Took on a guy to do some decorating for me, which freed me up to carry on with the the less boring stuff, half way through the work the client texts me to say services no longer required as of that day...unable to find out why I told the P&D that he was going to have to finsh and then paid him till the end of the week 10 weeks later, I find that the P&D had only gone and undercut my charges and is now working cash in hand for the slimy customer. Any suggestions as to how I should greet him when I bump into him next...
My friend had a similar problem, he's got a gardening maintance firm and he was letting the workers collect the cash as they went round only trouble was they were putting his prices up and pocketing the extra, only found out when a customer rang to cancel as it was getting too expensive. He sorted his problem with a shovel round the head. pretty sure what he has done is illegal but I think clonking him with something would be the best tactic
"Took on a guy to do some decorating for me, which freed me up to carry on with the the less boring stuff" 'Less boring' as in posting 'sour-grapes' messages about some guy with a bit of initiative. You ought to hit him with a wedge of dosh for having the intelligence to outprice greedy, lazy gets like yerself. I hope his prices put you out of business.
'sour-grapes' Hows that? You ought to hit him with a wedge of dosh for having the intelligence to outprice greedy, lazy gets like yerself. How do you know I'm a greedy, lazy get? I hope his prices put you out of business, He can afford to undercut me, he's not paying any tax or NI, he doesn't have insurance and his tools consist of 3 brushes and a roller, everything else he borrowed from me. It doesn't show intelligence when you deducted tax and quote a price...sounds like you have some experience in this sort of thing, oh and you sound like a *... [Edited by: admin]
like you say you have overheads to pay whereas your ex mate the painter dont ! cheeky git when you got him the work in the first place
Firstly I would have given my customer a writen quotation and once accepted I would have asked them to sign an order acceptance. Might not have stopped them changing to another painter but if your T&C's were OK you might have been able to recover the cost of work done before they changed. As to the guy who undercut you, you could always consider HMRC, but you better be squeaky clean yourself. The best thing to do is learn the lesson and move on.
Similar happened to me a couple of months back. I had quoted for a flooring job knowing I had undercut someone else by about a hundred quid. When I turned up to start the job, the customer says "Sorry but I can't let you start this week" So off I goes home. Only found out through a friend that the customer was telling each of the tradesmen how much the others quotes were and getting the price down. End of the line is he called me up last week to ask if I'd come and finish the job as the other tradesman had decided he'd had enough working for peanuts and quit. "Yeah Right" came the reply. I don't mind being undercut fairly but I know when a price is getting too cheap.
goodness you are talking out of your rear. this guy managed to undercut some one by not paying tax etc. How does that make the OP a lazy robbing git. Earlier this year I along with 3 other builders I priced a job for an architect, he came back and said that although my quote was the best, that all the prices were more than the customer could afford and so they re speced the job and invited us to all quote again. three weeks later i got a very npolite letter saying thankyou for my time but they had managed to get an acceptable price for the original works as they had found a builder who wasn't VAT registered. Now how the **** had they managed that , the job was £40K plus before VAT. my question is what sort of a builder was he if he wasn't over the VAT threshold. to reach the VAT threshold you would only have to do 2 or 3 extensions or a couple of loft conversions a year. No wonder the building trade is reputed to be dodgy with everyone on the fiddle if you can't compete on an even footing because some git is on the fiddle and you run your business legit.
"goodness you are talking out of your rear" I think you'll find you're wrong when you visit me and take a look.
Regarding the comments made by chappers about being VAT registered, I have found not being VAT registered gets me more work. To a non-VAT customer I'm 17.5% cheaper than anyone VAT registered quoting the same price. People really resent paying VAT; they've already paid income tax on the money they pay me, then I pay income tax on it as well. And why should I do even more unpaid tax collection? I'm not defending the actions of the sub-contractor used by the OP. This was a despicable breach of trust but is quite different to people finding legitimate ways of being more competitive.
fair enough limestone I agree, I would love to be able to keep under the VAT threshold, but as a main contractor that is impossible, it only takes a couple of loft conversions or extensions and I am over the threshold. I can't see how someone taking on a £40K extension could not be VAT registered.
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