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How did you bill her? Did you make it clear of the cost for the 4/5 hours work. If she'd bought the PC herself for £220 then she would not have been able to install it, transfer files etc. would she?
Edited by rtj70 on 25/02/2009 at 20:25
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And the £80 is not profit is it?
How are you covering any warranty issues too? Rattle might offer an opinion on how to do that.
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There is one year warranty on the unit which I stated on the invoice and I will deal with this direct should she need assistance.
She gave me a cheque for the amount when i delivered and set it up for her - which she seemed quite happy with.
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I give the customer two options I do this a lot and I do not build PCs anymore due lack of profit margins.
I tell my clients I prefer it if they buy the system but I will happily do it for you providing the warranty is with the shop not me if I am doing other work I will usualy not charge for doing this but its rare anyway.
The second option is I will prodivde the PC and the warranty some of my richer customers prefer this, I make a bit of margin on the PC I supply but if it brakes I have to take it back to the shop (I usualy just fix it out of my own pocket as the only time has happened was a DVD drive which cost £15 was not worth the hassle).
I have had over 1000 customers now and what you're saying has never happened to me, so it sounds like your lack of experience in dealing with customers has caused it [having said that I will probably get a customer wanting a refund tomorrow!]. I remember a few years ago suppying a wireless network and it just kept cutting out (equipment was faulty) he demanded his money back he was a bit of an unreasonable idiot but as the equipment was faulty I just got my money back and refunded him the labour too. I just lost my labour.
In future you need to tell your clients that you will provide the PC for a small margin but any other work including copying and backing up files is charged at your usual labour rates.
In your case it sounds like your customer is just trying it on but I don't know what the legal situation is it has never happened to me I have never had to seek advice on it. I would say only 1% of my customers are bad ones e.g people you just cannot please or reason with. It is the computers which make this job stressful and not really worth bothering with rather than the customers.
I was not there when you did this job so I don't know how its gone wrong. I think you need to seek proper legal advice, most business lawyers offer a free session, I had to take legal action over one of my competitors who copied my website once, lawyer gave me free advice, I used it, a week later all my pics had been removed from the website in question.
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ok from a legal prospective and I am not qualified to say this so its only advice and you need to get this confirmed.
She has agreed to the price by signing the cheque.
There is nothing wrong with it.
She has no come back.
You cannot say to a window fitter you have made £100 profit on this so I want my money back after its been fitted, it will be laughed out of court, this seems to be the same situation.
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But how does the customer know the PC was £220. Did the invoice break down the cost as PC plus labour?
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She has searched on the internet i guess and found the pc.
When i was round there setting her printer up etc she was on the phone complaining to her sister that the decorator had been round and that he had done 4 days work and that she was only goin to pay him for 3 as she thought he hadnt done that much work.
She seems difficult to me.
The only problem I have is if the cheque bounces then il have no money and be out of pocket and with a pc I dont want.
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Xtype this what has gone wrong then.
You were not clear that the £300 including labour. However you could argue any reasonable person would expect it to you must be much clearer in the future exactly what you are charging for.
I now tend to not to make any or very little markup on parts (I used to) but I asborb the cost of buying them in the labour charges. I am now also very open about who my suppliers are and even recomend them to my customers.
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Sounds like that woman will only be paying the decorator for paint. If that's how she thinks. He does not get paid for actually decorating I assume?
Try explaining that the extra is for labour and if you take the PC away she could buy another for £220 but will pay someone to install it.
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im going to wait to see if the cheque clears I think first. And then take it from there if it doesnt.
In future il be getting people to sign something as well before I commit to buy.
Can i ask you Rattle what type of IT work are you in? Home or business or both?
Thanks
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I think I'd try to resolve it. it would only take bad word of mouth to affect your new business before it gets off the ground.
If the cheque does not clear and you get the PC back you're £220 out of pocket and did the work too. Try explaining why you made the £80. And tell them you will be paying income tax and national insurance on some of that too!
Maybe offering some sort of free service to check the PC over a couple of times might be a cheaper alternative?
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XT, i have no answers for you but i symathise with you.
Customers, indeed people like that annoy the hell out of me, and get us all a bad name, my veritable MB indy is honourable decent and honest, very old school, very skilled and professional and i would be lost without him, but people still try to rip him off sometimes when he's put somethimng right and saved them hundreds, possibly thousands of pounds at the MB dealer.
Where do they think they're going to go when he's gone out of business?
He now gets the debt collectors in straight away, its not his way but they've forced him into it.
Your charges for the job sound most reasonable, i would be content with them, the best of luck with this woman, sounds like you're going to need it.
