[Jeff Brimble]

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

[Alex Gardiner]

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.

[Captain Scarlet]

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

[dai]

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

[WCE]

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   

[Wayne Thomas]

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.

[Jeff Brimble]

Two sides to every coin 

[NWH]

I can`t get the link can someone tell me what all this is about please.

[WCE]

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!     

[s.w.c]

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

[jeff1]

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.

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

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.

[Captain Scarlet]

Whatever the situation , Duke has lost work, and I pressume he has a family so its still not nice, Luke

[jeff1]

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

[Captain Scarlet]

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

[jeff1]

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?

[Grafters Cleaning Services]

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 

[jeff1]

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.

[matt]

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

[frames to panes]

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