Cowboy Builders but what about the cowboy customers.

[cuttsie]

Well we have all seen the T.V. programmes about the Cowboy Builders, etc,

And good luck to these programs that expose those rip off merchants they do us all a great service.

 

But! It got me thinking while sat in the tap room the other day what about the Cowboy customers , you know the ones that you do a job for and then decide for whatever reason they are not going to pay.

 

This has happened to me personally on a few occasions in the past,one example was a bloke at Rotherham who we built a garage for and when finished we knocked on the door for our wages he asked to call back later as he would need to go to the bank,

Every time we called there was never any one in, the phone was always off hook ,and we realised we had been done ,so three of us had worked a full week for nothing , the guys neighbours just shrugged there shoulders when we asked about the situation so we had to take our own retribution and put it down to experience.

Another occasion that i remember was when the old Sheffield grant scheme was running in the early seventies which enabled people to convert part of there usualy Terrace House so as they had a bathroom and indoor toilet,

Well a mate of mine who was a one man band did a job on Cross Lane at Crookes and when he had finished the building inspector passed the job and arranged the release of the grant money to the house owner who then bought a car with the money and told my pal to bugger off.

My pal was extremely upset at this and waited until the guy [and wife] was out and trashed all the soil pipes and drains and windows etc that he had fitted and not been paid for and had in fact skint him.

He was arrested for trespass and criminal damage fined and told to pay for the damage to the property.

I can think of many tradesmen who have been ripped of in similar circumstances but the media always seems to go looking for the rogue builders plumbers,mechanics etc and so they should, but at the same time ignore the Cowboy Customers of who there must be millions out there.

[Tradescanthia]

I was in business for 14 years, closed it 7 years ago and am still owed money. People can be complete cretins sometimes. Some of 'em are better off than I am. [by not paying for anything presumably]

[maccamac]

There was a program about rip off merchants on a couple of years ago. I think he was a builder if i remember rightly and he was interviewing all the builder who had been done over. Its right heart sinking when you get done over, i have just been done over at the beginging of the year for about £2000 of mitchel and irwin the brick barrons for keepmoat homes, they said our work needed to be took down but couldnt give a reason why so when we went up a few weeks later it had just been built on, not one singel brick had been took down. they are apparnetly well know for doing this.

[0742Sheff]

Been ripped off a few times in the past. Mostly just wages but there little you can do aside from going over and pulling someones face off. The worst one was when our times sheets never made it to head office. Not normally a problem as we would just send duplicate ones in but this time the foreman decided to say we hadn't even been there.

[cuttsie]

There was a program about rip off merchants on a couple of years ago. I think he was a builder if i remember rightly and he was interviewing all the builder who had been done over. Its right heart sinking when you get done over, i have just been done over at the beginging of the year for about £2000 of mitchel and irwin the brick barrons for keepmoat homes, they said our work needed to be took down but couldnt give a reason why so when we went up a few weeks later it had just been built on, not one singel brick had been took down. they are apparnetly well know for doing this.

 

If so buddy, lets hope that what goes round comes round.

[maccamac]

If so buddy, lets hope that what goes round comes round.

 

Well the brick barron that subbied to them has just got 3years for tax fiddeling so silver lining an all that