losing work after quote is accepted

[Will Ayers]

Evening all.

 

I'm looking for some advice, or at least some experience of a similar scenario and how it was dealt with.

 

I was asked a few weeks ago to quote on a huge load of works for a massive organisation. (not wanting to name names). another firm were due to undertake the works but they were replaced by myself in the rankings due to H&S concerns (so i was lead to believe from the manager I dealt with)

 

The quoting process has involved alot of my time, a couple of site visits, and a hell of alot of head scratching. my quote was accepted and i was asked to book the work in. the work was organised to take place over a weekend as there would be less pedestrians and road users, and I had priced accordingly. since the quote was accepted i invested some money in some gear which I would need to complete the job, site barriers, an ms880 and some other bits and bobs, i know these pieces of kit will come in to use in due course with other jobs but that doesn't go far to lessen the burn.......

 

I had a call from another department of the same organisation today to get some advice and a quote on some completely separate works. while on site I came across a team of guys undertaking the works which I had quoted for already, they had nearly finished the job, and I dare say they have now completed the works.

 

Where do I stand? i have invested alot of time, money and energy in to this and now I'm left with a crew who I'm going to have to let down and a massive loss of earnings and a huge blow to my personal morale.

 

Am I in any position to charge them a cancellation fee? should I just suck it up and move on, bearing in mind that the total cost of these works would have run in to more than a few grand?

 

Any advice welcome.

[padman]

Did you get a purchase order for the job?

[woody paul]

Did you get confirmation in writing you had the job. With job number.

[kkk2]

Tough one really, we normally only consider we have the job when we get written confirmation (post / email ) as we have been burned before.

 

when someone rings to say we have the job we always ask them to confirm this via email.

[Will Ayers]

No. In the past works with this organisation have been on the basis of quote acceptance via email. i.e. the guy said in his email "your quote is accepted, please book in the works ASAP"

[Will Ayers]

He confirmed via email but no purchase order or job number....

[humpo48]

As said above, did you have a purchase order? If you did that is a legal agreement for you to do the said works. When dealing with large organisations that should be the norm.

[steve@black]

Looks to me like you may have been used to get some pencil sharpening done , forget about it and move on

[Will Ayers]

Here is his acceptance email,

 

"Dear Will

 

Many thanks for the quotation – this is accepted.

 

My preference would be to close The road for you, however, closure would make access to the site extremely difficult. I have no problem with short period closure of the road whilst trees in immediate vicinity are felled, provided the correct traffic management is in place.

 

Weekend working (thereby avoiding adjacent works, is my preference, and I accept the fact that, at this stage, stumps will remain for removal on another day.

 

Do you have some dates in mind so that I can open negotiations with BAM who are on the adjacent building site.

 

Can you also provide me with the appropriate Risk Assessments and Method statements for you work.

 

Regards"

[woody paul]

Looks like someone has some questions to answer.