Do we have an ongoing Contractors Screwing People Thread

[puckedoff]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

No, they don't. No one deserves to get screwed/ripped off by a "business".

Agreed. Further, the guys in question were not quoting as if they were lowest bidder, they were marketing themselves as the quality professional option.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I actually took the opposite approach. Like, besides giving me some reference jobs to look at (of course they'll only give good ones) you're in a terrible spot to make a call on who a good contractor is unless they did work for people you know.

I had someone quote me a price and a timeline that seemed incredibly optimistic from my naive viewpoint, and purposely selected someone more expensive because it's a sign you know what you're doing to foresee what are "unknown unknowns" for people less experienced.

The timeline went longer than expected (it always does, so do the ones I set at work...), but the price was almost spot on despite a few major surprises (old house).

It depends if they ate the overages to stay true to the quote.

To be honest, most people don't have a clue what they're asking for when they are hiring contractors. They don't know if they're hiring a GC, a project manager, a one man army for the project etc. They don't know the scope of the project, they only know the end result and not the "under the hood" stuff that is required for many projects.

I want full bathroom refresh. Pull old stuff off, repaint, new tile, new tub/shower, add new fixtures. 8-10 hour project, $3-4K because I want it nicer. Right?

Uhh.. more like 20-40 hours and $13-14K if you're hiring someone. $3-4K is approximately the cost of materials.

That's like saying, "Car oil change. $20 bottle oil, pour it out, put new in, should take 5-10 minutes."

No, no. Jack up car. Unscrew ultra tight stuff. Drain. Screw in ultra tight stuff. Add oil. Check list/start car to ensure no screw ups. Filter is like $10-20. Oil is like $50-60+ depending, add labour and expertise, storage, clean up, disposal etc.

That's why raw estimates (not quotes) are typically 2-3x more and duration 3-4x more. Most people forget demo, apply permit, clean up, picking up supplies + delivery lead times, install + redo if something happens... and that's not including the fact that snafus happen.


Many people who claim to be scammed honestly don't understand what they were requesting and had signed up for in the first place. It's not a scam, it's a snafu. Some contractors are nice people who shouldn't have agreed to certain things and they had to run because they couldn't bear to take on the losses for a horrifically underquoted project in the first place.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

...

I want full bathroom refresh. Pull old stuff off, repaint, new tile, new tub/shower, add new fixtures. 8-10 hour project, $3-4K because I want it nicer. Right?

Uhh.. more like 20-40 hours and $13-14K if you're hiring someone. $3-4K is approximately the cost of materials.

Good luck doing a full gut bathroom renovation in a days work and $3-4k in materials.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Bill Bumface

I actually took the opposite approach. Like, besides giving me some reference jobs to look at (of course they'll only give good ones) you're in a terrible spot to make a call on who a good contractor is unless they did work for people you know.

I had someone quote me a price and a timeline that seemed incredibly optimistic from my naive viewpoint, and purposely selected someone more expensive because it's a sign you know what you're doing to foresee what are "unknown unknowns" for people less experienced.

The timeline went longer than expected (it always does, so do the ones I set at work...), but the price was almost spot on despite a few major surprises (old house).

One thing is that no matter who you select they are going to charge you for unknown scope and scope change. Im quite surprised that they ate found work unless that was explicitly specified. So I certainly wouldn’t pick a more expensive contractor with the belief they will eat more changes. I do agree that if you have 1 outlier lowball you are better off throwing it out because they likely are bad or don’t understand the scope. The only possible good reason is they are new or looking for work. Both of which have their own risks.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Good luck doing a full gut bathroom renovation in a days work and $3-4k in materials.

That's exactly what I mean. People say the contractor was slow and whatnot, but their expectations weren't realistic in the first place. They think "basic" is $2-3K, nice is $3-4K and opulent is $5K+.

