I am away from home this week trying to escape paint fumes as our house gets painted. I need a small plastering job done in my kitchen, where I've pulled some tiles off. Someone recommended a plasterer to me and he went round & quoted on Monday. He said he's do the job for £240 (no idea if this was reasonable but I needed it done quickly this week and he promised this). He wasn't able to get in the house to quote (I wasn't there, decorator was supposed to let him in but was late). So he had to look through the window to quote but would have had a pretty good view.
Anyway, I agreed the price. He said he'd do the job Wednesday. Wednesday morning I get a phonecall from him. He says he reassessed the job, he wants £300 for it, take it or leave it. His main justifucation for hike seemed to be that he'd have to remove the microwave and fruit bowl off the worksurface (?!) I was a bit surprised/ put out but concluded that, ok, he hadn't been able to see the job properly to quote. I asked if he would do it for £280- a tiny negotiation to avoid coming across like a complete mug in case he was just chancing it.
Next thing, i speak to the decorator in the afternoon who told me plasterer had left after speaking to me rather than getting on with job. Tried to phone a few times. No response. Got annoyed and sent him a - reasonably restrained in tone- msg asking him not to come back and telling him i felt he'd behaved unprofessionally and should have told me he was not happy to do the job. His reply was 'i don't know what your job is but you were unprofessional in trying to get a price reduction'.
Leaving aside the obvious point that i was not actually the professional in this scenario, have i breeched some kind of trader etiquette in asking for £20 off?
On review, this is a pretty tedious anecdote but I would appreciate your thoughts if you did manage to stick with it to the nailbiting conclusion