Con artist's

[SUNRAY]

Wednesday my 98 year old F-I-L reported his kitchen 4ft fluo light not striking to the sheltered scheme manager. Head office sent in their electrician (I think a local contractor) Thursday.

£85 call out charge found the fitting had failed and quoted £39 for LED fitting and £125 labour +VAT for next Wednesday. Leaving the internal kitchen with no light for nearly a week. I purchased starter and tube from Screwfix on the way there Friday morning, changed both and looks as good as it did new 2 years ago.

It's one thing conning the customer but leaving an elderly person with no kitchen light??

 

[ericmark]

Oh that is a surprise, I thought old magnetic ballasts had been discontinued. And I can see why, as tubes last a lot longer with electronic ballast, however those prices are silly, I know with my Mother in Wales anyone considered as vulnerable were looked after by care & repair and most the stuff they did was free. And that is with owner occupied home. We have also had hand rails fitted etc. Think now a new system called Nyth which is Welsh for Nest. Again in the main free. Also at that age likely he would have been in the forces at some time, and there is a ex forces scheme to help them. I remember them sending some one to fix the central heating one time.

 

[sparkwright]

Yes, it's shocking what goes on with the elderly and contractors.

At least the electrician was local - often it now seems to be the norm for sheltered housing groups and the like to use large contracting companies from 50 miles away.

Quite why a local electrician failed to see the urgency of getting the light working immediately is baffling.

If he decided to replace the whole fitting (totally unnecessary) why did he not just fit a pendant for now - he must have had something like that in his van.

Or just buy what you need.

Useless call out service, as you say - a rip off.

 

[dannyboi2003]

Sadly becoming all too common and they probably sleep better at night than I do. Shame on them!

 

[johnny2007]

100 lashes in a public square would prevent any repetition of this disgraceful fraud.

 

[securespark]

Then we're just as bad as they are.

 

[SUNRAY]

Bearing in mind the tenants are responsible for bulbs in all pendants but not the 4ft fluo in kitchen and 2D in bathroom, I sent an email to the warder manager explaining my repair.

At 03:37 Saturday I received a reply, so I suspect from HQ rather than the local manager and I quote:
...under electrical regulations, kitchen and bathroom are classed as special locations. As such all repairs may only be completed by fully trained and qualified electrical engineers...

...interests of economy our current policy regarding lighting... replace with low energy LED systems...

I'd estimate the kitchen light is in use for about 1 hour per day so my rough calculation is 0.04KWhx400daysx£0.2=£3 or 90 years to recoup the cost.

Or put it another way: 48 properties @2x £280= £27K. The problem is these costs are simply passed on the the tenants in the annual rent rise.

 

[Sureitsoff?]

name and shame the housing scheme so that others dont also get taken in

 

[SUNRAY]

name and shame the housing scheme so that others dont also get taken in

I may do later, after speaking on tuesday.

 

[winston1]

Have you paid the £85 call out fee? I so I would be asking for it back as false information (fitting had failed) was given with possible intent to defraud. Tell them you want a refund within 30 days or you will issue proceedings in the county court. If they don't cough up it do it.

 

[JohnW2]

Have you paid the £85 call out fee? I so I would be asking for it back as false information (fitting had failed) was given with possible intent to defraud. Tell them you want a refund within 30 days or you will issue proceedings in the county court. If they don't cough up it do it.

Reasonable sentiments but, as I understand what we've been told, it is neither SUNRAY nor his F-I-L who will be paying (or not paying) the call-out fee but, rather, the landlord ('the sheltered scheme') - and they probably don't care an iota what they pay, or for what, since, as SUNRAY said, they will merely increase rents accordingly to recoup all of their outgoings.

 

[SpecialK]

A con artist? Its probably a set price no matter how old the customer is, the prices are probably agreed on the contract well before they do any work.
Doubt they had a 4ft lamp and starter on the van and probably couldn't get the parts authorised as the policy is to upgrade to LED.
Not good they left them with no light - There should be a better solution to this in their policy....

 

[scousespark]

Sunray's posts leave me bemused. They invariably start with some edge-case issue and end with 'Sunray saved the day'

I just googled sunset/sunrise time in Kent. It showed 06:20 and 19:40. I would expect that outside these times there would be light from other rooms to give some level of illumination in the kitchen. It would also be a realistic assumption that your FIL (at 98) would be less active between sunset and sunrise.

As for costs, there was an earlier post stating this would be contractual. I am surprised that the property owner and electrical contractors are so open to give their financial details to the relative of one of their tenants.

Sunray had no authorisation to carry out electrical work and confirmed in one post that this was written in the tenancy agreement.

 

[bernardgreen]

sheltered scheme manager.

A sheltered home implies that as far as is possible the tenants/occupiers have a home that is safe to live in.
.

I would expect that outside these times there would be light from other rooms to give some level of illumination in the kitchen.

Some low " level of illumination " may be adequate for a young person but many elderly people with failing vision require higher levels of illumination to move around safely.

If as the manager claimed there was policy to fit LED lights then a well run organisation would ( should ) have a stock of LED lamps to enable immediate restoration of lighting.

As for Sunray repairing the lamp, I totally agree with him taking the necessary action to remove the hazard of no safe level of light in the kitchen

 

[winston1]

Sunray had no authorisation to carry out electrical work and confirmed in one post that this was written in the tenancy agreement.

I don't regard replacing a "consumable" such as a florescent tube electrical work.
I don't think he had seen the tenancy agreement when he replaced the "consumable", but it said, "As such all repairs may only be completed by fully trained and qualified electrical engineers...", which I assume he is.