To tell you to do this when hiring a builder/trader

Don’t forget age tax too. Those doddery old folk won’t have a clue 😠 or so the tradie thought before I got involved and told him to piss off.

To who though?

Ha, reminds me of this Fast Show sketch

Postcode tax is a thing. We get quotes from within the village from various trades. They don’t rip us off as we all know them and they’re FB pages shows many satisfied local customers.

I assume OP never uses her BIL for anything.

Pity somehow if on some form of review website, a few comments cannot be made. Or trading standards alerted.

This.

My husband hired someone to clean and repair our gutters . When I came home from work the guy saw me , got down from his ladder and asked me for payment. I could see he had only done half the job and no repair, so I said I didn't have the cash on me and to come back later and my husband would pay him as he had the cash on him . We never saw or heard from him again .

I am pretty sure it exists along with a they have no idea how to put up a shelf and a middle class tax.

I hate that builders are so hit and miss

Your brother in law is the problem, not the average tradie.

Yes I have found this to be a thing.

Even hiring for the simplest of jobs, with no obvious way to 'be annoying or make changes', this has been my experience.

Also respectful communication online using my surname only, and then patronising bullshit once they meet me in person.

It is not about women being more annoying, I believe they see single women as clueless and desperate. A man knows his stuff, would know if you ripped him off or attempt the job himself.

I use personal recommendations, local people who are interested in repeat business, and get several quotes to see who rips people off.

Same here .

this definitely exists. It’s not because women are more annoying OP, it’s because your BIL perceives them to be more vulnerable and feels no way about taking advantage of that fact. It’s pathetic.

Sexism is still thriving unfortunately. I had someone knock my door to ask me about replacement windows and I said no and he said "I'll come back when your husband is in". His face when I said I don't have a husband, I have a live in boyfriend but he doesn't own the house - I do. Priceless. It's so sad.

I had this, the tradesman was a total arse. He saw DH after I'd spoken to him & said 'do you know what your Mrs wants?' As if I was stupid.

DH went ballistic with him, told he was a sexist pig and warned everyone we knew not to use him. Sounds like the OPs BIL as his family don't like him either!

There was way more to it than the above but I won't go into all the detail but you get the gist.

Those Google quote pages are NOT accurate.

There may be a few people who do this, but it isn't universal. I'd say typically I get a better quote than dh.
I generally know what I'm talking about, and he doesn't, so maybe that has a factor.

So let's say it's 10% or 1 in 10 tradespeople who do this.
If people get 3 quotes, the chances of having 3 people who do this is 1 in 1000, or 0.1%. Even if people get 2 quotes the chances are only 1 in 100 or 1%.
So then they won't get the job.

So they'll be losing a lot of jobs on that basis.

Get several quotes. Go with the one you like and trust and who backs their quote up with details, not just a ‘back of the fag packet’ figure - they probably don’t want the job anyway. Do some research to get an idea of what the job is likely to cost. I’ve had ridiculous quotes, I never thought it was because I was a woman, it was because the tradesman didn’t really want the job; too fiddly, not big enough, or they’ve got other work on.

I found a lovely builder, who doesn’t mansplain or patronise me and treats me with respect. I answer queries, try and make the job easier for him (eg by clearing stuff out the way, making decisions about things so he isn’t kept waiting) and paying his bills on time. He was in the house for six weeks the first time, I think he’d have wondered where my imaginary husband was by then!

PS your brother-in-law is a misogynistic twat.

I've just decided to cancel even attempting to do things in the house that require a tradesperson and just live with not doing any of it.

It's like pulling teeth. I live alone too.

A quick google will tell you the average price for most household jobs; boiler service, new bathroom, new wiring etc.

This is why you Google before and get multiple quotes.

I think your BIL sounds like a tit and i’d be ashamed if he was part of my family.

I work with trades every day and this is not a thing. It’s your brother in law being illegally discriminatory. Are you going to report him?

Your brother is an arse. Captain Arse of Arseville. With a PhD in Being an Arse.

My DH owns his own building company and would never do this, your brother in law is not a nice person, and probably a misogynist, and hopefully in the minority of the trade.

I have found that if I post as my husband rather than me, I get more responses from tradesmen than if I text as me. It makes me very angry . . .

I just asked dp who's in the trade if this is a thing, he's never heard of it before. He actually called your BIL scum.