Dirty stunts pulled by customers

[ben lightfoot]

doing a council tree at rear of property (not in the garden), large oak reduction and refused access to garden. A day of plenty of rigging and pull line set up no branches went in garden. At end of the day the bloke collard the two younguns (after me and foreman had left) and mad them clear the garden of little nubs from pruning cuts. needless to say we were um.......mildly upset to say it politely

[PeteB]

I once gave a day rate for two to clear up a monster Lebanese Cedar in the grounds of a large posh place near to me that was wind blown. The butt was that big that we ringed it up with an 088 with a 4 foot bat and there was a two inch bar overlap the center. I'd cut a few rings out, each about the width of the saw body, and out came the owner who was a bit annoyed at the slow progress. "You're taking forever doing that, cut them twice as thick and I'll pick them up with the JCB!", and stomped off. Turned up next day to see he had made a right mess of the lawn with the JCB and his PA came out with a tray of coffee and asked us to halve them as they were too heavy for the JCB to lift in the 4in1!

 

Pratt had us cut up some really valuable timber because he did not want our crane truck on his lawn and market the round timber for him but he made a mess trying to get a 2 wheel drive JCB with a lump in the 4in1 off of the lawn!

[Adam Bourne]

not really had anything like all your stories, but worked for a few firms and one of the most common scams is the VAT scam.....customer: how much for cash?

 

firm: £400

 

customer: ok go ahead

 

then when the jobs done they pay cheque sometimes works unless they try and pay the wrong person....

[arbogrunt]

I was working with a mate of mine on one of his jobs and the customer came out and said 'does cash make any difference to the price?' my mate said 'no, it all gets banked anyway' and the bloke said 'I'm glad you said that, I'm a VAT inspector'

[skyhuck]

doing a council tree at rear of property (not in the garden), large oak reduction and refused access to garden. A day of plenty of rigging and pull line set up no branches went in garden. At end of the day the bloke collard the two younguns (after me and foreman had left) and mad them clear the garden of little nubs from pruning cuts. needless to say we were um.......mildly upset to say it politely

 

Not sure why you are upset at having tidy up mess that you have made

[Pat Ferrett]

How many of us have had customers that drag out sending a cheque only to have forgotten to sign it or put the wrong date in when it does arrive

[PeteB]

We did utility work many years ago and on one site, the access to the field was so dire through this filthy farm yard that the owner made us walk in, do the work, burn the brash and stack timber in a pile and all for his own new supply. We carried out his instructions to the letter and some weeks later we got called to meeting at the office.

 

"His prize shire horse has died from blood poisoning from wounds received from the log pile" said Bernard, the Wayleave Officer. "Righto, I'll go an see the disgustingly dirty fellow and sort it out" said I.

 

I appeared in the filthy yard and went to see the owner who was dressed in the most disgustingly dirty clothes, unshaven (many days worth) and hair matted together, blue teeth and refused his hospitality (he had kept the same jam jar from the original site meeting). The value of this "working shire horse" increased by £1000 before we had crossed the yard whilst he told me of the care that he and his vet had lavished on the animal. "Which Vet do you use?" I inquired, "I'll need a Vet's autopsy report to claim on the insurance". "You cannot have it" he replied "When she died, I was that heartbroken, I buried her in the field (near the watercourse) without calling the Vet". "Oh", I replied "without the report, there will be no compensation". "Argh" he retorted, "I knew you would say that, so I cut the hoof off before I buried her and the vets notes will tell you she was poisoned by infection of the wound!". Sure enough, he went across the knee deep stack yard in slippers and fetched a stiff Donkey jacket off the back of an ancient tractor and pulled a horses hoof out of the pocket and shoved three fingers into the frog to demonstrate the size of the wound!

 

It transpired that his Vet also cared for my cats and dogs and he informed me that Mr X did not pay any off his bills despite the vets threatening court action and that if we were lucky enough to get a claim off of our insurers then could they have first dibs! He also told me that the horse was totally untrained on the collar and a gift from a relative who died - valued a pet food only! He also told me that he had told Mr X to keep the animal in a clean loose box and clean the wound twice daily and he never moved t from the field.

 

I reported all of this to Bernard who did not bother to finish his supply off and let him know that as a JP, his advice was to mourn his loss, quietly!

[djbobbins]

How many of us have had customers that drag out sending a cheque only to have forgotten to sign it or put the wrong date in when it does arrive

 

To be fair, I've actually done that (filled the cheque in completely, then forgot to sign it) as an honest mistake when I was paying a plumber. Mind you, he'd done a half-arsed job of fitting my bathroom so I can't say I was too gutted about it.

 

Taught me the lesson that the bitterness of poor quality lingers long after the sweetness of saving a few quid has gone away.

[Gray]

"why yes of course you can pay less because we've finished the job two hours early and we must be ripping you off"( not noticing you've paid for an extra groundy to help out) , "now that you've paid us where would you like your prosessed wood that we now can't afford to get rid of tipping, perhaps in front of your garage door." that seems fair to me.

[ben lightfoot]

Not sure why you are upset at having tidy up mess that you have made

 

He didn't give us access all day and we did the best job we could but there will always be little nubs from pruning points and small twigs, then to let us in at the end? why not just let us have access during the job, would have been much quicker, not much fun especially on price work