Clean It Up
UK Window Cleaning Forum => Window Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: Jeff Brimble on February 23, 2008, 08:48:58 pm
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Not sure if these links will post, but Duke- ex member has been stuffed good style.
Academy http://www.w.com/html/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=1456&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
ACS http://avondhucleaning.com/yabb2.2/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1203796781/0
A week ago, I ended a long term relationship with a colleague of mine. Basically, he was a canvasser, and I've relied on him to supply me with work for the last few years, as well as picking up a few and passing them on to him, so he can put them on the database. More recently, he changed his way of working and getting paid, demanding 15% of the value of the job per month. I wasn't having that and decided to break away on my own again.
He's now gone round all my customers, personally, and taken them back under his wing and re-assigned a new cleaner to them. This leaves me with only a couple of dozen private customers of my own. Nowhere near enough to make a living out of.
Now, yes, I can get out there canvassing for myself to replace the couple of hundred or so he's taken, but that will take months...meanwhile, I'm virtually out of Business. I can't pay the mortgage, loans, household bills, my employee....nothing.
Anyone looking for an experienced WFP er ? I'm stuffed, might even have to sell up and look for a job....just to add to it, I lost my license (over the limit the day after a party) so I can't even go back to driving for a living.
Man, when it hits the fan...it goes everywhere. Ever get days like that
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That sounds tough Duke. If you were the window cleaner then the primary business relationship was between you and the client who has his windows cleaned. If I was you I would go pro-active, visit every client and offer them a discount for the clean as your way of apologising for the other bloke's bad business practices. Even if you only ended up with 25% sticking with you, it's worth a try.
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Duke, I cant offer you money or an actual helping hand but what I can help with is my attitude....hopefully. I think you will really suprise yourself how well you can do canvassing, be positive and go get some new work. Try to target properties you have seen in the past and would like to clean. One thing I have realised is quite alot of things are psychological, in the sense that things can be accomplished much easier with a good positive attitiude, hope this helps, Luke
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Surely it is up to the customers to choose who they want to clean their windows. I would do as Alex suggested. The guy must have built up a relationship with some of these clients over the years. If Duke was the one being paid for the work, he should get a lot of them back. If the canvasser was getting the money before passing it on to Duke, it could be more problematic, especially with commercial jobs.
Duke need to go round the lot of them A.S.P. Dai
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If this is the duke I am thinking of (based in Gloucestershire) then I am glad. He deserves it. If it is I know the person he is on about (he comes on here) and down my way he has P*** off a lot of window cleaners by conning them in various ways (including me). As for duke if you are wondering what my problem is with him well it's simple he actually threatened me physically with violence. If that wasn't enough he then went around making false allegations of theft, violence etc to customers of mine and then nicked as many as of my customers as he could. I had to get my solicitor involved. He knows what I am on about ask him. Jeff, I know he is a regular poster on the forum your involved with and he does give some sound advice BUT, He is a liar a bully and much more I mean seriously how many windows cleaners go round beating up the competition and making theft allegations to nick their customers? Exactly none. Jeff I know you are trying to help someone who appears to be a nice guy but until now you didn't know the full story about him and now i've told you (and the others reading) maybe you'll understand why I have no sympathy for him he is a total a***hole. By the way if this isn't the duke you are talking about then please accept my apologies
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There's an old saying: 'what goes around, comes around'.
I work for myself, with the work I acquired by myself, slowly but surely, ensuring I don't put too many eggs in one basket. My work is varied and spread out to minimise risks. It's not the most profitable way of working but it's comfortably secure to provide a reliable steady income to depend on. I would never sub contract work from anyone. If I was desperate for work, I would get off my lazy backside and find it, relentless of how long it took.
Failure cannot live with persistency.
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Two sides to every coin ???
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I can`t get the link can someone tell me what all this is about please.
