Help Ocd Customer From Hell!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[JIMBOB187]

Hi guys and Gals.

Just finished a customers bathroom walls and floor and now he is refusing to pay and has been extremely rude to me on the telephone. Throughout the job he has been leaving me notes about tiles being out by 1-2mm, he followed me around with a spirit level, the list goes on. I finished the job on Saturday and my colleague agreed the job looks excellent. The customer was away until today and he has just rung. I let him rant on for a good ten minutes about terrible tiling, disgusting tiling etc etc, he calle dthe floor a trip hazard but then agreed he was exagerrating, he said the door bar had been cut 2mm too short(my pencil line) he said he has been sat in the bathroom for two hours with his spirit level picking fault and is now refusing to pay me, what can I do. I believe everything to be within BS tolerance but have been told that Trading Standards always side with the customer he also threatend mne by saying his daughter is a solicitor. Can I take the tiles back off the wall and get my adhesive back I wonder...... HELP PLEASE, he is not prepared to meet until next Monday either so even if I do get paid it will be over a week later, police, solicitors what can I do?.
Jim

 

[Droopy]

Sorry to hear that, Jimbob.

I would be at his door tomorrow morning to strip the lot TBH, but that might not be the best thing to do.

You might want to take advice from a less hotheaded Tiler than me before following my route of action.

 

[tiler burden]

firstly,

trading standards do not side with the customer and regardless of whether his daughter is a solicitor is irrelevant.

arrange a day to jointly view the job with the customer. take photos/video of the job and more specifically, the faults that he claims are evident. if there are faults, offer to rectify, if not, stand your ground and threaten him with legal action.

always stay calm, try and get an independant witness. encourage trade and standards to try and attend this meeting. keep evidence and diary notes. if he still refuses to pay, then take him to the small claims courts (costs around £40)
if you have done everything by the book then you stand a really good chance of getting your money...what court in the land would rule against you if you have done the job to b/standards, been co-operative and polite and kept evidence of your procedures..

it sounds like he is out to rip you off because any fair and decent person would have a constructive list and they would be prepared to listen to your compromise.


what ever you do, dont go in to his house and start losing your temper or knocking off tiles, that would be construed as criminal damage. if you even poke a finger at him and it touches his body and he has a witness, then that is section 39 , common assault, so keep your cool...

there is another option. you could enlist a debt collection agency. they probably would take over half of what he owes you but they are very pursuasive and are legal!!

 

[tubs]

Sorry to hear of your situation, but I would start sending some Solicitors letters !

 

[floydyboy]

I would arange to go back and corect the work he is having a go aboutn , when there take them all off the wall and stack them tidy then walk out , that way he doe not get a job done for nothing, i know you will be out of pocket but at least you will know you had 1 up on him :lol: and then any more nonsense give him a good:mad2: chinning lol

 

[Brindle]

I aint no expert, but the calm approach would have to be that you inform the customer that if he is not going to pay you in full within x days for the work carried out as agreed, then you will have to take further action to retrieve the payment.
Have you got plenty of photo's of the job etc?
Then if the guy's not going to pay, I would then look into the Small claims court. Sounds like he's a t**t and it would be kind of nice to remove everything!
I had an OCD client who moaned and queried everything from the quote until the sealer was dry. Luckily he paid up though. Had he not, I was fully prepared to go down SCCourt route.
You could look at the Consumer Action Group forum for more info on the process??
Good luck Jbob
Bob

 

[Droopy]

firstly,

trading standards do not side with the customer and regardless of whether his daughter is a solicitor is irrelevant.

arrange a day to jointly view the job with the customer. take photos/video of the job and more specifically, the faults that he claims are evident. if there are faults, offer to rectify, if not, stand your ground and threaten him with legal action.

always stay clam, try and get an independant witness. encourage trade and standards to try and attend this meeting. keep evidence and diary notes. if he still refuses to pay, then take him to the small claims courts (costs around £40)
if you have done everything by the book then you stand a really good chance of getting your money...what court in the land would rule against you if you have done the job to b/standards, been co-operative and polite and kept evidence of yur procedures..

it sounds like he is out to rip you off because any fair and decent person would have a constructive list and they would be prepared to listen to your compromise.


what ever you do, dont go in to his house and start losing your temper or knocking off tiles, that would be construed as criminal damage. if you even poke a finger at him and it touches his bidy and he has a witness, then that is section 39 , common assault, so kep your cool...

there is another option. you could enlist a debt collection agency. they probably would take over half of what he owes you but they are very pursuasive and are legal!!