A good contractor educates and makes sure the customer understands before taking on the project. But if that's not their forte and things just proceed, the customer just assumes they got "scammed on overages and strung along by a lazy contractor" but the reality of the situation was that their expectations were stupid and no one corrected them.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

That's exactly what I mean. People say the contractor was slow and whatnot, but their expectations weren't realistic in the first place. They think "basic" is $2-3K, nice is $3-4K and opulent is $5K+.

A good contractor educates and makes sure the customer understands before taking on the project. But if that's not their forte and things just proceed, the customer just assumes they got "scammed on overages and strung along by a lazy contractor" but the reality of the situation was that their expectations were stupid and no one corrected them.

Ah, the way you worded all of that last post it seemed like you were calling $3-4k in material possible.

Rarely does a "customer" get their brain beyond "tub, sink, toilet...oh and I guess I should think about tile too, what's tile? like $2 per square foot?..."

It's amusing, but can't fault them for not knowing the hundreds of other costs and considerations.

[chemgear]

I was lied to.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by chemgear

I was lied to.

By Pedro Pascal no less....

A South American Contractor in Texas being unloved? What has the world come to? Maybe the Apocalypse is for the best...?

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by GGG

Im quite surprised that they ate found work unless that was explicitly specified.

They didn't eat anything. Everything was cost plus, so full transparency on every single invoice of where the project was at versus estimates.

They did however pad the quote, because they said on old houses there is always something and surprises that blow up the budget aren't good for having satisfied, happy customers. I didn't know this at the outset, but was very appreciative of the efforts to give us budget certainty.

The other part was they had an absolute goldmine of a framer, who was just an awesome guy. We had 2 foundation issues come up, one he get his kid to dig a giant hole with a shovel for minimum wage for a day so he could fill it with concrete after, and the other he took Abalon's $40k foundation repair quote, and did everything included minus the sump pump, as the basement had never seen moisture in 110 years, and did it all for $3500, knowing he could have quoted $30K and we still would have selected him.

I never would have found that framer without the GC, and the framer has since worked on another major thing for the house (via the same GC) where I was extremely pleased to have all his old house experience and fair treatment at our disposal.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

It's amusing, but can't fault them for not knowing the hundreds of other costs and considerations.

Every time I decide to take on a piece of the project myself, I'm shocked at the material cost. Those 75 Home Depot invoices because you keep forgetting little things really add up fast.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by topfiverecords

Ah, the way you worded all of that last post it seemed like you were calling $3-4k in material possible.

Rarely does a "customer" get their brain beyond "tub, sink, toilet...oh and I guess I should think about tile too, what's tile? like $2 per square foot?..."

It's amusing, but can't fault them for not knowing the hundreds of other costs and considerations.

Yep. I understand.

I'm not trying to defend contractors that don't deserve defending at all like the one described in OP. I'm saying that sometimes the customers are a major part of the reason for the error, miscommunication and disagreements, and IMO about half an hour of research into the details of the projects could sort that stuff out. A lot of contractors/subs get painted with a broad brush and it's not fair to them. I'm white collar by nature.

I don't like when people think my services are relatively worthless or cheap and treat it that way. I'm pretty sure many blue collar guys are similar. Golden rule. Treat them as you'd like to be treated.

It bugs me that people are clueless and throw out a budget where the money isn't enough and expect people to just sort it out. Especially when it comes to choosing specific colors, materials, designs styles etc. "Oh we aren't picky..." until they are. But... some people say I'm dumb for thinking that.

Bathroom:
Miscs - cleaning supplies, screws/nails/bolts, bits, chemicals, glue/silicone, grout, paint brushes, tape, plastic etc. $200-500
Toilet - $600-800 (get a good one dammit)
Sink - $50-250
Tap - $100-300
Vanity - $200-1200
Shower - $800- 1400 or Bathtub $1,000-3,500
Floor - $200-700
Shower/bath tile - $200-500
Shower head/bath taps - $50-550
Paint - $50-200
Light fixture(s) - $50-350
Ceiling fan - $100-200
Mirror - $200-900
Door - $150-350
Baseboard - $30-100

Demolition - X
Dump fees - X
Ceiling? - X
Hourly rate for contractor/sub contractor - X (assume 30-50 hours total at $70-120/hour; $2-5K)

Blah blah etc. Just that type of stuff to me is "basic" I guess because I am the occasional DIYer. It's so dumb that people are aware of less than half this info for instance and completely unaware of the even 10% of the activities and skillsets required for the entire project.

