Contractor A did the siding on the house and also installed windows and a door. That part went well.

Earlier this summer, we had the water pump go bad in the well and contractor A called Contractor B on our behalf. B came on site, looked at the water pump (which is located about 1/2 mile from the house, where the spring is), messed with it, and it worked. For about half a day. Then it stopped working. It became obvious the pump was bad, must have burned out after loosing prime.

At that point, we decided not to invest any more money in that well (a very old shallow spring actually) by buying another jet pump and then having it installed, $300-400 project at best. So we dug a real well. That cost quite a bit over, $3,000. But we got really good water.

Then we got a bill from contractor B saying we owe them $180. We basically ignored that bill for a few months because it didn't seem to make sense, nothing was done and we didn't understand what they were billing us for. They sent a few more bills.

Then contractor A calls, the guy whose people did the siding on the house. He said he gave contractor B his word that he would get paid. He said if we don't pay B, he will have to. I explained to him that we are not going to pay this bill because no services were performed, we were still without water when they stopped messing with the pump. He got angry and belligerent and started to threaten me. He said that my mother who paid him for the siding/windows job (about $30K total - pretty expensive here in the country and one of the poorer parts of the state), still owes him a few thousand, and if we don't pay, he wants that balance immediately. Then he said he would put a lien on the house. Then he got even more angry, told me I was "talking ADMIN NOTE: Do NOT by-pass the language filters." and said he would come back to the house and repossess the windows and the door he installed. But he said if we pay contractor B, he will forget that debt. (which makes me wonder how real that is). He also said he would sue us, that if we don't pay, it will end up costing us 10 times as much, etc.

I called up my mother who paid contractor A, and explained this to her, and she confirmed that she owned him a few thousand, but then said not all work has been completed. She is really flaky and cannot be relied upon to tell the truth so I don't really know the facts of the matter.

Anyway, she told me that she wanted me to pay Contractor B on her behalf, so I will do that per her wishes but if this was my call, I wouldn't do it. It strikes me as completely ridiculous to charge someone on the basis of "effort" and not results. Effort didn't get me water, which was the urgent issue. After this guy didn't fix the pump, we went 10 days without water while the well was being dug and it was a nightmare.

It is like this, if you take your truck/car to a mechanic, they mess with it for half a day, charge you $180 but whatever problem you took it in for hasn't been resolved, it is still broken and you get nothing for this money.

Or is this some new trend in the world that I missed?

That's how I feel, in addition to thinking that both A and B, who have known each other for a long time, are complete scumbags and B was just referenced for more business, not for our benefit. I've dealt with B a few years ago, when he came here to turn on the water pump and that entailed priming it and hitting a couple of switches - since then I learned how to do that, but at the time I didn't know and was clueless and urgently needed water. Charged me $200 to do that, which may be OK in a big city, but not here in the middle of nowhere.

 

I have found that all contractors, plumbers, HVAC companies, etc. will assess a service charge to you, regardless of the outcome. Normally, however, one expects to be informed of such charges before work commences, not after the guy leaves! I've been on both ends of the chopping block myself, having to pay repairmen, plumbers, etc. for their service charges. I've also performed services for others where I told them the job might only take 15 minutes, but you're still getting a $100 service charge + parts costs because I have to drag myself all the way over to where you are. Hey, my time is valuable -- if I have to spend it driving around, I better be getting paid for it. Not to mention fuel costs, truck, insurance, oil changes... you get the picture.

I had a problem with a well pump at our vacation house in the country, and whipped out the yellow pages. One of the gentlemen I reached was kind enough to tell me that the symptoms I described sounded like a job he could not handle (pump fried, needed replacement, and the well was rather deep, needing specialized equipment to retrieve the pump). He said that he would come out and take a look, but would have to hit me with a $150 charge regardless of weather he can fix it or not. He further suggested that I call the one company in the area that can handle installing new pumps, and not continue trying to reach other "small time" guys like him because I would be wasting my money on them. Now that was a nice guy, very professional, and I bet the fact that it was 10:00 PM on a Friday night influenced him to not want to leave his comfy home. I tell you this because it parallels your story (middle of the nowhere town, no water).

