Neighbour down the road, widow, lives alone was doing ironing and power failed.
She calls Council Electricity who take one look at the pre-paid meter and say "its not our problem lady" and say they will send the contractor who does work for council to see to it
He calls next day at 5.30pm, fiddles for 5 mins and power is back. He tells her the earth "something" is shot, it is a 2 to 4 hour job and will cost at least R4200 and he has to order the part and wants R2000 deposit. She pays. No written quote
He calls the following day. He was there 10 mins and installed what I subsequently see on inspection is a single-phase Earth Leakage Breaker, wired to the existing wiring in the DB. Invoice states "4 hours labour, components, wiring, hardware and travelling, total now R4800. The travelling part of the job is R900
She complains to the owner of this electrical firm. It transpires their office is less than 1km away. When she disputes the R900, he tells her travelling is calculated from the previous job, which was in Somerset West. Then she asks about the 4 hours labour, when the job took 10 mins. He tells her she is mistaken, but the job sheet shows "arrived 12h10, departed 12h22". He says that is from another job they did.
She then tells him that despite this new work, the power went off again. His response is that "the whole house must be stripped and rewired, it is all shot. Maybe R35000 or so"
At this point she calls me. The iron is the cause of the problem, the old e/l breaker is fine, it is no more than 2 years old when a new DB was fitted and the whole house rewired
I phone this business owner and state the facts. He won't budge and says she accepted the quote. I say there is no quote and his employee replaced a perfectly good e/l breaker without ascertaining the problem, was there 10 mins and yet charged 4 hours labour at R800/hour
I tell him that there is no way she will pay, he can collect the new e/l breaker he fitted. Down goes the phone
She calls Council Electricity who take one look at the pre-paid meter and say "its not our problem lady" and say they will send the contractor who does work for council to see to it
He calls next day at 5.30pm, fiddles for 5 mins and power is back. He tells her the earth "something" is shot, it is a 2 to 4 hour job and will cost at least R4200 and he has to order the part and wants R2000 deposit. She pays. No written quote
He calls the following day. He was there 10 mins and installed what I subsequently see on inspection is a single-phase Earth Leakage Breaker, wired to the existing wiring in the DB. Invoice states "4 hours labour, components, wiring, hardware and travelling, total now R4800. The travelling part of the job is R900
She complains to the owner of this electrical firm. It transpires their office is less than 1km away. When she disputes the R900, he tells her travelling is calculated from the previous job, which was in Somerset West. Then she asks about the 4 hours labour, when the job took 10 mins. He tells her she is mistaken, but the job sheet shows "arrived 12h10, departed 12h22". He says that is from another job they did.
She then tells him that despite this new work, the power went off again. His response is that "the whole house must be stripped and rewired, it is all shot. Maybe R35000 or so"
At this point she calls me. The iron is the cause of the problem, the old e/l breaker is fine, it is no more than 2 years old when a new DB was fitted and the whole house rewired
I phone this business owner and state the facts. He won't budge and says she accepted the quote. I say there is no quote and his employee replaced a perfectly good e/l breaker without ascertaining the problem, was there 10 mins and yet charged 4 hours labour at R800/hour
I tell him that there is no way she will pay, he can collect the new e/l breaker he fitted. Down goes the phone