Yeah, maybe the average person doesn't know the nitty gritty and doesn't need to know, but how little they know and intend to know is just stupid sometimes. This isn't an issue if they aren't insanely off in their expectations, but we know that this is the case. This might be what the GC is for, or maybe not, but they literally have no clue at all. You're spending $5K+. People will obsess about the options in a $50K car, but won't bother to understand the very (IMO) basic details of a $50K reno ranging from materials, skills, skillset/tools required, detailed timeline and potential time and cost overruns and now to mitigate those? Ridiculous.

I started learning the gist of what's going on just so I understood what was going on. What I found out is that if I learned enough to be the QC on the contractor's work, we could find win/win scenarios and I'd have an idea how to work with the GC to limit overages. Learning how to have good working relationships is important. Some people think I'm weird and being extra professional for something that could be casual, but come on, this is a working relationship in the first place. Flaunting hard earned money to be used towards a large project and thinking you can treat the other person like dirt or it's their fault and they should always take a loss if you're unhappy is garbage mentality. Treat them well, they'll treat you well. Be reasonable, they will be too. Put in the effort to understand their livelihood vs turn it into a simple money transaction and they'll appreciate that.

I occasionally tell certain contractors to add $500 to the quote in case of unforeseen issues, costs, price spikes etc. and to give me a $500 discount at the end if they were accurate as they thought they were. I usually only do this for slightly larger projects or ones I felt the contractor was too optimistic on completion time. I've only had one guy take me up on the offer and give me a $500 discount. Many more said they couldn't offer the $500 discount, but had eaten more than the $500 bump in total overages. Quite a few also said they would have stopped and negotiated overages which probably would have ended up over $500, but with the $500, they just decided to saw it off because it was "close enough", so I've always believed I saved money on those. A few of those, it helped me to evaluate whether I wanted to keep working relationships with them. Some would tell me I was 5-6 weeks out for a small project, call me a few days later and say they'd push projects or called me first for a cancellation. So I think that extra I've offered has paid me back as well in real money than I had "overpaid".

I had a GC fire the foreman in the past because the guy was an idiot. I was in the working area looking at the status of the project which had fallen badly behind (advised by the GC) and found out completely none of the subs had access to the blueprints to see what was going on. They were working off of verbal estimations of "install framing here ish" or using screen shots of pre-city approved blueprints. Blue prints were in the utility room that was already complete. It was so dumb. GC was flabbergasted that the guy he had manage the project and had worked with hundred of times before was doing dumb #### like that. It's harder to do the project without the blueprints than with. I made sure that GC ate a #### ton of the overages after finding that out at about 60-70% project completion. That's just dumb as ####.

I knew a guy who had just started off and liked being a lone wolf, but he had great eye for detail. After a few small projects, I hired him to be a GC. I paid him $30 an hour because he thought he wasn't qualified to do so and thought. I was offering him $50 an hour to GC (his going rate at the time) and he talked me down to $30 because he thought he'd be ripping me off charging that to do "nothing". OK fine, $30 while GCing, $50 while working, win/win. $30K project later, he was more excited for his $200 cash bonus for meeting the deadline (was more of a casual bet at the time) than the final payment of the project. Not that he didn't want payment, but the recognition of his work was huge for him ($200 was so small vs the total cost of the budget). He's more established now and charges way more and typically working out of province, but when I'm able to line him up for a small project, he makes time for me and I'm happy to hire him. Just that trust and knowing we have a good working relationship/communication/identical vision etc. is worth any premium I pay.