Your biggest mistake was ignoring the bill. Had you called the contractor immediately and spoken to him about the fee, you could probably have worked something out -- at least a reduction. But by ignoring the situation, you just made things worse. Now you’ve dragged in Contractor A, your mother, pissed people off, and made trouble for yourself. Consider this a $180 lesson in not ignoring problems in the future, hoping they'll go away. I'm not saying this is entirely your fault -- Contractor B should have discussed fees with you at the job site. He was implicitly wrong for not doing so. But your ignoring his bills for months was just as bad.

 

Did contractor B tell you that he had fixed the pump or that it was shot? Did contractor B mess up the pump trying to get a contract for drilling the new well?

About all that CB is entitled to is a charge for a house call or a repair estimate, even tho he couldn't fix it. Ignoring the bill was a mistake, you should have negotiated something.

 

hey....if you take your car into a shop, get all kinds of work done on it, and it dosnt fix the problem but you still pay $200.....well....i hate to tell you but that can happen quite easily.

You're paying the mechanic for his time of course, some labor rates going as high as $75 an hour. Of course the mechanic only sees maybe a fifth of that.

So....on some problems, it really is guess work. Sometimes, there really is no way of knowing for sure what the problem is, so even the best mechanic will just have to guess and go with it.

What seperates a good mechanic from a bad mechanic is the good mechanic will call you up and tell you he guess wrong and it didnt fix the problem....so he's going to need more time and money for it. A bad mechanic will just say the problem was fixed and send it out of the shop.

If we went by the system that you get paid for results, not effort. Then there wouldnt be any mechanics at all, they'd make something like 8 grand a year. Even still, a master mechanic these days could probably only make about 35k a year...and thats if he's working his *** off and having a good year. So dont be so judgemental when you start thinking mechanics are greedy. From my experience they're almost saints, they do a job nobody else wants to do, under terrible conditions, for pretty average pay.

 

He came, he worked, he wants paid for it.
Seems simple to me.
The fact that what work he did that day couldn't resolve the problem has nothing to do with the fact. It sucks, but, that's reality.

Would you expect not to pay a mechanic to tear the tranny out of your truck if upon getting it out, it was determined that it was beyond repair. In either case, it's not his fault that your equipment was beyond repair. He still has time and labor invested, just to find out it was shot. Granted, you could have done that yourself, but you chose to call him, not the other way around.

 

If your mother didn't get a signed lein release from the contractor, you are up the creek without paddles. He is well within his right to file a lein on the house for an unpaid balance. The burden of proof then shifts on to you to defend your position about the work not being completed, etc. That can be both very costly and time consuming. I'd pay the $180 if and only if you can secure a signed lein release for your mothers property. Don't just take his word about "forgetting the debt". You know that old saying- "trust me = (you know what) you".

A mechanics lein on your property is almost as powerful as an IRS lein. I had some neighbors that got into a disagreement with a contractor over a fire restoration. Contractor filed a lein, and in the end, they lost their home.

 

I agree with Dain Bramage. The repairman came, tore apart the pump and discovered it was burned out and needed replaced. You took that knowledge and decided to install a whole new well. You owe him $180, not exactly cheap but not exactly a screw job either. Trust me a mechanic's lein your property is not something you want to screw with. His analogy of a mechanic that pulls a transmission to find it needs replaced or a complete overhaul is right on target. Try that with him and your car doesn't leave the lot.

As for contractor A, you have messed up a good relationship. All contractors I know would have wanted their money up front, you want a loan go to a bank. I question his business practice of toting the note on major home repairs.

 

I am going to pay it, but it made things clear to me - that I should talk upfront about the fees and make no assumptions as I did the last time.