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NWH, What this is about is there is a guy in our area who builds rounds up and then sub contracts the work out to window cleaners. How he charges for this is when he signs up a new customer he will get them to fill out a standing order for his cut (£1.50) per month he collects this in one annual fee (£18.00) and then the window cleaner who he has subbed out to collects the balance themselves at each clean. The problem is that he will swap people customers around at will as he manages the actual rounds and if a customer has not been cleaned for a particular reason he just puts them onto another round. He will do this at will and without telling the customer. When the new window cleaner comes along the customer thinks that because they haven't had a window for say 3 months they then expect the poor window cleaner to knock off the monthly amount for the time they were without a cleaner (in this example that that would be £4.50) because he collects his money upfront he cant really lose and he wont refund them their money. Why should the new window cleaner pay for someone elses mistake? The problem duke has is that he got his work almost exclusively from this guy and now the guys got greedy and wants 15% of the total takings off the cleaner. The naughty bit is that when duke worked in his area he would pass any customers he gained to him as a good will gesture. Now they've fell out the guy has gone round all of dukes customers and has told them not to use him , that he was banned etc. He wont even give him back his own customers so Duke is left with about 20 customers of his own and hardly any income. hope this helps!
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i don't know chap you refer to who builds up rounds, but if he has got greedy and must use some doggy tactics to build rounds in carry on in his way, why do you lot in his area let him carry on and get away with it, only as i know limit about the story I'm reading into what i know so far, Ive seen some people like this in our area and they do use some doggy tactics, but if all the good decent window cleaners joined together and done something about it he would not be around too long. i wouldn't mind if they used honest tactics and genuine there work for everyone, but when they get greedy and use bad tactics i cant stand it an i would find my way of sticking myself in his way, but i don't know all the story but Ive been in this game for 14 years and seen allsorts of going ons
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If this is the duke I am thinking of (based in Gloucestershire) then I am glad. He deserves it. If it is I know the person he is on about (he comes on here) and down my way he has P*** off a lot of window cleaners by conning them in various ways (including me). As for duke if you are wondering what my problem is with him well it's simple he actually threatened me physically with violence. If that wasn't enough he then went around making false allegations of theft, violence etc to customers of mine and then nicked as many as of my customers as he could. I had to get my solicitor involved. He knows what I am on about ask him. Jeff, I know he is a regular poster on the forum your involved with and he does give some sound advice BUT, He is a liar a bully and much more I mean seriously how many windows cleaners go round beating up the competition and making theft allegations to nick their customers? Exactly none. Jeff I know you are trying to help someone who appears to be a nice guy but until now you didn't know the full story about him and now i've told you (and the others reading) maybe you'll understand why I have no sympathy for him he is a total a***hole. By the way if this isn't the duke you are talking about then please accept my apologies
To be very honest with you, I don't know if its the Duke you refer to, those are some pretty strong allegations you make, true or not, its not for me to judge a fellow w/c.
The way I see it is like this, I don't really know any of you but I do know this?
The Training academy was originally set up to help fellow w/c in this sort of situation be it the loan of a pump or pole to get you back out to work to enable you to continue earning, Joe and I never set the Academy up to pass judgement on its members, there past and future is there own concern.
Duke is no exemption to the rule, he is a fellow w/c in distress and we aim to help him as much as we can.
Joe and I have done an appeal on the Academy for him for donations to enable us to employ a professional door knocker to help him build his round back up with his own customers and we would do this for any member.
So if any of you guy's are willing to help a fellow w/c with the donation of lets say a minimum of a fiver, then get in touch with me and I hope we would do the same for any one of our fellow colleagues.
I have shown my email address in my priofile for the duration of this appeal.
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I’m not sure that I fully understand what has happened here but suffice to say there must be a lesson learnt from this experience. I cannot understand a window cleaner allowing a canvasser to take an on going percentage? Surely this leaves it wide open to abuse?
Is this a common practice in some areas?
Because it’s the first time I have heard of canvassers working this method.
I myself have used canvassers in the past and still do today, I pay the canvasser 2 times the value i.e. he/she will get me £200 worth of work and I pay him/her £400 to own the rights to the work, under no circumstances is the canvasser to take any money from the customer or to have anymore dealings with the customer once I have purchased the work from him/her.
