A legal question.

[joe-90]

Okay guys, give me your opinion on this stupid mess GFs daughter is in.
She works full time in the film industry on the admin side.
She uses Hotmail so she can access her emails on her blackberry.
Over the years she racked up a silly total of 70,000 emails which she stupidly left in her inbox until it was full and no-longer worked. You and I would simply delete the old ones but not her.
She employed a Microsoft accredited IT person to sort it for her.
This person said " No problem, should take 2 to 3 hours and I charge by the hour."
The next thing she knows she gets an email saying it took 19 hours and the bill is £1000.
Somewhere along the way the IT person said it would take longer than 3 hours but didn't specify with a further estimate.
My thoughts are that there is no written quote, just a verbal estimate that ended up being a quarter of the final bill.
She is now threatening court action at the small claims court against the daughter.
Personally I think it's a bluff. I'd offer her the money she agreed plus an extra £100 for extra time, but that's it. Take it or leave it and see you in court. What do you think she should do? Personally I reckon she deserves a £1000 fine for being stupid, but what do you make of it?

 

[JBR]

Stuff her.

The IT 'expert', that is, not your GF's daughter!

 

[JohnD]

When the price for a service is not agreed in advance, the supplier can charge a reasonable amount.

If the supplier thinks they can persuade a court that £1,000 to clean up a hotmail inbox is a reasonable amount, they could take her to court.

IMO it is very improbable.

imagine agreeing to replaster a bathroom ceiling, and then sticking the punter with a huge bill and saying it took longer than you expected.

 

[joe-90]

Well that's what I thought John. How any professional could justify spending 19 hours deleting a few emails is beyond me and I'd imagine the judge too. I'm not saying that it doesn't serve her right but she's since had 3 fixed quotes around the £250 mark. I say go to court.

 

[Deleted member 63160]

I'd write a letter (signed for) stating that I am prepared to pay the original estimated highest cost (£150 ish?) plus an extra £75.00 without prejudice for her trouble.
Make it clear you will go through every court in the land if necessary. Include a cheque for that amount, pointing out clearly it's in full and final settlement, and hope she cashes it. If it does go further you will be seen as being more than reasonable and fair. More to the point you will have been.

 

[joe-90]

I like the sound of that.

 

[misterhelpful]

The issue I see isn't the bill but what exactly the IT person had to do.

You say that your GF's daughter (GFD) had 70,000 emails but didn't delete any of them and also that the email would no longer work. The hardest task I see is getting the account to work again because, once you are into your hotmail account, all you need to do is right click on 'Inbox' and select 'Empty Folder' to delete everything in the inbox - I've deleted 10,000+ in the blink of an eye.
This suggests that maybe your GFD had emails that she wanted to keep, which would take a whole lot more searching through keywords and senders, and possibly the need to go through hundreds, or even thousands, of individual emails. If this was the case then I'm sure it would take a lot longer than 2-3 hours and, as your GFD didn't want/know how to do it, paying someone was her choice. If the estimated time was communicated as longer than 3 hours, did your GFD just give the go-ahead? If so, she has set herself up with the problem she now has, whereas if she was told an accurate number of hours the task would take, which was still underestimated by the IT person, it is their own fault.

I imagine a court outcome would depend on whether the IT person can prove what she actually had to do and just how long it would take to sort through a certain number of individual emails, and whether GFD just gave the go-ahead.

Hopefully, an offer like the one mentioned by JohnD will give her the outcome she wants but, if the IT person really did need to spend all that time sorting through it, and really is a person capable of doing such a task at a professional level, who can argue that she shouldn't get paid for her time and effort?

 

[joe-90]

Yes but the original estimate was around £250 - £300. You can't have a contract that is that vague that it can come in at £1000 and 19 hours without her getting on the phone and asking does she really want to spend that on old emails? She ended up going to a new ISP and opening a new email with a bigger box. The others seem to be redundant. If there is no contract then it comes down to reasonability based on their agreement. Doesn't it? As JohnD said, tidying up a Hotmail account isn't a big job.

 

[joe-90]

It's akin to a tarmac scammer saying they'll fill a few pot holes for £250 then saying it took a bit longer so that's £1000.

 

[misterhelpful]

True, and I wouldn't want to pay a grand just for someone to delete my emails, although if they could stop the half dozen 'ViagrCiali@' junk emails I get daily I would reconsider!!!! It just boils down to what/whether the specified time was re-estimated as, I suppose.

(BTW, the junk emails I just mentioned started arriving after after buying some Eurax cream to be sent here from an online pharmacy in the UK. Honest! )

 

[securespark]

Well that's what I thought John. How any professional could justify spending 19 hours deleting a few emails is beyond me and I'd imagine the judge too. I'm not saying that it doesn't serve her right but she's since had 3 fixed quotes around the £250 mark. I say go to court.

If you believe that, call their bluff and threaten them with court proceedings unless the bill is reduced. I would not give more than 5 hours.

 

[mattylad]

In order to clean up her inbox they would need to have access to it all, i.e. her password etc.

Probably best to get in there and change password and download all her mail now... no not later - now....

 

[TheVictorian]

If it goes to court look at appointing an independant expert witness to confirm that the time taken and cost is unreasonable. Deleting emails in bulk in hotmail is incredibly easy if you know how and takes minutes not hours, this is on the assumtion that you can get into the account.

I'd want to know more about the email account 'having stopped working' before being able to pass more comments on this.

I have previously acted as an expert witness on multiple occasions for IT related cases in the small claims court.

 

[Bosswhite]

One can try and call IT persons bluff, but I have the feeling that if it went to Court the IT person could claim their end price was correct.

Did the GFs daughter give the person Carte Blanche to carry on with the work once they were told it would exceed the original estimate or did they say there was a limit to what they would expect to pay and more importantly was it in writing ?

Regardless of other estimates, what the original IT Person charges for their work expertise is up to them and I cannot see how a Judge can dictate what a person will charge for work carried out, the Judge is not an IT Expert

Good luck on this one.

 

[JohnD]

if it went to court, the question would be, is the charge reasonable?

the judge would need to be shown evidence that it was/wasn't by the two sides.

that's why we have "expert witnesses"