Theoretically, someone should get paid for diagnostic work, but this is a grey area. In our economic times, where work is real hard to find, there is a long line of people who will work for less. The customer has the leverage, not the seller. I think you will find it is pretty hard to get customers to pay or justify payment to themselves merely for diagnostic work which doesn't generate results.

Someone in my family is a fool for getting these people involved, the ones who have the biggest ad in the yellow pages and have the highest charges. I would shop around differently and go with references.

 

Well carpe', consider it a learning experience. You'll know enough to shop around in the future, and obtain an understanding of the charges you are going to incur upfront.
Hard way to have to learn a lesson, I agree.

Personally, in that situation, I talk to people I know that are in the field, or that deal with them regularly, and get their advice as to who in the area is the best to deal with. In a situation like yours, sometimes just talking to the right person could have saved you this $$$..


EDIT: I've been through this in the past when doing PC service. People call you wanting their PC software fixed, when it turns out to be a hardware failure, after plenty of diagnosis. I didn't charge people for it initially, but after a while I found that half of the PC's I touched where things I couldn'd fix on the spot, and that I was losing money in the process. So you can see where I'm coming from.


ANYWAY....

Good luck in the future!

 

man, if i were you i would have paid it right away as soon as contractor a said he would put a lien on the house. dont want none that....so what, you spent 30K on a house...whats 180 bucks...gotta pay the guy for comin out and lookin at it and doin what he needed to do...

 

EDIT: I've been through this in the past when doing PC service. People call you wanting their PC software fixed, when it turns out to be a hardware failure, after plenty of diagnosis. I didn't charge people for it initially, but after a while I found that half of the PC's I touched where things I couldn'd fix on the spot, and that I was losing money in the process. So you can see where I'm coming from.


Well, I paid them today..

RE: above -

One of the risks of running your own business is that you will spend time troubleshooting something and run into situations like that. You will think: I just lost 3 hours on this computer if I don't get paid. The customer will think: I just lost $200 on something which fixed nothing. They are both right.

Maybe the proper thing to do is get experienced enough and realize - this is a dead end and pursue it no further, and charge them nothing.

You have to figure out if you want to pass the whole cost of this error to the consumer, or none of it, or some of it. The leverage is what decides it. If it is the buyers market or the seller's market.

 

As someone who worked/is working in several fields, including MIS/Telecom Management, General Contracting, Real Estate development, property management, Office jobs of varying management levels (geeze, not bad for a 26 year old) I can tell you one thing with certainty. If I labor, I get paid. That is how the system works. I don't care who has the leverage, what kind of market it is, or any other variables. Quality time spent on job (notice emphasys on quality) = pay me. No ifs ands ors or buts. All my employees got paid when they were working, and would have hung me by my toenails if I tried to come up with an excuse to not pay them. I expect the same for my time, weather it be troubleshooting or applying a simple fix.

None uf us are running charities here --- does the store clerk get paid when customers are buying items but receive no compensation for the 15 minutes he's in there alone? He's not even "working" and he's making money -- why should someone who'se laboring for you to diagnose a situation not receive compensation?

If I'm troubleshooting something, weather it be a computer, a pump, an electrical line issue, a plumbing leak hidden in a wall, or whatever, I expect... no, DEMAND to be paid for it. That is the system. The difference is that I will tell you beforehand that I'm going to hit you with a $100 service charge for coming down there, and I'll give you an approximate cost from there for repairs. Don't like it? Tell me to scram, and call someone else -- maybe they'll work for free. But somehow I doubt it.

That's just my 2 cents on the topic. I used the terms "my" "I" "you" frequently, but my intention was not to point this at anyone. Please don't misunderstand my intent.

 

They always get a call out fee. It covers the cost of just your situation. Nothing he could do. If he spent all day doing that for free he'd be able to afford to live in a box.

But always agree on moeny before hand. "call me when you hit 500 bucks" ect.