[gwrightson]

I was asked a few weeks ago by a potential custy, could I come and give her a price for a couple of chairs cleaning, two bedrooms and the landing, this was for an insurance company.
Apparently she was claiming for these to be cleaned after work men had been in doing work from the floods last year.
No problem regarding her claim, insurance just required a quote. All said and done I furnished her with a printed quote for £200.
A couple of weeks later I had the ins comp. phone me to verify the amount has she had copied the quote and they wanted to be sure the amount was indeed £200 as slightly smudged. Yes £200 i said.
Thats great, I was told We will forward the amount immeadiatly to Mrs  so &so  and authorise the work to be carried out.
Now the bit that P****s me off    
As this was around 2 months ago , Do you reckon she has pocketed? and not bothering,
What would you do?
Geoff

[Joe H]

She may be pocketing the £200 and hired a rug doctor 
or
she got more them your quote, you were the highest so she submitted yours to the Ins Co, then gone for a cheaper quote (pocketing the difference.
or
she has just "forgot" and having it done nearer Crimbo.
or
the Ins Co has backtracked and not paying (unlikely by the sound of it)

I would give her a call metioning your conversation with the Ins Co, suggest if she wants it done soon she books now cause your diary is filling up.
If that doesnt work I would send her a bill for you going out doing inspection and report for the insurance (say £50).

[clinton]

Good point joe with she has done it herself

I usually give an insurance quote on a receipt saying its just a quote as me too had that many years ago so would not waste time printing the quote out..

Also with xmas coming up the money to clean the furniture might be way down the list

[John Kelly]

Geoff this happens all the time. Nobody should give an insurance quote free of charge. Always charge a fee for your time. You can always knock it off the job price if you do actually get it. This is why most insurance companies use the likes of Chem Dry or Rainbow. At least when a customer requests something they know it is going to get done and the punter is not just going to pocket the money.

Once she got that cheque for 200 quid she probably decided that it wasn't that bad after all and went out and bought a new hat.

Give her a ring and tell her the insurance comapny had rang you wanting to know if and when you carried out the work as they want to sign the job off. That will put the poops up her. Always works.

[gwrightson]

I was thinking along them lines John

and a point been mentioned, they really wasnt bad , infact they were decent .
My guess , thinking about it  she was just after the cash

geoff

[Russell Morgan]

contact the insurance company and tell them!

[Jim_77]

Forget about it.

It's the insurance company's fault but they don't care, that sort of money they lose down the back of the sofa on a daily basis.

They should pay the firm doing the work if they're that bothered, but think of it this way.  200 quid is a piddly little amount, if they had had to take on the admin for dealing with a trade to rectify this, they'd have paid their own staff and consumed their own resources and added even more cost on to the 200.

If they can write a cheque for such a tiny amount and forget about the job (i.e avoid paying thousands to replace those items) they consider it money well spent, they don't give a monkey's who's got the cash!

I'd still phone her and put the s**ts up her as suggested above, just for a laugh

[Mike Halliday]

ring her up and thank her for teaching you a valuable lesson, because of her this won't happen to you again

[Russell Morgan]

ring her up and tell her shes commited fruad, and go round in a suit saying your from the fruad office, take a few of her belongings and tell her shes lucky your not going to arrest her

[Ken Wainwright]

For insurance work, I will never give a quotation. Instead I will submit a Report with costings for remedial work.

I have found that by wording this way, it is more acceptable to the prospect and justifys your charge for the work. I normally charge £50 for this.

As for madam not commisioning the work after receiving payment, my view is that she suffered some loss  from the workmens activities to the value of £200. She chose to accept the payment as compensation rather than use it for rectification. It's a real world, get over it.

Safe and happy cleaning
ken

[Dave_Lee]

Its even worse when, when youve done the job (because it was an emergency at the time) then they dont pay you even though they have received payment from the insurance company. This happened to me twice many years ago, and the County Court system and its bailiffs were useless, even though going down that route cost me more money.
Dave.

[PaulKing]

i like both of JK's and MH ideas eithers good please do one or the other and let us know how it goes

[gwrightson]

Well , just happened to be passing by this morning...  ;)so I stopped at address, knocked on door and hubby came to the door. Here is a run down of the conversation

Hello, I came to survey your chairs and carpets a number of weeks ago as your wife had asked me to give her a quote for you insurance comp.

"My wife isnt in at the moment"

Well its just that the ins.comp. rang me a number of weeks ago regarding your claim and to confirm the price quoted, and they were going to forward the money to you so the work could be carried out.

" Right , Yes , erm my wife is dealing with this as I am always at work and today is my first day off, she will be in later this afternoon "

No problem, Its just that they rang me again yesterday to find see if the work had been completed and could they sign it off.   ( good suggestion from John )

"Ok , I tell the wife "

Thank you, I will phone her later.

Now, I,m not a detective but he did look a little worried, any way I am about to go phone now, didnt want to phone to soon, keep them waiting.

Ken, 
I have nothing to get over
not worried about £200  , just the niggle of my efforts, when likely I was just been used.

geoff

[kinder clean]

Nice one Geoff, be very interested to hear the outcome.

P.S. You have mail

Paul

[gwrightson]

...........and the lady of the house answers the phone, a quick coversation regarding this morning , and she said . " yes we have been paid, but we were going to have the bedrooms decorated but havnt got round to it yet"  plausable  , but not likely , me thinks

Never mind, I will give you a call in a couple of weeks, it will give you time to have them decorated and then I can book you in,
I will let your insurance comp. know of the situation

Ok then. bye.

Geoff

[clinton]

Well done for doing that

[Jim_77]

lol very amusing

[richie]

Hi,

I have been asked many times over the years to quote for cleaning of carpets & upholstery.  Each & every time i have informed the homeowner that i would charge for the quote and go on to tell them that they can get the sum back from the insurance company.  I charge £45.00 for the quote and inform the insurance company that this amount would be deducted from the final invoice amount if the work is carried out by myself.

Richie.