Clean It Up
UK Floor Cleaning Forum => Carpet Cleaning Forum => Topic started by: mitch2810 on May 02, 2009, 04:51:49 pm
-
Any cleaners on here who are asked to clean carpets at Gatecrasher nightclub, be warned the guy who owns it believes that you should clean it for nothing. He will drive the price down so you are doing it at cost and when he pays you the cheques bounce. I certainly wont do work for them again and I would advise anyone who wants to be paid to stay away. We really do not need customers like this. Maybe one day he will learn that he cant treat tradesmen like this and carry on getting them to work for him. >:(
p.s He has cost me over £1300
-
What area do you live mate ???
-
Give him another opportunity to pay, if he does not cough i'd take him to court for non payment. I'd even be prepared to get a debt recovery agency if he's difficult. Don't mess about it's your money! I would also pass the word around other cleaners, this is theft and fraud as far as i'm concerned.
Simon
-
Just take some heavies and get your hard earned money from him.
-
What area do you live mate ???
Sutton coldfield. The club I cleaned was Birmingham
-
Just take some heavies and get your hard earned money from him.
Ah you know about plan B then ;)
-
in court if he has given you cheque and it has bounced it is classes as an intention to pay.
my father runs a separate business completely dif from cleaning and has taken many to court many that have bounced cheques and everyone he has won at the end of the day all the court is interested in is what is on paper eg work contract, invoice , disclaimer , satisfied with work sheet etc. if all you paper work is in order you will get your monet but be aware under i think 5000 is small claims court and each party pays there own costs initially then the winning party has the option to take the losers to court for costs. but that is then a separate issue best thing is when the amount owed is over 5 k then you can have some real fun. in one pat case my old man was owed 7 k and the guy made up a counter claim trying to sou hime for losses etc in the end was pushed in the multi track court and my old man won and the costs were nearly 90 k between both parties sent the guy bust.
-
Its one of the risks we all take when doing commercial work...
Should not be like that mind you ::)
-
Be very carefull with your plan B
There are 2 sides to night clubs and your boys need to be on there game to go at these folk
if you win any small physical conflict then be prepared for retaliation
I know you will be fuming but there will be clever way of getting the group you dealing with to cough up.
-
You will prob find that the owners will have other business set ups as well as they usually have there fingers in many pies .
-
Be very carefull with your plan B
There are 2 sides to night clubs and your boys need to be on there game to go at these folk
if you win any small physical conflict then be prepared for retaliation
I know you will be fuming but there will be clever way of getting the group you dealing with to cough up.
Rick you are right but sometimes you have to fight fire with fire and if we just roll over and let these people get away with these things then we might as well give up. With some people there is only one language they understand and unfortunately sometimes this is the language we have to use to converse with them, in order to get them to understand.
I certainly wont be doing anything stupid but I would rather just hand the debt over to the right people and tell them to make sure that payment is collected. This way the b*stards dont get away with it.
I
-
keep the law on your side only way you will see you money
-
Just to keep you all updated. I still havent been paid for this job. I put in a quote for the basic clean of certain areas and when the job was completed he has asked me to do another area and remove all the gum for FREE!!
Can you believe it. The job was 1000 square metres on three floors and took two of us two days to clean. I actually agreed to do it at a discounted rate of £1000 if he gave me the other clubs, but he never had any intention of doing this and just used it to drive the price down. As he bounced the cheque I am now asking for the original quote. sorry to keep babbling on about this but it makes me mad when someone trys to screw me over and I dont want you guys being stung by the same wasp.
Phil
p.s I havent given up yet ;)
-
Ring his wife and tell her that if her husband doesn't stop seeing your wife, you'll kill him.... She goes nuts thinking he's having an affair and he looses half of everything.. ;D
I know someone who actually did that, a rotton trick but very effective!!!!
-
Fantastic thet Colin, ;D I will make a note of that and if all else fails.......
-
Fantastic thet Colin, ;D I will make a note of that and if all else fails.......
You could make it worse and tell his wife that if her husband doesn't stop seeing your boyfriend, you'll cut his bits off.... How messy would that scenario be ??? ;D ;D ;D
Glad to be of assistance :)
-
I really think they should have a section on these forums where we name and shame people like this to we can all avoid doing business with them. What do you think?
Phil
-
In order to be in business, there has to be systems and procedures put in place to lessen the risks of giving credit.
