[Jon-scwindows]

recently i started in this business and it has been going well so far, except for a few things ...

i bought a round from this guy on ebay, 60 customers - relatively near to me..

i think hes ripped me off a bit by dumping his crappy customers on me, or inventing 'new customers' which do not really exist- silly man.

so i got all the equipment etc la la and have been doing this round for the first time, all has been well except for around 15 of the customers
i still have 25 ish new cleans to do this week, and have done around 20 -

the first twenty have been relatively good customers, happy for me to carry on, and paid me there and then or by post- (leaving prepaid self addressed envelopes)
i have 3 customers that i have cleaned and have not paid yet ( i left the envelope) but no payment yet, but it hasnt been a week so these could still come.

What really irritates me is the 15 or so customer that really didnt exist.
ive called and theyve said:
recently moved in allready have a wc
cancelled saying they didnt want a window cleaner
cancelled- (rang me up saying the last guy whomb i bought the round off did a crap job/ didnt allways turn up and couldnt get in contact with)
cancelled over a year ago!
havent had him for ages allready have someone else
emailed me saying they didnt want a wc
not happy-didnt want a wc
hasnt been for ages - so got someone else
and the only excusable one is some elderly people who now have social services looking after them so no chance of anything out of them.

I asked the guy i bought the round off to introduce me, but he said he will post leaflets to everyone with my details explaining changeover.
Turns out he didnt bother and no one had any idea of this when i called, except for the letters i sent out to everyone.

i thought it was fair paying him a 1 off of £400 for a monthly round supposedly earning £590  monthly. so far excluding the customer i havent done (and still dont know if they are going to cancel or accept)
i am probably only going to get 40 customers from the 60 and earn around £300 monthly.

he was helpful to start but after he had my cheque, the emails slowed down and now have stopped after i have said i want replacement customers to make up for the ones that dont exist... or a partial refund. Now he has stopped responding completely- typical.

i guess it really backs up that its only worth buying a round if they introduce you to all the customers first. Otherwise i have found it a complete waste of my efforts and money. Im sure i can easily find more customers, and build up a more compact round from the few remaining customer from the '60' that i was expecting.

offcourse i can still leave him nasty feedback but i doubt it will change much- i would expect a partial refund though. I know exactly where this bloke lives.  I would never sell a round unless i knew everyone of them was happy to have someone else, everyone was a good payer etc..                       but many of these houses are close together and then theres on offs spread out dotted around.
He has sold me about 5 customers in his road where he lives! and when i went to clean them ( he said they were all overdue for cleaning) the first lady said - the guy had recently been about two weeks ago! and the next house right next door to where he lives a bloke said- oh no hes allready done them not long ago the other day...
i emailed him what the flipping damn is going on, but no response offcourse.

anyway il see what comes of this by the end of the week.
It has been going good with the WFP method, ive been enjoying it kind of- i have all the equipment i need. I feel some of the properties are a little underpriced, but im happy to keep these.

Ive found over a few days you really speed up with the wfp ing - i have been doing wfp tops and sometimes traditional downstairs, to save some water unless its leaded windows.

One mistake i made was when posting the payment slips - if people are out is not to say ' make payable to ...' my name - instead they have written the business name- so now i have to open a business account with my bank.  And some of them didnt write their address on the back!- now i have changed this so that they know.

what i have been doing is using normal envelopes - printing them out with my home address and has the business name printed on the top- and i just use first class stamps- and recycle the envelopes as they are posted back to me - that way all they have to do is post a cheque.

Some of them havent been home though- and as i havent called the first time- or met them- then i dont know whether they even want a window cleaner... any ideas what to do? im going to try and catch them in this week.

i have gained three good new customers just by working in their road.

I need to get a van soon, but i have just been posting flyers closer to home.

initially its been horrible starting up - but now ive got going its getting better and the bucks are flowing in.
ive read of others having problems buying rounds, so i know i have made a bit of a mistake but its not my doing - this guy has really messed things up a bit for me.

im sure it will get better now anyway.

has anyone else whos starting up had similar problems?

[cvdewsbury]

forgive me for not reading all of your thread but £3oo of work for an outlay of £400 don,t seem a bad price to me ...next time get the seller to knock on the doors and introduce the customer to you

[colley614]

Hi mate,

I'm at the end of my first 12 months trading and I've found the problem is you tend to take your foot off the accelerator with advertising now and again then kick yourself for doing it. What I did was get a load of leaflets printed and left them in a place were I know the wife will get annoyed with them and get on at me to get rid, that worked!

With regards to the work you've bought. I doubt you will get anything sorted as the guy sounds a bit of a snide. I would just class it as a lesson learned. " Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.." sort of thing.

 

[Moderator David@stives]

£400 for £300 is not bad at all , just see it as giving you a good start into the business, if it was a well cared for round it would have been worht anywhere between £800- £1600 if it had produced the full £400 a month.

Dont worry about the ones who have paid yet, you will always get that on any round, I am owed £3000 just off domestics, i know i will get it all eventually.

Dave

[Jon-scwindows]

yes - i agree its not bad - but its not what was described in the ebay listing- he said 60 customers paying total of £590 per month, i bought it for £400 or so and all im getting is about 40 customers and around £300- because of his lies.
the thing that annoys me is that many of the customers he gave me a list of and said they are all due when some of them he hadnt done for over a year, and some of them had never even had him, its like he just picked a random address and sold it to me as a customer.

dave how long have you been owed the total of £3000 ?
are you chasing it up?

