[jaykie]

I bought part of a trad round 5 weeks ago, done 1st clean 3 weeks ago so 2nd clean due in a week, the rest of the round was sold to a employee of the window cleaner, any way i went to drop my kids at school this morning only for one of my new customers to come upto me asking me if i was still doing them, i said yes only to be told that the lad that has taken over had knocked on her door last week asking if she was happy with the bloke with the pole and if not he would be more then happy to carry on, so i spent the morning knocking on custys doors asking them if someone had knocked, and the ansewer was yes to everyone of them, the rubbish he was saying wasnt working so he resulted to telling people id either seised working, was only doing commercial or there had been loads of complaints about my work, the good news is only one said yes but after explaining the situation she is sticking with me. I made a call to the bloke id bought it off as he has moved away but the lad is still trading in the same name till he paid round off as its £400 a week, he wasnt best pleased and said he will contact him later and tell him this is wrong, Ive told him to tell him that if it happens again the letter i have on my pc that was sent out to all my new customers when i took the work over will end up in a lot more peoples door steps and ive told every cleaning company in my area that there is a lad trying to take over other peoples work and they where all grateful with the info id given.

[Roger Slater]

I had this happen to me when i first started, I was just pulling up to a custys house and seen 3 guys with ladders cleaning my custys windows. I drove straight past not wanting to confront 3 at once and rallied 6 of my mates and bundeled them in the back of my van.

I went back to the street they were in and got out of the van on my own, and asked them what they were doing cleaning my custys windows, the first thing that came out of the big guys mouth on the ladder was F off, so i asked him to get down and say that and just as he did my mates jumped out of the van and ran towards the other 2 guys, ive never seen anybody run so fast it was quite funny, but the big guy was cornered and he definatley had a poo poo.

He was very nice to talk too after that and appologised and said he would work the other end of town from now on. No blood spilt on this occasion.

My brother in law is a cop and he said that was a stupid thing to do but the police wouldnt be able to do anything about them knicking my work.

[jaykie]

lol how funny, im looking forward to bumping into them, the thing is these silly prats did this to the road my mum lives in and they know this as my vans there 3 days a week and the bloke i bought the work off lived in my mums roads too.

[NWH]

Break his fingers,it hurts when you knock on doors with broken fingers.

[Chris Galloway]

Break his fingers,it hurts when you knock on doors with broken fingers.

Experience of it then?

[trike]

THEY KNOW YOU HAVE BOURGHT PART OF THE ROUND,AND YOU WILL BUMP INTO THEM,ARE THEY MAD OR JUST PLAIN STUPID

[NWH]

Break his fingers,it hurts when you knock on doors with broken fingers.

Experience of it then?

No i havn`t and i`m not normally i violent person at all but when someone trys to take food out of my mouth that`s taking the pee,there`s no way i`d let that go i`d at least have a word with him just to let him know i`m no mug.

[groundhog]

Build your own round, it's the best way imo!!! 

[Roger Slater]

Build your own round, it's the best way imo!!! 

I should have explained a little bit more indepth, I did build my own round it wasnt bought thats why i confronted these guys with my mates ready to do battle, Im really glad he backed down as one of my mates wanted to break his legs and wrap his ladders around his kneck.

Ive never seen these guys again anywhere in town. There are just times when you have to make a stand no matter what the circumstances are.

[NWH]

It`s the old bully in the playground scenerio,if you let people keep treating you like an idiot they will continue to do so,ask my ex employee`s lol.

[alanwilson]

something similar happened up this way about 4 years ago - I don't know the 2 guys involved but apparently the guy who was getting his work stolen took matters a bit too far and ended up giving the other lad a beating.  The worst of it is a lot of people got to hear about it and ended up siding with the guy who was pinching work.

be careful lads - there's one up our way who I would just love to introduce to Mr Justice and Mr Pain but it just ain't worth it.

[AuRavelling79]

When I bought my business back in the early 90's I had a contract drawn up stating that the guy was barred from working or canvassing cleaning work of any kind in the whole of Bradford, halifax, Brighouse, huddersfield and surrounding areas for 5 years. dunno if it would have stood up, but I never had any probs, and it was done with the approval of a bank that had lent me 50K!

If you pay for the round then you can stipulate/agree to those terms. Beyond a year I don't know what is enforceable.

