To not pay this man? WWYD?

[Weedgarden]

It was DD's 3rd birthday today. I booked a bouncy castle with a well known company in the area to be delivered at 10am - party starts at 11am.

10.30am comes and no sign of the bouncy castle. I ring the mobile number several times no answer. I ring the landline number and keep getting cut off. Eventually I text the mobile asking where the driver is and got an immediate text saying that the driver will be with me any minute. 11am comes, all kids arrive and no bouncy castle.

The bloke eventually arrives at 11.20pm - no apology just says he's running late. Drops off the bouncy castle and leaves. He was supposed to pick it up at 1pm which is when the party finished.

1pm comes no sign of him. I told my DH to take our DD and DS home as they were tired and miserable whilst I wait for him to arrive. 1.30pm comes and he's still not at the hall, I have to give the keys back to the hall caretaker at 1.30pm. I ring the number several times with no answer. I eventually get a text from an unknown number saying its the driver and he's running late so can I leave the bouncy castle outside the hall!!

Now I don't know if you've tried to move a bouncy castle, generator etc on your own but it's fucking hard!!! I struggled like fuck to get it all outside on my own.

I was supposed to pay him when he came to collect but obviously I didn't see him to collect - the bouncy castle was £110. I get a text from the driver saying can I pay by PayPal. I respond saying I'm not paying the full amount because of the above reasons and he replies saying "knock a tenner off then but I'm not going any lower than that"

I'm not willing to pay but my husband is worried he will legally come after us for the money. WWYD? AIBU to not just accept £10 off!

That is shit service and I would expect much more than a tenner off. He is lucky it wasn't stolen from outside the hall!

I would pay £50 less at least for that much disruption

Im not sure legally.
Id be leaving feedback EVERYWHERE though.
Facebook, twitter, instagram google.
Warn people.
I wouldn't have moved anything.
Fuck that. Id have told them if they weren't there that was their problem.

I'd work out how much time

YABU to say you won't pay the full amount - email with how you've figure out any costs you're knocking off. E.g. Was 20mins late and then had to be set up which meant only being able to use the bouncy castle for X mins.

Then you had to dissemble the the thing yourself which you shouldn't have had to do you're knocking off X for that.

Agree above, £50 is being nice.
Tell them if they want to take you tto court fine.
They can explain why;
They weren't there on time for your dd party,
Why they didnt turn up on time to collect,
You had to dismantle it, health and safety anyone??
£50 take it or leave it, they can have fun arguing those points.

Again please leave your feedback, i'd hate to use this company!
I certainly wouldn't have moved anything.

I once had a problem with a soft play hire company who delivered late to my DD's party. They were mortified and wouldnt let me pay anything beyond the booking deposit - which was £30 against a hire fee of £120. They were about 40 mins late by the time they had set it all up for use.
How much of the party was missed? About 30 mins?? I would expect at least a quarter reduction, plus compensation for the inconvenience etc - maybe I would suggest paying half?

Oops sorry!

I'd work out how much of my time was wasted; give it an hourly rate (based on your job/your husbands job) multiply by however many of you were left sorting it out.
Add extras like loss to party guests
Phone calls
Dissatisfaction.

Even if you gave each of those only £10, you're up to £50 already!

PLUS, he wasn't even there for the whole of the time you wanted the castle, so definitely deduct 1/4 of the price for loss of 1/4 time usage.

Tell him what you are deducting and why. Then stand firm.

He's unlikely to sue you, and even less likely to be successful if he did, assuming your costs are reasonable

If it's a well known company and not just one disorganised fuckwit then I'd leave til Monday then call or email the company, not the driver, provide copies of the text and any messages and complain about the service you received. As the delivery was 90 minutes late and you had to do his job clearing the stuff from the hall they should be more than willing to reduce the fee by 50%. If you can't agree a discount with them then yes you legally need to pay but leave negative feedback EVERYWHERE.

