Cheapskates

[Andy Collins]

Heard of both these examples today.

Cheapskate no 1:

Dead oak on the roadside, through route fairly heavy traffic. My mate got a call, "We have a dead ok on the side of the road, someone has cut out the gob, put in the back cut, tried to wedge it over, and left it. can you help?"(Regular client, money is tight)

My mate, "I'm over an hour away, not sure if I can help"

One hour later," its ok, its on the ground, how much will you give us for the timber"

Mate, "nothing, why didnt you call me in the first place to fell it, could have done a deal on the butt"

 

Cheapskate no 2:

Mate turns up to drop a tree this am, colleague says " have you seen the clients scars?"

With this the client pulls up his sweater to show large scar tissue on the abdomen, and scarring on his arms. Apparently he'd hired a mewp to cut some trees back from the 11kv overheads, the power arced to the mewp, and where his body contacted the basket, he was sizzled. He didnt realise that line clearance is done for free by BTS/EDF, and it nearly cost him his life.

[A_lopa]

Unbelievable,I really try and get a feel for people over the phone if theres any talk of me wanting the timber etc i save there # and don't return/screen there calls.Sounds bad but it's better IMO than having them say "He's to expensive" "he didn't want the job"id rather them say"he never got back to us"

[Mozza]

Jesus that chap in the MEWP sounds really bad!! Just goes to show you cant take any risks with powerlines.

[Stephen Blair]

i had a guy call me the other night asking for a price to chip some stuff, i told him i only chip what I cut, he tells me that its a bit complicated and the police and lawyers are involved already over some dodgy tree cutting and he is just going to back hand a couple of lads that are unemployed to cut them early morning over christmas and he just wants me to come up and chip the arisings(mess) and if i come up tolook at the job dont turn up with sign writing as all the nieghbours will go nuts. he will be waiting a while for me to look at this job:sneaky2:

[SJH]

Unbelievable how cheap some folk are, that guy in the mewp was damn lucky alright that sounded scary.

[Stephen Blair]

awesome avatar mate, ho ho ho:thumbup:

[csservices]

I've heard it enough times now to know if something along the lines of "if you give me a good price there will be more work for you" means "I think your daft enough to fall for this and when I want the next job done I'll try it on with someone else" and "I can give you a hand with it if you want" means "if you come on your own it'll be cheaper" no it wont cos you dont know what your doing and will get in the way

[Mesterh]

Always gets me when someone says "Give me your best price"

 

WTF does that mean.

 

MY best price would be about 50% more than what I'm going to charge them

[SJH]

awesome avatar mate, ho ho ho:thumbup:

 

Cheers mate, put it on some cards for the folks.