Is this a thing? Landscaping gardeners lying about family crisis then ghosting you. ‘Cos it’s happened twice

[bellinisurge]

We have a small overgrown back garden that needs new fencing and decking removed and replaced with paving. We went through “Check a trade” and matched it with local Facebook recommendations. Start Date and price agreed (about £5k) then silence. When he didn’t turn up, I contacted him and he explained he’d had a family crisis. I accepted that, wished him well, then started looking again. Found another. Same thing happened. Start date and price agreed (about £6k). Then , after a no show, another family crisis and a promise to get back to me after I chased. Again utter silence.
Is “agreeing a £5k job then going silent and, when chased, faking a family emergency to get out of it” a thing?

Probably a fair few suspects too!

(I'm guessing OP's cat as the one who dunnit)

@Datafan55wouldn’t be surprised. She often has a “death will follow you” vibe

I contacted a gardener we'd had before to resume doing a few hours at a time every couple of weeks. So not a big job, but a regular trickle of income.

He took weeks to get back and confirm a date with me, telling me that he'd also increased his prices by 25%. The day before I messaged him to check on the timings, he told me it would be the following week.

The 'following week's came round and he cancelled on me the day before due to a family emergency. Fair enough. He rescheduled for the day after . Cancelled again due to a different family emergency. Sent sympathetic message, asked for another date.

Took weeks to come back, eventually gave another date. The day before he messages again to check whether I wanted him. Um, yes please...

The day comes and no sign of him at the time he arranged. I messaged him asking if he's still coming. Nothing. I messaged 3 hours later saying not to bother.

Then his WIFE messages me saying he'd gone to the wrong house and did their garden instead and they paid him, and he didn't have his phone on him 🙄

She asks if I'd like to reschedule. I say no, that he's too unreliable, and I've been waiting months already. According to her, it's because of his ADHD and he's actually super reliable... I say no thanks.

And that's the last I heard from them. Urgh.

@DidILetHerDown

I have stories so very similar to this. What do you do??! Crazy.

I know. The number of builders whose children get rushed to hospital is phenomenal. And it's always the dad who has to stay with them! I'd always advise anyone thinking of marrying a builder to never have children with them.

Thank you everyone. You have all cheered me up so much. I was proper fed up and thought it was just me

My parents got messed around a lot by a tradesman.Heart attack and wife having twins were two of the bullshit excuses he came up with.They believed him because they are decent people but the stress carried on for over a year.

Definitely not just you OP, we've had this too, as has a work colleague of mine who currently has no roof on her house and it's been like that for weeks due to various family emergencies.
It's so frustrating.

Yes, it's really quite astonishing how many of their vans break down and how many of their family members have medical emergencies isn't it?

This is it - what do you DO when it's absolutely vitally urgent that you get the thing fixed? My toilet (a high flush cistern job) is the only loo in the house. The membrane went on the flush device but because it's china and with only half an inch clearance to the ceiling there was no way I could fix it myself because you had to drain and remove the cistern. Six months I was flushing it with a bucket...

It's been the case for 3 decades at least. Plenty of time for politicians to deal with it but they chose not to! Instead they wound down the "trades" education at colleges/polys etc. Then idiotic Blair decided to "solve" the problem by opening the flood gates to Eastern Europeans when those countries joined the EU! We've had incompetents running the country for decades now. Same with the shortages of doctors - that goes right back to the 60s and 70s.

@taxguru i don’t disagree, but I won’t be looking to the conservatives with the past record, or the private sector, small state worshiping Reform for a solution.

I’ve been on the receiving end of so many ‘van broke down’, ‘van has to go in for an MOT’ (it appears traders’ vans have to have an MOT done at least once a month), ‘child is ill’, that I struggle really hard not to laugh now, just in case for once it’s actually true and their child IS ill.

No, I didn't say they would be better. It's all major political parties who seem to have no interest whatsoever in manual trades/skills etc and are all obsessed with universities/academia, going right back to the 70s when the old sec moderns and technical schools were scrapped.

I absolutely hate having people in to do work due to a bad experience. Can't trust anyone these days. I have stuff that needs doing and money to fund it. But I'd prefer to leave things not done than get into it with cowboys.

I don't trust checkatrade at all. I've used it once (it was a long time ago) and the guy was totally and utterly incompetent and we had to pay someone else to rectify the work. It was absolutely disgraceful.

I know of another guy, complete pos, sets up a building company in one area, rips people off and pisses them off, then moves to another area and does the same. Scum.

Well what we need now is more skills, better specified, based on up to date industry need, and ASAP. It even costs government directly not to have these skills, as they commission many contractors eg via local authorities and other public sector agencies, and the amount they are paying out is going up and up and up. It’s completely stupid.

Sorry that you've had this experience, I have total sympathy. I've been trying to get a quote for our garden to be sorted out for months. I've phoned and left messages for three or four and had whole conversations with contractors on CheckaTrade but no one seems very interested. They don't even have the curtesy to say 'sorry, not interested' or 'sorry, too busy'. I'd be quite happy with that to be honest but to get no response whatsoever comes across as a bit arrogant really. To not even have to bother to follow up leads at all must mean there are some extremely wealthy landscapers about.

And yet the ‘Eastern Europeans’ always turn up on time, don’t fuck off for 2 hours for ‘materials’ (greasy spoon breakfast) which they surely could have got before, and don’t whine about constant tea/coffee snack supplies and ‘lunch’ (back to the greasy spoon).

My dad was a plumber and I know all the blag and bs

Many years ago when we moved into a Victorian house I had a few trades round for quotes. Then one couldn’t start as he broke his leg, one got the worst flu he’d ever had and another had a crisis to do with children. I thought I was jinxing them! I was in a plumber’s merchant and asked the owner for a recommendation “yes - my son”. He was due to turn up, had a phone call from his wife - he’d been rushed to hospital, will be in touch. Ah but now I’m wise to the tricks and get a little shirty with her… a few days later she calls to ask if he could come over. He’d had a heart scare and it was true! I felt awful. Anyway, he was my plumber for 27 years until I moved away.

Yes, shame the once ubiquitous Polish Plumbers were voted out, probably by many of the people complaining they can't get a quote.

As Hamilton sings, "Immigrants...we get the job done."

@INeverSeeYou, since you’re going down that route, I voted Remain. I don’t think my neighbour’s vote for Leave is the reason I can’t get a quote.

Don't touch Checkatrade!! There are a lot from a certain "community" that pay to be on there and will rip you off in a heartbeat. I have experience of this, many times, (I own a scaffolding company) so don't come at me shouting racist. I'm telling you facts that have happened to me, in my area.

@jellycombinteresting observation based on your experience. All the lads who let us down were all white and local. So much so we’re scared of putting any negative review on Checkatrade because they know where we live. We’re just ignoring Checkatrade’s messages asking us for a review

The "certain community" could well be white and local. We have a substantial white/local "certain community" in our town and most people know to avoid them as they're well known for being shoddy and rip-off merchants.

I’ve been ghosted by the last 3/4 trades people I’ve tried to get to do any work for me. Too much demand?