So today’s customer who I scheduled in about 2 weeks ago, she wanted an in person quote, she was 52km from my home, and about 20km further than I was planning to travel with the time frame she wanted the windows cleaned.
So I direct her to my web site/ price lists, about 30 mins later she calls up and says yes lets book it in.
Some where from booking the job to today when I arrived to do the job, she is surprised to see me as she says she received a call from someone at my company (1 man show??) saying that I had fallen off a ladder and broke 2 of my fingers and I have directed him to do the job in my place. I tell her that I am a sole trader and work alone and do not have employees.
End of the day she didn’t feel comfortable to even let the guy do the inside windows but still payed him and was not happy with the results. I’m kind of stumped to wonder how this guy knew I had booked the job, knew her number and was able to bluff his way to steal my work… or on the other hand, maybe the customer was just telling porky pies. But the outside windows did look like they had been cleaned I doubt she would make up that story just to avoid having her windows cleaned.
Guess I’m just venting 110km round trip for nothing, well I still worked all day on another job that I needed to finish up anyway, not the point lowlife scammers.
Perhaps she called another company in her process of finding you, when said company learned he lost the bid, he made a plan to call her on another number, buffaloed her with the story to aquire the job?
Sadly it wouldn’t be entirely surprising; a lot of underhanded folks out there these days, and many with a silver tongue.
many years go i had a repeat client, older lady, when my guys showed up she said you just did the windows (outside only), i asked some questions and she said the guy showed up saying he was here to do her windows and she thought it was us.
I was thinking all these things too, how did he know she was having her windows done and how does he know who im booking etc etc
over time and hearing a couple other things, I realized it was probably just some guy going door to door saying im here to do your windows or whatever and it was just the coincidence that we were coming in the next day or two and she was older and just assumed it was our company. never happened again
Honestly at this point I am really starting to doubt the customer, I had a call on Monday for an urgent clean, I said i was booked out for 2 weeks, and recommended a newer window clean I had seen pop up within the past 6 months and noticed a few months ago while I has a job 2 doors down from his house he was at home not working and to make matters worse 2 doors up the street there was another local competitor.