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Whatever the situation , Duke has lost work, and I pressume he has a family so its still not nice, Luke
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Whatever the situation , Duke has lost work, and I pressume he has a family so its still not nice, Luke
So right Luke,
He recently moved into a new house, family to support, bills to pay, so whats wrong with trying to help a fellow w/c in his hour of need? it will show what a true bunch of friends were supposed to be ;)
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I dont know if he is a good or bad person really, but I do know that kids need food in their mouths etc etc and no matter what type of person he is ( shame this is being brough into question ) its still not nice for bad things to happen to him, so hopefully he can get himself back on his feet, Luke
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I’m not sure that I fully understand what has happened here but suffice to say there must be a lesson learnt from this experience. I cannot understand a window cleaner allowing a canvasser to take an on going percentage? Surely this leaves it wide open to abuse?
Is this a common practice in some areas?
Because it’s the first time I have heard of canvassers working this method.
I myself have used canvassers in the past and still do today, I pay the canvasser 2 times the value i.e. he/she will get me £200 worth of work and I pay him/her £400 to own the rights to the work, under no circumstances is the canvasser to take any money from the customer or to have anymore dealings with the customer once I have purchased the work from him/her.
To be honest jay I have never used a canvasser and I wouldn't have a clue how they operate, I know if I did use one I would also want full control over my customers, WCE says the canvasser comes on here, then if he does perhaps he could explain his methods to us?
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I’m not sure that I fully understand what has happened here but suffice to say there must be a lesson learnt from this experience. I cannot understand a window cleaner allowing a canvasser to take an on going percentage? Surely this leaves it wide open to abuse?
Is this a common practice in some areas?
Because it’s the first time I have heard of canvassers working this method.
I myself have used canvassers in the past and still do today, I pay the canvasser 2 times the value i.e. he/she will get me £200 worth of work and I pay him/her £400 to own the rights to the work, under no circumstances is the canvasser to take any money from the customer or to have anymore dealings with the customer once I have purchased the work from him/her.
To be honest jay I have never used a canvasser and I wouldn't have a clue how they operate, I know if I did use one I would also want full control over my customers, WCE says the canvasser comes on here, then if he does perhaps he could explain his methods to us?
Absolutely Jeff, you have to be in control of your own round, I’m still not sure that I understand what’s happened here but reading between the lines it would appear that the canvasser had control, if this is the case that then surely makes him the owner of a window cleaning business (rather than a canvasser) so therefore by having total control over the business he can change things to suit himself even sacking someone (as this may be the case with Duke)
Will someone who’s in the know please tell me if I’m reading this right?
If this guy is in complete control as to who does what – where - and when, then does Duke have any chance of legal proceedings? Or, if Duke has been sacked could he claim unfair dismissal?
I may be talking out of line here, but a I say, I don’t fully understand the situation?
Either way my thoughts go out to Duke and family and I hope things can be resolved
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Your So right Jay, and I'm with you, I don't fully understand the workings they had between each other and I probably never will ??? I just know its a must that you should be in full control.
This may be a lesson for anyone, who in the future employes canvassers, find out where you stand in relation to who owns the rights to the round, it could just save your business.
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If this is the duke I am thinking of (based in Gloucestershire) then I am glad. He deserves it. If it is I know the person he is on about (he comes on here) and down my way he has P*** off a lot of window cleaners by conning them in various ways (including me). As for duke if you are wondering what my problem is with him well it's simple he actually threatened me physically with violence. If that wasn't enough he then went around making false allegations of theft, violence etc to customers of mine and then nicked as many as of my customers as he could. I had to get my solicitor involved. He knows what I am on about ask him. Jeff, I know he is a regular poster on the forum your involved with and he does give some sound advice BUT, He is a liar a bully and much more I mean seriously how many windows cleaners go round beating up the competition and making theft allegations to nick their customers? Exactly none. Jeff I know you are trying to help someone who appears to be a nice guy but until now you didn't know the full story about him and now i've told you (and the others reading) maybe you'll understand why I have no sympathy for him he is a total a***hole. By the way if this isn't the duke you are talking about then please accept my apologies
is ths the same duke, can any1 confirm ?? ? ?
as if its not, then people might be more willing to help
if it is, then i would fancy the chances of getting many to help, as he sounds a right nasty bit of work
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Mmm, difficult one this, because if you are appealing for money for someone who got banned for drink driving (no sympathy whatsoever) and someone who hadn't the presence of mind to realise he didn't control his own round then who's to blame? He might be a chatty forum member but to me that's where it ends.