[windowwashers]

yes - i agree its not bad - but its not what was described in the ebay listing- he said 60 customers paying total of £590 per month, i bought it for £400 or so and all im getting is about 40 customers and around £300- because of his lies.
the thing that annoys me is that many of the customers he gave me a list of and said they are all due when some of them he hadnt done for over a year, and some of them had never even had him, its like he just picked a random address and sold it to me as a customer.

dave how long have you been owed the total of £3000 ?
are you chasing it up?

When did you buy it and how did you pay?

[Jon-scwindows]

about a month ago - paid by cheque-  should have paid by paypal then i could follow it up.

[windowwashers]

about a month ago - paid by cheque-  should have paid by paypal then i could follow it up.

if it was less than I think 90 days you can claim money back from ebay, look straight into it, but as dave said at that price you got a good deal anyway.

[Moderator David@stives]

Jonrob

As one person pays of there bill , theres normally someone else who goes a couple of months, so it is like a revolving door ,so to speak.

None of these debts are currently no older than 5 months old.

I dont panic about payment , i just give my customers a bit of slack and get it all in the end.

I am owed about the same amount for commercial work, each business gets an invoice at the end of the month and some take 3-4 months to pay, most are paid befroe the next invoice is due.

Dave

[paulstevens]

Hi Jonrob sorry to hear about you misfortune what is the ebay item number so we can all have a look
and tell you what we think?
Paul

[johnny_h]

the same thing happened to me not really ripped off but a few really dodgy customers my advice would be get onto the streets let them see how good your work is and always be regular i doubled my round in 10 months

[L.J.Thorpe]

stop putting stamps on the payment envelopes too late for existing customers maybe but dont do it for new ones ,bt dont pay postage on envs nor british gas so why should you also dont stress about unpaid bills too much in 3 yrs i have only had one customer get awaywith not paying and it was only 12 quid most will pay ok but drop any who pee you about more than 3 times not worth hassle. Dave morris mentions its like revolving door and this is spot on you just have to get used to it all usually works out in the end.Also one more thing open to any replies everyone is saying that 400 quid for 300 worth of work is good value what is going rate these days 3 yrs ago i bought nearly 1000 worth for 750 that was 500+ at 500quid and another 450 or so for 250 quid becayse bloke wanted shot quickly and in hindsight some of it was pretty crap and well spread out does price vary in other parts of country ?

[matt]

its been said before

400 quid for 300 quids work is a good enough deal, some charge 2 or 3 X the amound of the work, thus 300 quid could have been worth 900 quid to buy

i have purchased a fair % of my work, 1 of the guys i had it off had a few rouge customers on the list ( a few had cancelled him months before i took over, but he just copied all the address from his book ) its not on, but the payment you make is only a goodwill payment for the work

next time you do your round, tap on the doors either side of the houses, ask them if the need a WC'er, you will soon build you the round

[bluez]

I haven't bought a round ever so I am only giving my tupence worth from the sidelines, if you bought my round from me( not for sale ) I am fairly certain that there would be a fallout of some description from the custys. Those that didn't like the look of you tell you whatever they feel like to get shot of you, those that couldn't bring them =selves to get rid of me because I was doing them for so long get a chance to get out of it without losing face or feeling cheap, and then there are the ones that I didnt do well last time or they think I didnt do well last time and of course theres the fairly good chance that if I am selling it that it has not been as well looked after since I made the decision to get out of the business.  I also think that the seller may think that he is genuine even when there are issues and he is probably telling everyone over on the "I used to be a w/c website" that he sold his round to a fella who has made a mess of it and lost half the custys in a month. ha ha Not a dig only joking.

[windowwashers]

Dont go down the self addressed envelope route, IMO this is and expense that has no need, as said before somewhere on this post BT dont do it, I defo dont do it why waste money, charge a late fee if they do not pay on time works well for us, and also most other companies

[matt]

Dont go down the self addressed envelope route, IMO this is and expense that has no need, as said before somewhere on this post BT dont do it, I defo dont do it why waste money, charge a late fee if they do not pay on time works well for us, and also most other companies

i dont often agree with you, BUT your right on the SAE , why waste your money, let them pay for the stamp

a simple "chit" saying :

your windows were cleaned today

amount outstanding ...........

please send a cheque to : ME

thanks

works for me

[Kwackers]

Like people of been saying, you got a bargain.

Minimum i'd expect to pay is £600 for that round.

I brought £245 of work monthly, all needs side access so the first day i worked it to £182.50, due to people not in, also one £20 house was a 40 minute trip so left it out, i paid £440

I thought that was a fairly good deal.

[macmac]

Dont go down the self addressed envelope route, IMO this is and expense that has no need, as said before somewhere on this post BT dont do it, I defo dont do it why waste money, charge a late fee if they do not pay on time works well for us, and also most other companies

i dont often agree with you, BUT your right on the SAE , why waste your money, let them pay for the stamp

a simple "chit" saying :

your windows were cleaned today

amount outstanding ...........

please send a cheque to : ME

thanks

works for me

Agree with that one too.

tony

[supernova77]

Paying £400 for £300 worth of work might be a good deal but you guys are all missing the point here!

Jonrob paid out £400 for £590 worth of work, but has been swindled! 

Andy

[windowwashers]

Dont go down the self addressed envelope route, IMO this is and expense that has no need, as said before somewhere on this post BT dont do it, I defo dont do it why waste money, charge a late fee if they do not pay on time works well for us, and also most other companies

i dont often agree with you, BUT your right on the SAE , why waste your money, let them pay for the stamp

a simple "chit" saying :

your windows were cleaned today

amount outstanding ...........

please send a cheque to : ME

thanks

works for me

New you would come to agree with me in the end Matt 

Andy I agree with you hence my earlier post.