It was a tough one as I had to get it out of the hall or risk losing my deposit with the hall or paying more money to the hall. He was very lucky it wasn't stolen you are right - I'm sure if the scrap man drove past and saw it there he would have thought it was Christmas!!!

I'm not a lawyer, but my approach would be that he has been in breach of contract with you by not delivering it on time, or picking it up on time.

So I would work out how much it has "cost" you in the delay and in your time and effort after the party, and deduct that from the amount agreed.

Then tell him you will let Judge Rinder resolve the dispute let him pursue the debt if he wants to take it further

Especially on things like google and yelp, that they can't remove!

If it was £110 for 2 and a half hours and he was almost an hour late then you would be completely justified to knock off £40 even before all of the additional disruption. I think if you paid £50-£60 that would be totally reasonable.

YANBU.

Completely outing myself here but my dad has run a bouncy castle business since before I was born and I help out a bit. He spends a LOT of time scheduling so that for parties in halls he is there at the right time and has never, ever (in over 25 years) been late for a booking.

If he was, and arrived after the party had started, he would immediately offer a discount. He would 100% never expect anyone to move the castle and generator - there is a knack to it but it's not easy. The most he would ask of customers is that If they are keeping it in a garden overnight, to fold it in half overnight so that if it rains, water only gets on the bottom (that has been folded on top).

I agree with pp's that you should leave bad reviews everywhere!

£110

I've never paid more than £60 for a great bouncy castle & we usually get to keep them overnight!!!

Don't pay full price. Review them on local sites

Break it down for him. So 3 hours @ £25 ph, £20 set up fee, and £15 for delivery?

Take off an hour's fee for the time you couldn't use it (i.e. wasn't late, then had to set up. -£25
Half the set up fee for the fact that you had to take it down yourself. -£10
An hour's labour for you (phone calls, waiting around for a half hour at the start, and at the end) -£10
And half an hour/hour late fee for the extra time you were in the hall (he doesn't need to know you didn't have to pay extra) -£20?

£110 - £25 - £10 - £10 - £20 = £45

Offer him £50 just for the effort he made in returning a couple of texts

That's ridiculous service. As the name might give way we own a small bouncy castle business and would never be late and if we were due to extenuating circumstance I would straight away waive the fee and let them have it for free. We would never expect anyone not employed by us to move the castle either and would actually be quite cross if they tried to do so due to insurance. Please don't pay in full and don't let them bully you. I agree too to leaving reviews everywhere, we get most of our bookings word of mouth and would do everything we could to prevent any bad reviews. £110 is an awful lot too I agree, unless it was one of the larger obstacle types with big slides etc.

Please warn other parents and party organisers about this.

So it was £110 for 2 hours use?

20 mins late delivering
And then 30 mins of your time wasted from 1pm to 1:30pm

That's 50 mins wasted time.

I Would be paying just over half (£60) as he was charging £55/hour to use, but cost you 50mins time.

Keep all your booking and call and text logs on your phone, if he comes after you legally, you can show how much messing/time you spent sorting his issues out.

Obviously, legally don't know where you'd stand doing this, but it is DEFINITELY what I would do.

If I've read OP right the bouncy castle was supposed to be there from 10-1 so you could immediately knock 50% off just for the time it was actually useable for = £55. Then I'd say for the half hour wait for pick up and the inconvenience/stress, including moving the bouncy castle, £25 would be incredibly fair so personally I'd pay them £30 and breakdown exactly why that's all that's owed.

Outrageous. I would leave scathing reviews on social media sites and local FB pages.

Work out the costs and propose -in writing - what you think is a reasonable payment considering he was 80 minutes late from the agreed up on time, late to pick up which could have cost you money for the hall you were renting, and didn't do his job of taking down and moving the bouncy castle because he didn't show. His discount isn't enough. He should be apologizing like crazy to you!

Difficult one. I would say morally you well within your rights to pay a lot less than the £100 he seems to be expecting from you, but sometimes the law can sway along way from morality. , also do you need the hassle?

This was from over two months ago. I'm sure the op's probably sorted it out by now

I quite like an ending to the story op please?