Now, if you were appealing for the widow of a windowcleaner who fell to his death due to a tragic accident then count me in. But in all honesty it's Dukes problem not mine and i'm sure if i fell over the cat and broke my leg i wouldn't expect anyone on here to cough up their hard earned cash for me. Sorry
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who is duke ???
does he go on the window-tools site?
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He used to post a lot on this site then moved to Jeffs Academy site for whatever reason. Pleasant enough poster.
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I know a guy that works in a similar way. He canvasses the work and has a team of lads doing the cleaning, he takes 40% the lads share the rest between them. Some of the guys doing the cleaning are signing on, but the guy running them doesn't care. He doesn't regard himself as an employer so has no worries concerning tax, insurance etc. The cleaners do the collecting themselves, just handing over 40% of the take. It's easy money, but is it strictly legal?
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If it is Duke that used to be on here he is from Tewkesbury. As for the work bit, it is almost as if he has been employed by this other guy ( the canvasser) and the chap takes 15% for giving him the work, which sounds reasonable to me. I am surprised Duke has not picked up more than 20 of his own customers in this time but if the chap has done the dirty on Duke maybe he should go round to the customers and get the work for himself, he could pass on a 10% discount to them so they are better off and get himself a 5% increase at the same time. Although I wonder if the loss of license has to do with the situation.
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The 2 Dukes I have come across on forums one is based in Cheltenham and the other in Tewksbury that makes them both of the Gloucestershire Area. ??? but I wouldn't like to walk from one to the other.
This so called Round builder/Door knocker who ever he is, should reply to this post and help sort this out with at least an explanation of who is who??
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Simple solution, send name and details to tax office as this guy sounds if he is not declaring it. He will not be in business for long, then Duke whoever will get his customers back.
Never use violence, use what is legal and you will win.
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Legal way every time, I'm sure if he's not declaring it he may want to compromise ;D
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Right this is how the guy in question works he owns the rounds and gets w/cs to do the work on a self employed basis. He will target beginers where possible. He maintains the rounds on a george type program and retains ownership of the work .
I met him when he first moved to the area (tewkesbury) and Duke was the first person he took on in this manner I was the second. Later people were tied in by a contract which said you would pass all work to him you picked up for a 1 off payment from him. I told him no way any customers I got were mine but duke didnt. The other part of his business was a sort of hire side where he would assist the new guys by getting the kit for them and also provide them with pure water for a weekly charge.
Me and him fell out when he started to mess me about and because he had decided that he would go and give 50% of my work to this new guy. The first I knew about it was when I got a revised list off him with the work gone. That was it I was off. Just before christmas I was helping another ex window cleaner of his who had fell out with him because he had offered to arrange his public liability for him. They paid their premium to him and all was fine until they asked for a copy of their certificate. He refused to show it them (it didn't exist) took all their work off them (a husband and wife team) and stopped providing the water for them. He stitched them up big time all over a certificate he couldn't produce. I helped them by giving them some customers and letting them use my ro system for their water needs untilk they got their own and were back on their feet. They have manged to get back about 20% of the customers he had provided to them but thats still 80% of their work gone. Another Trick of the guy is to put cleans he has done himself onto other lists so he can avoid the tax. The whole reason he uses self employed is because he can avoid being vat registered. So I guess prehaps someone should give the taxman a tinkle about this conman!
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Can somebody send me his name !
