Should I tell company that their referral was shit at his job?

[MRex]

We bought flooring and had a "professional" recommended by the company to do the fitting. He quoted, seemed good and we took him on. For various reasons we could only have 20% of the work done initially.

He spent about half the day on Tinder, which was a bit annoying as it meant he was underfoot for a lot longer than necessary, but we had a price for the job not the hour so it was tricky to moan. Before he left we checked the work and there were two lots of squeaky boards plus a radiator pipe that was bent. If we'd had all the work done then the squeaks would have been impossible to fix without taking it all apart (inevitable damage) and would be so annoying having just got a new floor! DH spent ages with the guy grumbling how hard it would be to fix the squeaks, then holding up the floor for him to spend 5 minutes to actually fix them with some screws. Our plumber fixed the pipe on his next visit. The floor fitter was paid for the job and all fine. On the whole though, he was pretty shit, so we've decided to get a fitter who we hope will have higher standards to do the rest of the job.

Now I've had voicemail from the company chasing up the status of the full job plus a missed call. He's also tried to call since then, clearly he'd forgotten about the other 80% but they've reminded him. I have no qualms about telling him exactly why he lost the next stage of work. I would feel a little guilty telling the company because it might put at risk his future work referrals. On the other hand, he was shit, so they should know they've referred someone who did quite a sloppy job. What do you think is fair, YABU don't tell or YANBU grass him up for being crap?

I’d tell them. Might save some other poor soul from getting a shit service and put a rocket up his arse to ensure he stays off Tinder next time!

Thanks. I wasn't planning to mention Tinder, it was annoying that he'd been mucking about instead of focusing on the job to avoid errors but we didn't pay by the hour so maybe it would be petty to mention it. It was the errors and in particular the floor squeaks that were a worry, because they usually couldn't be fixed later. Even refusing to pay wouldn't have helped because we'd still have a squeaky floor.

He was shit and caused a problem you had to get fixed. Thank goodness he only did 20 percent!

Yes I would give honest feedback. Maybe pop in a positive though first - eg. "he was on time and very polite, but unfortunately he damaged a pipe and the flooring wasn't fitted perfectly. We have decided to get someone else to finish it to our standards, and our plumber fixed the pipe".

Factual and objective! I'd leave out the Tinder thing, although annoying.

Tell them

I’d give honest feedback.

How do you know it was Tinder he was on?

@Butchyrestingface - I went to chase him up so we could try and get him moving, he was leaning back on the chair swiping away with his back to the door and I peeked round to see faces swiping by. Admittedly he might have sometimes been on Tinder and sometimes updating quotes or playing games or whatever, but the only time I saw his phone it was Tinder.

Tell them. He is unprofessional and shoddy. It doesn't look good on the company if they are recommending him.

Almost unanimous. Actually he was also an hour late (also left a mess to be swept up), he sounds worse when it's written down. I like the idea of slipping in a nice comment though; "Friendly guy who was ready to help us with X and Y to get the whole job done and gave us a decent quote. When he'd finished there were some floor squeaks that he was then able to fix, but could have been unfixable if we'd been ready for him to finish the whole job, as well as a slightly bent radiator pipe that our plumber has fixed. We decided we'd like to get a different person to do the rest of the job who would be more attentive on preparing the floor properly first."

Tell them.

He was paid to do a job and he did a sloppy effort.

Yeah tell them. Unless he gave you some amazing price, then you didn’t get what you paid for.

I think your reply is too 'chummy', be factual, he did an unprofessional job that you had to pay someone else to fix. And I would mention the phone, not perhaps that you knew it was Tinder but along the lines 'he seemed to be glued to his phone the whole time'.

We had similar with a plumber, shocking work, he was on the phone whilst changing (the wrong) taps, seemed totally uninterested in the project and caused £1k worth of damage by flooding a ceiling, of course we couldn't 'prove' it was him .. but odd that it happened immediately after he had worked in the upstairs bathroom .