I wonder if I could have the benefit of your thoughts about this mumsnetters? I’m a bit scared of AIBU but I’m posting here for a bit of traffic and also because I may be U. It’s a pretty boring post for a Friday night and I’m sorry it’s a bit long winded, but there is a bit of an emotional backdrop to it which might be clouding my judgement.
Back in February my elderly parents had a quote (fixed price not an estimate) from a local electrician to replace an electric bathroom fan. The price he quoted in writing was based on him having full access to view the old fan and to go into the loft above to check what needed to be done, check the state of the 10 year old wiring etc. At the time my father was very ill, on oxygen and receiving Hospice at Home care, so a stressful time. My father emailed to accept the quote of £220.00 (in the south east, just to give a context for the cost) and asked the electrician to do the job as soon as he could. The electrician turned up three weeks later, by which time my father was in the last days of his life and without the energy to really communicate. As you can imagine this was a really difficult time. I happened to be present when electrician turned up, he was in a bad temper when he arrived and he got progressively more ratty about the state of the wiring in my parents loft as if they’d deliberately given him a difficult job. It was obviously a bit of a nightmare job for him and he spent a considerable time whinging to the hospice nurses about how hot and unpleasant it was in the loft etc etc which wasn’t really appropriate as he could see my DF lying in the next room on oxygen and clearly gravely ill and my DF really didn’t need to have to listen to it. We were pretty happy when he left after about 4 hours.
Later that evening my mother went into the bathroom and found that though the fan was now working better the lights over the basin didn’t work. This appeared to be related to the electrician’s work as they’d been fine that morning. My mum called him to tell him and he said he’d come back and look the next day, but he didn’t turn up. About 6 days later my dad died at home, it was a horrible time and deeply traumatic for my mother after 60 years of marriage. It’s a whole other story but suffice to say we forgot that the electrician needed to come back.
He turned up out of the blue unannounced 10 days after my father had died. He was in the house for about 15 minutes and established that the lights didn’t work because of a switch [he’d left off] wasn’t switched on. He asked where my father was and my mother told him. Two hours later my DM received an email invoice which was now £220 plus another £80 for his visit to put right his error on a job he’d quoted £220 for, he never told her he’d be charging for the visit. Then over the next few days he sent her two curt emails reminding her to pay the £300 she owed. She went ahead and paid as she was feeling quite harassed and was already upset. Then two weeks after the lights started tripping as soon as she turned on the bathroom lights/fan, so she was left in darkness. This kept happening and so she called the electrician to ask him to sort out yet another problem that had started to happen since the initial job. My DM is a very polite person and really not asking much but he was pretty snappy with her despite knowing that she was just widowed. He came again today to see about the tripping lights and was there for about 20 minutes talking bulbs out of fittings and putting them back and he’s said he can’t fix it without coming back in and he can’t come for a week and tonight she’s been sent another £80 bill with demands for immediate settlement. He’s no doubt planning to charge her next time too, probably much more than £80.
I may be being unreasonable because I am feeling very protective of her, but I think if you give a fixed quote for a job based on having full access to assess the situation and having the opportunity to price accordingly you then do not charge more to “fault find” faults that have only been occurring since your first intervention? Though he’s implying they’re total separate issues. He’s pissed me off anyway and if I’d known about this she wouldn’t have paid him yet. But I’m also getting the sense that he’s spotted a cash cow.
AIBU about the further charging? My DM is upset and feeling out of control and worried about money (because bill paying is all new to her at 78) and so I’m not sure I’m not overreacting on her behalf. I’m also pretty upset myself at the moment and could do without having a confrontation with a bad tempered electrician. What would you think is reasonable to say to the electrician? Any electricians out there with a perspective?
Sorry, that was really long!