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it seems to me you have all been stitch up, this guy owned the lot of you, as someone mentioned on here, all of you get together and turn on this nasty piece of *%*% no wonder you are all fighting over rounds, hes living on you lot just becouse he knocked on doors, what a crazy way of working,
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A Parasite springs to mind, I don't normaly use strong words like this but this guy is living off you all, as Joe says band together and force his hand, he seems to have the power to destroy your business and maybe your family.
If he is a member here then I for one would like to see him speak up is Simon your name???
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Thats exactly what I learn't. The man was out for himself simple I realised and got my own RO kit and started building my own round. Then when he took the work I already had something to fall back on. It was the best thing I ever did gone and since then I have built up a good business. I started with a few customers and door knocked (even though I hated it) and manged to pick up work. I didn't have a lot of money at the start but I managed to scrape up enough to survive. After a couple of months I was flying. I now do a lot of commercial work which I would of never of got if I had stayed with him as he only targets residential. I can understand why Duke was surprised by what happened and suspect he had fell into a rut where he knew this would have work for him (he actually has about 2500 customers signed on his rounds). The reason I say this is like I said in my previous post when he moved here Duke was the first person he recruited (4 years ago) and as far as I was aware about the only person who hadn't been messed about by him in fact i would go as far to say I thought they were friends.
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you can't own customers.... they can use who ever they want....they used to pay duke ,,,, he was the face of the buisness and should fight for what is his..... i think he will win on face value :)
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Jeff you are on the right tracks his name is simon C****** He is a member but I just checked his profile and he hasn't posted on here since december
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Jeff you are on the right tracks his name is simon C****** He is a member but I just checked his profile and he hasn't posted on here since december
Thanks WCE ;)
Is there any chace you can forward his details to Jeff Brimble
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If anyone is interested we are having a live auction on the academy on saturday evening for anyone that wants to donate or buy second hand wfp gear.
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Right this is how the guy in question works he owns the rounds and gets w/cs to do the work on a self employed basis. He will target beginers where possible. He maintains the rounds on a george type program and retains ownership of the work .
I met him when he first moved to the area (tewkesbury) and Duke was the first person he took on in this manner I was the second. Later people were tied in by a contract which said you would pass all work to him you picked up for a 1 off payment from him. I told him no way any customers I got were mine but duke didnt. The other part of his business was a sort of hire side where he would assist the new guys by getting the kit for them and also provide them with pure water for a weekly charge.
Me and him fell out when he started to mess me about and because he had decided that he would go and give 50% of my work to this new guy. The first I knew about it was when I got a revised list off him with the work gone. That was it I was off. Just before christmas I was helping another ex window cleaner of his who had fell out with him because he had offered to arrange his public liability for him. They paid their premium to him and all was fine until they asked for a copy of their certificate. He refused to show it them (it didn't exist) took all their work off them (a husband and wife team) and stopped providing the water for them. He stitched them up big time all over a certificate he couldn't produce. I helped them by giving them some customers and letting them use my ro system for their water needs untilk they got their own and were back on their feet. They have manged to get back about 20% of the customers he had provided to them but thats still 80% of their work gone. Another Trick of the guy is to put cleans he has done himself onto other lists so he can avoid the tax. The whole reason he uses self employed is because he can avoid being vat registered. So I guess prehaps someone should give the taxman a tinkle about this conman!
Report this doorknocker to the inland revenue and social security. He's a scumbag who should be named & shamed in my opinion.
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Right this is how the guy in question works he owns the rounds and gets w/cs to do the work on a self employed basis. He will target beginers where possible. He maintains the rounds on a george type program and retains ownership of the work .
I met him when he first moved to the area (tewkesbury) and Duke was the first person he took on in this manner I was the second. Later people were tied in by a contract which said you would pass all work to him you picked up for a 1 off payment from him. I told him no way any customers I got were mine but duke didnt. The other part of his business was a sort of hire side where he would assist the new guys by getting the kit for them and also provide them with pure water for a weekly charge.