I'm not saying that i would force my way in then wreck the place.
I may have a temper, but I also have a fairly decent brain.

I would ask him to point out the problems for me to fix.
Then I would strip off all the problem area, then, if i was feeling generous, refuse to fix it untill I was paid in full.

 

[davy_G]

This is a tricky one. It sounds like he has had issues all along and he must have known that he would not be satisfied with the finished job yet he let you continue. I would be inclined to suggest if he is not happy that I would gladly remove all the tiles and leave the job ready for another tiler as leaving the job as it is is unsatisfactory to him. It may well be that he is trying it on to get a freebie, if you think he is then even offer to replace all the tiles but dont leave them on the wall!
Other than that suggest another independant tiler look at the work with you both and come to some arrangemnet where you get something out of it.

 

[Home Tiler]

Jimbob

If it was me i would ask him to show me all the faults he thinks should be better ...and i would then rectify them while he was there... (until he was satisfied....)
that way you get paid and he has no excuses

good luck mate

Steve

 

[JIMBOB187]

I can totally gaurantee you that this guy will never be satisfied ina million years.:mad2:

 

[brian c]

sorry to hear about the customer from hell jimbob.let us know what the outcome is m8.very tricky situation so tread carefully m8,all the best....Bri

 

[Home Tiler]

I can totally gaurantee you that this guy will never be satisfied ina million years.:mad2:

I would still try mate...

and if he doesn't accept...... then offer the services of a another tiler to rectify any mistakes if there is any...

if he still says no ... then start legal actions....

thing is ..it's probably more hassle than what it's worth so all i can say is... i hope it works out for you


Steve

 

[Grace'sDad]

This advice / experience is a bit late now but I had one of these a few months back. She seemed OK until part way into the job. A few comments and notes left were worrying me so I talked it through with her - her expectations (which turned out to be pretty unreal regarding mirror-flat flooring) and my expectations coupled with references to British Standards, re levels, spacing etc. I insisted that she sign copies of our "revised" agreement before I'd continue and assured her that it was for her protection as well as mine.

Interestingly, on my last day on the job she was having a heated argument with the plumbers. One of them told me she'd be haggling with me over the price but when it came to bill time she was really happy and didn't quibble once. I even had a compliment on the quality!!!

With regard to removing tiles - my understanding was that you could be done for criminal damage - even if they were your tiles until paid for. But didn't that case a couple of weeks ago of the extension on the council house set a new precedent? The builder had permission from the council and police to go and "retrieve" his unpaid-for materials. My brother in law who is a PC, reckons as long as you cause no material damage to the householder's property and don't trespass (i.e. stay when asked to leave) then you could in theory remove tiles, although this would a be last-ditch satisfaction-only action for me!

 

[IvegotsTILE]

Send him a letter saying the job was carried out to BS and that the work was well within the guidlines of exceptability.Demand payment in full within 7 days or you will take him to the small claims court which will incur him the charge of (around)£50 for the court case.£150 for your time processing the court claim and 8% per day interest on everything outstanding.

This is the legal way of doing things and might show him you mean business and are not going away.Welcome trading standards as I think they will side with you,get in contact with them yourself even.

The problem is I bet he does this with everyone that does work for him,maybe his daughter is a solicitor and I bet he knows the law backwards,he'll probably know that if you go to court it'll take anywhere between 4-8 months to sort out.

I know a builder who had a similar problem,trading standards bought in a building inspecter who said the job was faultless and in the end the builder only got £11,000 back out of the £18,000 and it cost him over £3,000 insolicitors fees.
He did this the correct way through the courts and look what good it did him.

Try the letter and if it doesn't work after a week scratch his car BADLY so it causes thousands of pounds of damage,next week put a window through and keep doing things till he pays up,but never mention anything about it to anyone not even saying to him something nice like "Shame about your car!"He's clever enough to know its you so he'd sooner pay for the tiling knowing that it'll cost him more in the long run.

I'm sick of hearing about tradesmen being ripped off by idiots that are trying to pull a fast one,its as bad as stealing in my book.

Don't be pushed around,stick up for yourself and if the legal route doesn't pay off try my other way.I can guarentee its much more effective

tilersforums.com take no responsibility for these suggestions lol.

 

[Varley]

tilersforums.com take no responsibility for these suggestions lol.

LMAO, nice touch mate