To not pay this fee?

[Help221]

I needed to book an emergency call out today as my roof is leaking water into my flat quite excessively. In my panic I called the first place on Google that had good reviews. After I booked the emergency call out I looked at the company again and all the Google reviews look fake (lots of reviews done this week and all 5 star by accounts that have made no other reviews) I found them on another website that said they were terrible and reviews accused them of being a scam.

I promptly called back 15 minutes later and cancelled. I've called another company to come out.

They now are saying I have to pay the £150 call out charge because I called them out even though I cancelled 15 minutes later? They keep calling me threatening me. They know my name and address. Not sure what to do here?

My experience of decent trades companies when I have booked over the phone is that they tend to read you the Ts and Cs (including the cancellation policy) as they confirm the booking. I would imagine that this may be a legal requirement so you could have a good reason to withhold payment if they did not
make their policy clear.

OP does not say that so where are you getting that from? In fact OP mentions “the call out charge” so sounds like it was mentioned to me. I would also expect that it would be mentioned on an emergency call out for a water leak.

I had something a few weeks ago - i booked a 9 seater cab and they sent me the invoice (2 weeks in advance) along with the TOB's, which i didn't agree with (very one sided), so i called them the next day and said that we weren't proceeding with the booking and they said that i had to pay 40%!

Of course i didn't, because i hadn't paid, hadn't signed anything and thus hadn't entered in to a contact with them.

They sent me a few threatening emails which i ignored. Comanies like this prey on people who are cowered and intimidated.

Yes, if they call again, threaten them with the Police. You cancelled in good time and nobody came, it's just extortion.

A lot of apparently local companies aren't, they're national agencies, which may have a pool of workers, or actually have locals on their books, with a fat fee. We had a pipe burst on a Sunday evening and I had an £80 call out charge, which I didn't really object to; it was well out of business hours.

They gut gave me his card and said if I needed plumbing work, to call him and dodge the fee.

Ignore. You have done nothing wrong they probably won’t come round & quite Frank it’s tantamount to bullying.

According to that she has a 14 day cooling off period.

I think there might be a lot of scams like this around. I found a firm online. The person they sent walked in, said the job was impossible and asked for £150. No call out change had been mentioned or agreed to - I had asked for a quote for the job. He was in my house less than 2 minutes, but kept asking me to pay. He then tried to negotiate half of the money because he had come from a distance of about 1.5 hours away. I told him I had been assured that the firm was in the next town over, 20 minutes away. I called his office, was told someone would call me back (I never did hear from them). In the meantime he kept demanding money. It was quite intimidating, and I just planning to go and get the man next door to help me throw him out when he got up and left. I was half expecting to hear back that they were going to invoice me/take me to court. But never heard anything. It occurred to me after he left that this tactic could be quite the money spinner. I got a local guy in the following week, job took 15 minutes and cost £100.

@femfemlicious im presuming you didn’t read this bit

When you might not get a cooling-off periodYou don’t automatically get a cooling-off period if:

• you have something specially made - for example, made to measure curtains, windows or a conservatory (some traders voluntarily offer a 7 day cooling-off period for these products, but they don’t have to)
• you invite the business into your home for urgent repairs or maintenance - for example, when you ask a plumber to come and mend a burst pipe

Mixed answers here! They didn't end up coming to my house. I got someone else who came in, identified and fixed the problem. I'm not sure whether they're going to come after me with a bill. Probably!