If it is an employee's contract then you have to let them "earn a living" if they leave and unless you pay them or give them something "in consideration" then usually six to nine months is about the limit that a court would enforce and even then they would only have to pay some compensation for business lost.

I worked in another field and had a fellow director who was dipping his hand in the till to the tune of thousands.

Me and the other director had proof of his activity and fired him on the spot. We took legal advice and the guy said you can use the police because it is theft/fraud or you can draw up a contract that is "favourable to you" and get him to sign it as a "deed" at a solicitors office.

We got his collar felt by the law who banged him up in the cells over night and said to us it's borderline whether we would prosecute for a relatively small (a few grand) sum what do you want to do?

We took the solicitor's advice and got a deed signed that basically meant he wouldn't get the money back that he'd put into the company (also a few thousand) and that he couldn't go into competition with us for two years.

The solicitor said it won't stand up he has to "be able to earn a living" and 9 months would be the "reasonable" option as a court wouldn't enforce anything longer.

It worked out pretty well but I would say that the stress of dealing with such a situation can make you take your eye off the ball of running your business for a couple of months so avoid it.

[Rob_Mac]

On the work that I sold I have a written agreement that I will not go into areas ( four areas) where there was established work.

The agreement is signed but is somewhat vague in what the areas specifically relate to. I also said and signed that there would be no agreement pertaining to commercial works and that these were fair game.

I have been asked several times over the last couple of months to go back into the areas and had a phone call yesterday - that I passed onto the guy I sold to. I will not go near the areas till the twelve months is up.

After that I will see where I am at and if I get calls from these areas he may well have fierce competition.

Although I will never take on customers that I sold - but even this is a grey area as I had a very good reputation, was generally on time and got on well with most of my customers. I think that my own set of ethics would stop me from taking old customers back on, this guy paid a lot of money for my round.

I don't know if they knew I was back in the area whether they would want to jump ship and come back to me.

The round I sold is running very late on the due dates and this could be reason enough for the phone to ring again

Rob

[jaykie]

I bought part of a trad round 5 weeks ago, done 1st clean 3 weeks ago so 2nd clean due in a week, the rest of the round was sold to a employee of the window cleaner, any way i went to drop my kids at school this morning only for one of my new customers to come upto me asking me if i was still doing them, i said yes only to be told that the lad that has taken over had knocked on her door last week asking if she was happy with the bloke with the pole and if not he would be more then happy to carry on, so i spent the morning knocking on custys doors asking them if someone had knocked, and the ansewer was yes to everyone of them, the rubbish he was saying wasnt working so he resulted to telling people id either seised working, was only doing commercial or there had been loads of complaints about my work, the good news is only one said yes but after explaining the situation she is sticking with me. I made a call to the bloke id bought it off as he has moved away but the lad is still trading in the same name till he paid round off as its £400 a week, he wasnt best pleased and said he will contact him later and tell him this is wrong, Ive told him to tell him that if it happens again the letter i have on my pc that was sent out to all my new customers when i took the work over will end up in a lot more peoples door steps and ive told every cleaning company in my area that there is a lad trying to take over other peoples work and they where all grateful with the info id given.

alls fair in love and war

Would i be right in thinking you arent wfp

[jaykie]

Stan i think you may want to read my post again, I totaly agree with no patches they dont excist, but for someone to knock on doors that he use to do with another wc and tell them i was no longer working, or im only doing commercial now, or there had been complaints is a total lie FACT, but if he had put leaflets around the area and my customers had rung him as not happy with method or my work then fine, so dont start bringing up past posts as i only say what i think and ill always stick to it. So now you can spend god knows how many more hours going through past posts or just find another thread to moan at someone as you seem to do a very good job of that FACT

Chris

[jaykie]

Now the little p***k has gone round putting notes through all there doors saying ****** window cleaning will be cleaning your windows this week, to cancel please call, one of my custys was in and confronted him as to why he has to try knicking other peoples work in such a bad wasy, his response was to tell her to f**k off,

[scud]

  I think you need to revert to giving him a good kicking, it is the only way some people will get the message.
  When I say a good kicking I mean a good kicking, a slap won't do any good!

[baldeagle]

HE told HER to "F**k off" ?

What a Gentleman !

Baldeagle

[prestigeclean]

find out where he,s working and give his ladder a good shake lol

[jaykie]

Im going to be doing that believe.

Chris