged on the deal and decided to remove the wrong tiles.

This operations manager was rude, demanding and then tried to blame us for the wrong tiles when it was their fault. Then they blamed the manufacturer by saying the wrong tiles were in the right coded box but as we signed the contract we should be more accepting of the tiles they already installed. Customer service right out the window.

So, there’s another week behind in schedule as demolition, waterproofing, drying and re-tiling and drying again. I wasn’t happy with this as they left the floor tiles and just cemented in the gaps and tiled over the top.

The tilers took off the door architraves (frames) to put in the tiles but because the tiles were a few millimetres thicker the architraves didn’t fit back on properly so they just left nails sticking out where they tried to put it back in and left it almost hanging off.

The final day and they put up the roof cornices where the tiles meet the roof and the carpenter (a subcontractor) didn’t have permission to fix the other things that the previous contractors had done so he made a call and they told him to fix but we had mentioned all the wall protrusions many times and they kept saying yeah no worries, we’ll sort it.

After some phone calls they have admitted that they don’t have painters and trying to get these walls fixed and painted has become part 2 of the Oxford Bathroom nightmare.

Now we have been told we’ll have to paint the roof cornices and the roof itself because painting isn’t included in the contract. This is the biggest SCAM. So much for the bathroom having the bling they bragged about.

They should sit you down and go through the contract step by step, this is normal & good business practice. They should hand us a work schedule to let us know what date & what time to expect workers and not say the day before…”tomorrow at 7am to 9am” then no one arrives until 12pm or doesn’t show up at all.

We have discovered that there is no filling between the doorframe and tiles and the gap is wide enough for a 5c piece to slip through. This means water and steam can get in easily and start to do long term damage. One the top of the frame it was at least 4cm gap. Unbelievable.

We demanded that they use a less aggressive tiler contractor as they would turn up at 6am when it was supposed to be 7:30am and hang out on the front lawn until time as we couldn’t let them in as we had to prepare for work, kids ready for school etc so they had to wait and they were loud, argued in the own language (Arabic) way too much but would swear in English every third word. So embarrassing for the kids to have to listen to them.

They showed no respect towards our family.

I invited the owner to come and inspect but he couldn’t care and has not attempted in any way to rectify the problem or contacted us regarding it.

The shower screen was to take 6 to 8 days but after 14 days it was installed with a further 2 days of non use due to drying. In their contract it states that all delays will be addressed to the client but we have heard nada. They do not care.
This was the worst experience & customer service ever.

This was the worst organisation process and timetable ever. This company is run by apathetic money grabbers.

They have no idea how to turn an unhappy customer into a happy customer. Basic business acumen.

We lodged a complaint with Fair Trading as their clear arrogance can only be addressed with the power of Fair Trading.
When we first approached them the bragged about an award they won which is 5 years ago now as clearly they are declining in standards and Backyard Bob contractors on the cheap which do substandard work.

Every subcontractor had to come back twice to fix their mistakes and some three times.
Two gentlemen from Fair Trading came out to the house and made them fix their mistakes which they tried to get out of doing and hide under the contract which we signed but an arrogant company will always be set straight when Fair Trading officers lay down the law.

THIS WAS THE WORST EXPERIENCE IN THE HISTORY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE. TOTALLY APATHETIC TOWARDS THE CUSTOMER & ABSOLUTLEY NO IDEA HOW TO RENOVATE A BATHROOM.

I am gobsmacked as to how they stay in business.

Sorry for such a large post but I thought you should know the terrible experience, workmanship and customer service of this bathroom renovations company.

It's crazy to think that you went through so many dramas for such a simple job. My bathroom reno took me and my dad a couple days and cost $500. Pic attached before and after.

Very glad that as a property investor I can avoid a lot of the dramas by doing the work myself. Some of the stuff I hear people getting screwed around with for months on end is just ridiculous.