General Chat

I recieved an estimate for a refit of bathroom & toilet which I accepted and paid a deposit. The work has been done in 3 days and I have no complaint on that side. However going to settle the finel payment the bill was up by £579 more then the estimate as they had forgotten to add 2 major items. I have paid them as I dont like any sort of confrontation but what would you have done Julia

what items were they? sounds like the bath and the toilet to me with that increase! get a proper written explanation from the company and tell them you are not happy - it's a pity you paid so quickly! Jacqui

Not that it will help much, but I learned the hard way what the difference is between an estimate and a quote. Estimates are no more than that and the final bill can be higher or lower (usually higher). Quotes are binding and you can hold companies to them. I always ask for a quote rather than an estimate as far as possible so I know exactly what the final bill will be. Any increase on that can then only be by mutual agreement. And because they know that, I find companies are a lot more careful to prepare them. There is a risk that to cover themselves they will make a quote higher than strictly necessary, but to make sure you aren't ripped off get 2 or 3 quotes and tell each company that you are doing so. It encourages them to be competitive. Where companies refuse to provide me with quotes I ask them to tell me in writing what the margin of error is - ie that the bill won't be more than X percent above the estimate. Now this has happened though, I think Jacqueline's suggestion is a good one. If they can't provide evidence of the extra costs you could get advice from a CAB or Trading Standards. The mention of involving either can move things on nicely (I speak from personal experience!). Angela

Know the feeling, Julia, I don't like confrontations either. Unfortunately, however, the way things are run in the modern world means that we're almost bound to face showdowns from time to time. I've just been spitting blood myself this morning. We're extending our shop computer system to include a second shop and link both to our home computer. We are presently paying for our existing computer and software in the first shop through a lease from a bank. We've had to obtain a fresh loan for the extension from a finance house via a 36 month lease (nothing wrong with that), and we had to put down a deposit of 3 months payments to the kit supplier at the start of negotiations, returnable when the main contract was signed. Yesterday we signed the final contract documents, and were required to pay a cheque to the finance house for the first 6 months out of the 36 (again, no problem with that), out of which the finance house will then pay the computer firm. However, I did point out that the computer firm already is sitting on the initial deposit, now returnable to us, and therefore it would be reasonable to return it pronto, to avoid us running up even more of an overdraft with the bank. I phoned the computer firm this morning to ask them to let us have a cheque, and assured them that the new payment will be paid into the bank on Monday, so they will be fully in pocket again by midweek. Their response was to fret and suggest it could be very difficult, as they would only have my word to rely on. I ask you! We're already working in contractual partnership, we've already fully commited ourselves to the new contract from which they will do extremely well, now confirmed by our latest payment, we have installed their new equipment in the course of the past few days, and they have our home computer with them at present, to install the new siftware into! I pointed out to them tartly that trust & confidence are a two way thing, and that it's not really our responsibility to upset our bank by paying 9 months up front without security, simply to minimise any potential financial risk to them and the finance house to absolute zero. Right, now I've finished chewing that chunk out of my computer desk, I'll go and get myself a sandwich! Up and at 'em, girl! Philip

Hi Philip, Have only just seen your reply to my question. What is done now is done but I wish I had held back on finel payment. Any way I wish you better luck with your problem and thank you for your advice. I would also like to thank everyone else for their advice. Julia

In Australia we have a wonderful web site called www.notgoodenough.org. You can post your complaints about companies and they will take up your fight. They sorted out my problem with a new cooker and I had a new delivered in a couple of weeks.