Couldn't you PC buffs keep a private list of customers to avoid like the plague between you? (if anyone could keep it private, you lot could)
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I do both but I prefer to work on the domestic side but do have a very busineses which I love working for.
A list of bad customers would be ilegal and it would get leaked, just too risky.
I've had a bit of a bad customer this week but I've just put it down to her illness, she owes me money (very small amount) but I have decided just to write it off and next time she wants her router rewiring I will tell her to let BT do it at £90.
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Il give her a call tomorrow and try to work it out, maybe split the difference or something. The pc does the job she asked for so there is little point in me having it back.
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I would not worry too much, bad customers often have a bad reputation anyway. People that know may well know what she is like and take no notice.
You have done nothing wrong, you have earnt your money just try and explain your charges to here and like has been suggested suggest a free check up or something.
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Give her a fully itemised account again, listing everything from time, your expertise in locating the fit-for-purpose computer and transferring files, as well as other costs ie transport, electricity, insurance etc. It may be worth ringing a few local/national companies to find out what their charge would be for the service and add a note with these quotes for her.
If the cheque bounces I would suggest you file a claim with the Small Claims Court for the amount of the bill plus any expenses this has cost you, which I believe will cost £10 to file. I am quite sure, from what you have said, that you would be awarded the full amount.
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Seems to me you've acted perfectly reasonably, a man is worth his labour, what was it , about £20 an hour ? ...not excessive by any standards. Don't know anything about computer business but assume same as automotive. I took an Almeira for an MOT for a new customer...it failed on something simple, rear shocks, i think. I just charged her the MOT fee and a fiver for taking it assuming I'd get the work. She cribbed about the cost of the fail and the fiver although I made her pay cash before I gave her the keys. I gave a quote for the work, which was very reasonable. She worked in the local shop and I heard nothing from her. When I saw her again she told me she had taken it to a friend to be done and he had replaced all the brakes as well cos they were dangerous !..... A week after a dead straight test ? Speaking to her boss, a friend of mine, it turned out the whole job had cost about 4 times my quote and she had to pay for a re-test as well....satisfaction or what ?
Ted
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off the Citizen Advice website..
It's not against the law to stop a cheque. However, it is a criminal offence to hand over a cheque with the intention of stopping it later, although this can be difficult to prove. If you hand over a cheque knowing that the bank or building society won't pay the amount, that is, it will bounce the cheque, this is also a criminal offence.
If you buy something by cheque and then you stop the cheque, court action can be taken against you for the money owing.
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But speak to them. A small win (£80 of which you have to pay tax and NI) might be better turned into an opportunity.
Offer a free PC health check or something. Their word of mouth might get you more customers. Their negative word of mouth....
In future make it clear what they are paying for and you won't have to repeat this mistake.
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>>It's not against the law to stop a cheque. However, it is a criminal offence to hand
>>over a cheque with the intention of stopping it later, although this can be difficult to
>>prove. If you hand over a cheque knowing that the bank or building society won't
>>pay the amount, that is, it will bounce the cheque, this is also a criminal offence.
Quite.
Under no circumstances "split the difference" or refund her the £80. Stick to your guns. She doesn't expect her window cleaner to work for free (total cost of items: hot water that she provides).
And if the cheque bounces, off to the small claims court you go. Your £80 profits will cover the court fees.
She sounds like a right cow.
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Yep and although fallouts cause bad reputation this woman is probably hated anyway! I once did a quote for a laptop screen once, it was a 15" widescreen I told him I do not directly do it but I can give you sources who will do it for around £250 with a good warranty. He then said I was ripping him off, this was a couple of years ago when TFT screens were still expensive. He said a friend can do it for £50, I told him well go and use your friend then.
Some people are simply just nutters.
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Some people are simply just nutters.
And stupid and unpleasant with it.
The thing to do might be to send this annoying 'customer' another invoice detailing the cost of the computer and the cost of labour to transfer her files and set up the printer, etc. (which seems to have been modest in the extreme).
If she pretends not to understand it, tell her to sue you and leave. She won't, or if she does she'll lose. Don't give her a refund. She deserves a hefty kick.
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And I am sure any court in the land would argue £80 is reasonable, its quite a boring job too as there is a lot of waiting around. I would much prefer to be actually fixing things in my tinme rather than just watch files copying.
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The cheque has gone in today to my bank account. Am i safe - as in can banks still claw the money back? I have not heard off the customer. I guess she has realised that she was taking the P. I doubt she even cancelled the cheque in the first place to be honest.
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Has it cleared yet though? Can take 5 working days for a cheque to properly clear but funds can show up.
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