Opinions please, AIBU?

[falalalatte]

Looking for opinions please.

A new customer called around 6 months ago to ask for help with a piece of equipment, I explained yes I can help the price for me to come out look at it is X amount, explained this is just to establish the fault and includes no remedial work and that if any parts are required or that's it's not repairable I would go away and provide a quote if they wanted one.

The initial fee is a one off fee and further works are chargeable, this is made clear on the phone and in writing via email.

I go, find the fault and its not repairable, I tell the customer this and advise that they would require a new item, they pay their call out bill, all fine so far.

I ask whether they would like a quote and they say yes, I send a quote and don't hear back, again perfectly fine.

6 months later they contact to say they have purchased replacement item themselves and want me to come back and install it within the original call out fee.

I explain that the initial fee was for the call out only and no further works were included, remind them that this was in writing via email and explained during the initial phone call.

They come back and tell me they've spoken to a few people and believe they were over charged and that they would like 65% of the call out charge back.

AIBU for not giving the requested sum of money back?

@Atethehalloweenchocs
Haha that's insane, some people are on a different planet!

That really is not relevant at all!

Sometimes we quote a higher call out fee to someone if we don’t want the work for some reason. Sometimes we quote a low charge if we want the work. As long as you did what you said you’d do (go out to diagnose the fault) then there is no comeback.

Yeah, I had someone do similar - used my services, the costs of which were all set out and she had choices - then decided she didn't like my advice, didn't want to put it into practice and on that basis, I owed her a refund (this is after she tried to cancel the cheque)...

I declined to refund, she'd had the work out of me and it was up to her to do her part.

She then threatened me with a/small claims court and b/reporting me to HMRC for non declaration of earnings, and c/bad mouthing me to everyone she knew...

I told her it was entirely up to her what she did with her time and reminded her about defamation laws.... and she went away. She did attempt the badmouthing but as it turned out I know more people than she does (which is how i found out she was outraged I'd banked the cheque too quickly for her to cancel it, she'd paid by cheque precisely so she could do that!), she was told to pipe down very quickly!

Stand your ground!

That’s irrelevant he has in writing what your fee was and he agreed to it, he has no claim.

CF. No chance. The brass neck of them!

So? Small claims doesn’t care that Dave down the road can do something cheaper than you. You were upfront about your cost and he agreed to it. It’s far too late to try to negotiate that. What a CF!