1. Contracts - Any contract should be legally enforcable and fair in the country to which you do business.
2. Terms & Conditions - Again these must be reasonable and legally enforcable.
3. If a prospect is already trying to lower prices before you start work, this would start alarm bells ringing, I would then obtain a credit check, as the prospect may well need the job doing, but not really have the money to pay!
4. On all Invoices there should be a line or two explaining that you are aware of the late payment regulations, and that you will not hesitate to use the regs regarding interest on late payments.
5. After work has been completed, you should have the client sign that the job has been completed to thier satifaction.
In this particular case, I would send a firm, but polite letter requesting payment in full within the next 7 days, failure will result in you starting legal proceedings without further notice.
Bouncing a cheque is illegal in the eyes of the law, however I would say that it is unlikely that you will see any cash from this person, as by the time cheques start to bounce the business is already is very serious trouble.
In this current economic climate it is vital to have all the systems and procedures in place to act as a brake, at the moment it is easy to win business, but do a little digging and all becomes clear.
Regards,
Rob
-
Colin
Like that one ;D
Get em face to face and its a bit harder to not pay lol.
-
Hi Phil a name and shame section may be a good idea but would it have helped you? You say on another forum that this guy has already shaffted you once before.Shouldn't it have been a case of once bitten?All the best with your debt recoveryRegards Gordon
-
Gordon, when you say he shafted me before, he actually did pay after 3 months and a letter from the courts. When he asked me to do the work this time I insisted on payment on completion, which is what I got, albeit in the form of a rubber cheque. On reflection I should have asked for cash up front, but how many times have you done that? One thing`s for certain and that is there will not be a third time!
Your advice is really good but sometimes we have to move the goalposts and we lose sight of the risks involved. This, unfortunately is when we get bitten.
You ask would this have made a difference to me in this situation and the answer is yes, because if I had read a post on here descibing how this guy does business then I wouldn`t have gone near him.
Phil
-
I did a job 2 years ago for letting agency, they said go direct to custy. Big job £350 inc vat. Massive house a barn conversion EOT clean plus carpets.
Well he wouldnt pay, 'just got back from holiday, cheque in post, Oh havent we paid you etc etc'. He stopped answering my calls i suppose when he saw my number come up.
When I was bigger I used to use a firm from Liverpool called Thomas Higgins & Co. They are specialist debt collector Solicitors. If someone bounced a cheque on me £30 or whatever just filled in form on fax and sent it. Guaranteed within 1 week payment.
Rang them up, go online they gave me a ref no, filled in form on line, customers name, address, post code (very important), amount owed for services rendered etc etc, no complaints about the work.
They send a LBA (letter before action).
Cheque came through last week direct from the custy with complete funds. Oh and a compliment slip.
They do it all on computer, no deduction for costs. I assume they make their money when it goes to court and you have to make a decission is it worth it pursuing it.
They have never let me down yet. Cant recommend them enough.
Thomas Higgins & Co, Liverpool.
Good luck.
Murky
-
I did a job 2 years ago for letting agency, they said go direct to custy. Big job £350 inc vat. Massive house a barn conversion EOT clean plus carpets.
Well he wouldnt pay, 'just got back from holiday, cheque in post, Oh havent we paid you etc etc'. He stopped answering my calls i suppose when he saw my number come up.
When I was bigger I used to use a firm from Liverpool called Thomas Higgins & Co. They are specialist debt collector Solicitors. If someone bounced a cheque on me £30 or whatever just filled in form on fax and sent it. Guaranteed within 1 week payment.
Rang them up, go online they gave me a ref no, filled in form on line, customers name, address, post code (very important), amount owed for services rendered etc etc, no complaints about the work.
They send a LBA (letter before action).
Cheque came through last week direct from the custy with complete funds. Oh and a compliment slip.
They do it all on computer, no deduction for costs. I assume they make their money when it goes to court and you have to make a decission is it worth it pursuing it.
They have never let me down yet. Cant recommend them enough.
Thomas Higgins & Co, Liverpool.
Good luck.
Murky
Thanks for the heads up.
;)
-
Pleasure.
Let us know how you get on, person who handled mine for me is Tracey McIver, just looking through the file they send you a paper copy of the proceeding and they want copies of the bounced cheques front and back, date presented etc etc.
Mine went back to Nov 2007 and was for £364.25.
They send a very official looking letter saying you are due in Court on a specific date. It would certainly scare me if I got 1.
Oh and its Thomas Higgins Partnership, Wallasey.
Murky
-
Going to keep this an we never know when it will be needed :)