Cowboy builders - Good or not?

[lutonlagerlout]

you gotta pay to play

my missus has got mugged off by all these sorts on ebay
"can i pay you when i get my giro,but i need the dress by friday etc etc"

in the words of every subbie i ever met "no lay ,no pay"
LLL

[London Stone Paving]

You get rouges and idiots in alll walks of life. The problem with these shows is that they give the impression that all tradersman are dodgy and not to be trusted.

Its funny, I worked in Stoke for a good few years and we never had any funny business of clients not paying or giving us the run around. It seems to be a different story down here in the South though. In my experience as well it is often the really wealth people who give you the run around (no offence to anybody, thats just my personal experience).

I had a client once who wanted to buy some stone. I asked him how uch he needed and he said he did not know the quantity but that the patio area was 6 metre x 4 metres. I said he would need 24m2.

A couple of weeks later the chap was on the phone saying he had 8m2 leftover and we should come and collect it for free because we had calculated the quantities wrong. I told him that i had made the calculations based upon the information he had provided. His answer was, "but you have still sent too much" I tried for about 5 minutes to try and explain it but he could not understand what i meant. Tearing my hair out

[lutonlagerlout]

you are partially right there steve
in general terms working class people pay up fine

what are loosely called professionals,tend to be tardy then produce post dated checks and BS retentions
In general I dont like working for anyone who isnt a FOAF or someone recommended to us by a previous client.
for some reason in luton people from kashmir and russia have a terrible reputation for not paying,so we dont even bother pricing their work
LLL

[GB_Groundworks]

I don't watch these programmes, and I won't until the telly-folk provide balance with "The Arsehole Customers" show, featuring some numpty who's forgotten to tuck in his shirt and a dolly bird to make himself look clever.

I've got a few candidates for the featured spot, including the twonk that diddled me over the weekend. Why oh why oh why do I keep falling for the "I need it desperately and if you send it me by email I'll get me missus to pay with her PayPal tomorrow" routine?

The week before, it was the guy who paid for me to work out whether it was possible to create a repeating pattern using a specific number of fixed size pavers. After I'd spent 3 hrs with CAD and then proved via mathematics that it wasn't possible, he demanded his money back on the grounds that I hadn't been able to produce a pattern!

So come on, telly-folk, make a programme about all these furry front bottoms that rip off honest, hard-working contractors!

if they are local i'll go with the 3cx and breaker and threaten to reclaim the driveway until the pay up to you tony

[Ted]

I have to say I have grown very tired of the show... it was amusing on the first few one or two viewings and is certainly much better than the Brazilian soap operas that populate Angolan TV; but it is exactly the same format every show.

Melinda, hard-man and the builder never have enough dough to finish build so Melinda always has to go out and 'blag' the finishes for free and whilst you do see some pretty shoddy work, they do blow a lot of it out of all proportion.

And, as has quite rightly been pointed out, the victims have all gone for the cheapest job possible...

[lutonlagerlout]

you back in luanda yet ted?
do you get iplayer and cod4 on demand there?
I have to say it all sounds exotic but I am sure the reality is much more pragmatic
cheers LLL

[digerjones]

bet mr lout is glued to the tv again tonight 8.30 channel 5.

[lutonlagerlout]

not a chance dylan,
we hit an old water main today (one not connected to any known stopcock) so trying to strap that up till veolia get there got the red mist rising
i reckon 1 of midgetmans little jibes or melinda's inane comments would see me going postal
LLL

[Ted]

you back in luanda yet ted?
do you get iplayer and cod4 on demand there?
I have to say it all sounds exotic but I am sure the reality is much more pragmatic
cheers LLL

Not yet; visa probs - enjoying beautiful dusk mornings in the UK; something we don't get in Angola!

Iplayer and that sounds a bit much for my Angolan modem but I do promise to have a go at showing you an Angolan building site and its developments...

My civil engineer and I call Angola 'paradise' jokingly!

[lutonlagerlout]

got an email from nhbc asking if i would be interested in pricing some remedial work for one of these programmes,i said i would price it and am awaiting the producers call but i am expecting little

a close mate had a call from a programme run by a midget and an ex page 3 girl,basically he did 2 K worth of work on the promise of free advertising
they then rang him again asking him to do a further 3.5k of work free of charge,when he asked if they could pay for the materials he was told "dont bother we will go elsewhere"
I could go into more detail but i dont want them pulling the *free advertising*he has already
it makes me very angry that these celeb types that know sweet FA about our trade come waltzing in and expect us to work fro free while they are probably on 5k an episode
talk about hypocrites when they talk of old ladies getting ripped off then all they want to do is mug off hard working guys

who polices the police indeed?
LLL