Contractor Travel Charges
He charged $180 per hour. He charged for 1/2 hour ($90) travel time. His office is about 10 minutes away. The truck was coming from about 15 minutes away.
He should have told you that in advance. If the work was emergency work you may have been over a barrel, but otherwise you could have shopped the estimate. I would not be happy.
Thanks, we did shop the estimate, and the total was in the ballpark except for the travel fees. I'm not sure if I will discuss it with the owner or just take it into consideration next time.
DanDietrich said:
He should have told you that in advance. If the work was emergency work you may have been over a barrel, but otherwise you could have shopped the estimate. I would not be happy.
Do not pay the travel time if it wasn’t agreed upon in advance. Ridiculous. That’s why I have stopped recommending contractors around here. I overheard a plumber from maplewood badmouthing people in maplewood with a cashier at Home Depot a few years ago.
- If travel charges apply, they should be announced up front.
- I have had a plumber quote me $85 simply to come to the house (= travel charges), but with that amount being credited if he was given the job.
- For someone local to add travel charges is a bit rich. When I lived in Maplewood, I never did. Now that I am further away (1/2 hr), I need to add a little (but I try to spread the pain by scheduling multiple jobs on the days I come back)..
As a follow up, I called the guy, who first got defensive and asked who I thought should pay for travel? I said that wasn't the issue, it was about not letting me know up front when he told me fees. He then agreed to pay, though I'm still waiting for the check.
last i tried to get my washer fixed, every place i called told me there was a $200+ service charge plus hourly fee....be glad you weren't charged $200 for that travel time....i gave up...figured out it was only the timing on 1 cycle...so just stopped using that cycle...the others work....definitely not your fault the the truck was further away..you had no control over where he started from..i would accept maybe $15/travel charge as $1/minute is fair and paying for 15 minutes is fair...no matter where he came from.
In the commercial world there are contractor charges for everything. No more free estimates, not even a waiver of initial charges if you do the work. Travel charges. Fuel charges. Consumables charges. For a commercial property with a policy of getting 3 bids, you're spending $750+ just to get those bids. And this applies even when you have a relationship with these contractors.
As a skilled person I rarely hire anyone for my house so I don't know if the policies are the same as commercial. But I've resigned myself that this is just the way things are now.
Thanks for your perspective. At this point, the contractor, who agreed to refund travel charges, hasn't done so. Meanwhile, I've moved on and decided that I don't want to interact with the guy any longer, I just won't use his services going forward, as he's not the only one around. I would say though, that it may be a losing strategy on his part, I could have been a good and reliable customer.
upthecreek said:
In the commercial world there are contractor charges for everything. No more free estimates, not even a waiver of initial charges if you do the work. Travel charges. Fuel charges. Consumables charges. For a commercial property with a policy of getting 3 bids, you're spending $750+ just to get those bids. And this applies even when you have a relationship with these contractors.
As a skilled person I rarely hire anyone for my house so I don't know if the policies are the same as commercial. But I've resigned myself that this is just the way things are now.
The only issue here as I see it is not disclosing the fee in advance. He should have been upfront. It isn't inherently evil or disreputable to charge a fee.
The other issue, besides not disclosing the fee in advance, was not refunding the travel free after he said he would.
DanDietrich said:
The only issue here as I see it is not disclosing the fee in advance. He should have been upfront. It isn't inherently evil or disreputable to charge a fee.
No, I paid with a check. At this point, I thought the work was decent and the total amount not terrible but I'm just going to let it go and not utilize his services again, shame, but two strikes and he's out. I just don't like the way he does business and he hasn't risen to the occasion.
sac said:
Did you pay with a credit card? If so, you could dispute the charge.
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I recently hired a local electrician for a a project that took two hours, billed per hour. He told me his rate in advance. When writing up the bill he added an extra half hour for travel time that he had not informed me of when I initially called him and he told me his prices. Is this legal, common and appropriate?