[geefree]

Hi all,

Can you believe this.... i had a call from a lady, gave her a quote, she accepted,.. i said i will clean thursday... today i recieved a text saying.. " thank you for cleaning my windows so quickly, how will i pay you ".... i rang her saying i have not done them yet... will be thursday as agreed.... she had a note saying your windows have been cleaned today..... i said not me.... she explained the name was the same as mine... only mine is my initials only... wheres as the guy who left the note... had the same words but mean two seperate names.... like... A & M... etc....

what a coincidence...! but is that what some w/c,s do?

clean any windows and drop a note hoping and hoping that they will get paid , and hoping they dont have a w/c?.

personally i find it low level and underhand....

anyway the lady will not pay the guy and has told me to call next month and take it from there,
but i still lost out on my first clean and a payment this month !

Gary.

[SherwoodCleaningSe]

You lost out on the chore of cleaning her windows for the first time.  Next month they will be easy in comparison to what this guy has done.  Keep her sweet and she may be a good customer for years to come.

Simon.

[M & C Window Cleaning]

Many years ago I had a guy try to take over one of my rounds while I was on holiday. He told my customers I'd packed up and he was taking over. I couldn't believe that virtually all my customers fell for it. He'd obviously been folowing me and made a record of all my customers. Only trouble was he didn't know my prices and he overpriced them. When I got back from my hols I had some serious dammage control to do as he'd lost a lot of my customers for me and they somehow thought I'd put him up to it. Don't ask me how.
On other occasions over the years I've had odd chaps turn up claiming to work for 'The other window cleaner,' cleaned one of my customer's houses, collected the money and never been seen again. I can only imagine the're travellers or something.
On another occasion someone used my good reputation to try and gain entry to a couple my elderly customers homes, I can only imagine for no good purpose. Fortunately the customers involved had their wits about them and called the police. What worried me was these characters knew my name.

[East coast window cleaning Services]

I had this a little while back guy must have been watching me and went back 2 days later and collected my money that was owed and the wally paid them? i never collect money of a evening i just roll it over to the next month or they send a chq.

[Trevor Knight]

It saddens me to see the lengths some people will go to, to decieve customers and  the window cleaner who is working his round.

If they spent as much time building up thier own round instead of trying to poach other window cleaners customers it would be a better industry.

Its people like that who get this industry a bad reputation and something that legitimate, hard working, honest and decent people have to deal with.

Its times like this when I hear stories like this I believe Licencing would be better for us all!

[mark dew]

Fair play to you for being honest in such sneaky circumstances.
I would like to have taken the money (told the customer that the other cleaner was working for me) and to tell other wc she has paid me directly.
Any problems, pass on my number.
The next clean i would do for nothing as i had already been paid.

[Helen]

Trevor, I Quite agree. Just recently had a longstanding customer mail us to say they had been approached by a new wc in that area. Asked her the price and promptly knocked off £5.00 without even looking at the place! Hence to say the customer said no thanks and let us know straight away. Because this is a vast area many wc's have set up good rounds and we all bump into each other at times and we all compare prices and within pence we all charge the same. We never tout each other's business as you don't know when you may just need help from them! Why can't all new Wc's think about this and research the areas they want to work on and speak to set up WC's Works good in all ways then, the prices stay about the same so as long as you do a good job, you should not lose customers and also for the new wc's they would find out about awkward, bad payers that sort of thing. 

[geefree]

Thanks for all your supportive replies,

I know the summer guys are out early this year but i certainly did not expect that,.... chancers? it must be damn hard work for them to clean for nothing in some cases, and they certainly dont care whos work they pinch.... i find it disgusting that people have to resort to that to buid a decent round.

Gary.

[Trevor Knight]

Thats the funny thing about it though Gazza. They haven't build a decent round at all. They have managed to undercut and whatever other means to get a load of houses that are now being cleaned for next to nothing!

This is why in a few months when the weather starts changing they will dissapear and the customers are left high a dry with yet another bad taste in their mouths about the window cleaning heree today gone tomorrow.

Yes I agree they shouldn't have changed companies and that was their fault but whichever way we look at it the Industry is the real loser!