Me and him fell out when he started to mess me about and because he had decided that he would go and give 50% of my work to this new guy. The first I knew about it was when I got a revised list off him with the work gone. That was it I was off. Just before christmas I was helping another ex window cleaner of his who had fell out with him because he had offered to arrange his public liability for him. They paid their premium to him and all was fine until they asked for a copy of their certificate. He refused to show it them (it didn't exist) took all their work off them (a husband and wife team) and stopped providing the water for them. He stitched them up big time all over a certificate he couldn't produce. I helped them by giving them some customers and letting them use my ro system for their water needs untilk they got their own and were back on their feet. They have manged to get back about 20% of the customers he had provided to them but thats still 80% of their work gone. Another Trick of the guy is to put cleans he has done himself onto other lists so he can avoid the tax. The whole reason he uses self employed is because he can avoid being vat registered. So I guess prehaps someone should give the taxman a tinkle about this conman!
Report this doorknocker to the inland revenue and social security. He's a scumbag who should be named & shamed in my opinion.
Someone has taken it on board and doing what is needed.
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From various messages and emails it seems the guys name is... quote "Simon Carter His company is clean windows Plus, last I heard of possibly he had got himself a new unit in Innsworth Gloucester".
I spent much of today pondering how could this have happened ? When you think about its no more than many would do ie rent some of your round out if you have too much for a % . He seems to have capitalised on it and grown the rounds to a massive degree. The mistake he seems to have made was asking for more! Dukes only mistake was to trust him and accept more work without any legal documentation until he got in too deep to do anything about it.
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this really is a serious question that had been bothering me all day
WHY on earth would you continue to work for some1 and not build your round up for yourself, your the boss, you keep all the money
sure i can understand that you do some1 elses work for a while , while you build up your own work
something about all of this doesnt ring true
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Just to say Jeff that i agree he has capitalised on the whole renting a round out and you are right he has done it on a massive scale. IMO it is okay to rent rounds to people as long as you do it on fair terms but what he has done is con people and used underhand methods to keep the customers eg bad mouthing other companies, deliberately undercutting rivals etc. It his methods that have caused the problems . Like I said Duke was there at the start before any of these bad business practices became apparent and also like I said Duke was the only person he hadn't ripped off or s*** on some way so I expect he was lured into a false sense of security if i had been in that situation then I would of probably done the same. Remember this guy is good at one thing canvassing. He has a base of 2000-2500 Customers. What makes that even more amazing is he always seems to be able to find more customers even bearing in mind he charges them £18.00 at the door via a standing order before they have even seen any window cleaning take place. To top it off he once told me his cancellation rate was 35-40% but he always managed to replace them (indeed of that % a fair amount have come to me and said they will have nothing to do with him again) so it is no wonder that Duke has fell into his trap. Is he greedy yes think about it 2500 customers x £18.00 = £45,000 and thats before the guy does any window cleaning he now also wants 15% of the window cleaners takings and the best bit is he is not vat registered and has no intention of doing so. It's enough to make jdemarco proud!
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The other point I should add is that as this guy like to target people who have no experience of window cleaning and puts a jazzy advert in the local paper to recruit He tells them they can earn £8-15 per hour window cleaning (compare that to factory work etc) and sucks them in from there I happen to know that when he moved here and started his business Duke had been going for a couple of months and had between 45-60 Customers of his own. I had never worked in window cleaning before and I know he promised us both at least 50 new customers per month each until the round was built up. With his sweet talking it seemed a very attractive offer and he did deliver those targets but only short term. I am sure many in the same position a newbie being offered that many new customers a month would of took it.
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Duke has learnt a valuable lesson, and tewksebury sounds a good area to go and get some work IMO. Squeeky its only 41 miles away, 49 minutes using aa route planner, insterad of banging your head against the wall in chepstow why not go there?.....its a bit more work but it sounds like it has alot of potential, keep you busy, which may not be a bad thing at the moment for you.
Mark
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This guy seems to think he can get around the employment laws...I think he is wrong, and I further think he needs to be reported to the tax man/ VAT man.
Talk about giving window cleaning a bad name...
Ian