That's why sometimes I offer "worst case scenario options" that are win/win even if it's a wee bit disadvantageous for me at times. When #### goes sideways, we solve it together. Cut that hole and patch it to save 3-5 hours of swearing for something dumb like fishing lines. These contractors often appreciate it and it often turns into a win/win even if certain things aren't perfectly. Many contactors/subs are honest people that far more happy they can wrap up the project and move on to the next one vs charging more hourly rate dealing with an issue and not progressing. Sometimes, it's not money, it's pride they'd prefer.

One guy gave me a discount because I gave him pics taken on a DSLR that he could add to his portfolio. Pics were at good angles, good quality, good lighting, post project cleaned, no mess/bad reflections etc. than he had already taken on his phone (yellowed out, blurry, dirty, bad angled etc.). It didn't cost me anything but time because I already had the camera. I spent the time to appreciate his work, help him out and he made sure it was quid pro quo. I didn't expect anything, he knocked off $100. I'll take it.

[topfiverecords]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

Yep. I understand.

I'm not trying to defend contractors that don't deserve defending at all like the one described in OP. I'm saying that sometimes the customers are a major part of the reason for the error, miscommunication and disagreements, and IMO about half an hour of research into the details of the projects could sort that stuff out. A lot of contractors/subs get painted with a broad brush and it's not fair to them. I'm white collar by nature.

I don't like when people think my services are relatively worthless or cheap and treat it that way. I'm pretty sure many blue collar guys are similar. Golden rule. Treat them as you'd like to be treated.

It bugs me that people are clueless and throw out a budget where the money isn't enough and expect people to just sort it out. Especially when it comes to choosing specific colors, materials, designs styles etc. "Oh we aren't picky..." until they are. But... some people say I'm dumb for thinking that.

Bathroom:
Miscs - cleaning supplies, screws/nails/bolts, bits, chemicals, glue/silicone, grout, paint brushes, tape, plastic etc. $200-500
Toilet - $600-800 (get a good one dammit)
Sink - $50-250
Tap - $100-300
Vanity - $200-1200
Shower - $800- 1400 or Bathtub $1,000-3,500
Floor - $200-700
Shower/bath tile - $200-500
Shower head/bath taps - $50-550
Paint - $50-200
Light fixture(s) - $50-350
Ceiling fan - $100-200
Mirror - $200-900
Door - $150-350
Baseboard - $30-100

Demolition - X
Dump fees - X
Ceiling? - X
Hourly rate for contractor/sub contractor - X (assume 30-50 hours total at $70-120/hour; $2-5K)

Blah blah etc. Just that type of stuff to me is "basic" I guess because I am the occasional DIYer. It's so dumb that people are aware of less than half this info for instance and completely unaware of the even 10% of the activities and skillsets required for the entire project.

Yeah, maybe the average person doesn't know the nitty gritty and doesn't need to know, but how little they know and intend to know is just stupid sometimes. This isn't an issue if they aren't insanely off in their expectations, but we know that this is the case. This might be what the GC is for, or maybe not, but they literally have no clue at all. You're spending $5K+. People will obsess about the options in a $50K car, but won't bother to understand the very (IMO) basic details of a $50K reno ranging from materials, skills, skillset/tools required, detailed timeline and potential time and cost overruns and now to mitigate those? Ridiculous.

I started learning the gist of what's going on just so I understood what was going on. What I found out is that if I learned enough to be the QC on the contractor's work, we could find win/win scenarios and I'd have an idea how to work with the GC to limit overages. Learning how to have good working relationships is important. Some people think I'm weird and being extra professional for something that could be casual, but come on, this is a working relationship in the first place. Flaunting hard earned money to be used towards a large project and thinking you can treat the other person like dirt or it's their fault and they should always take a loss if you're unhappy is garbage mentality. Treat them well, they'll treat you well. Be reasonable, they will be too. Put in the effort to understand their livelihood vs turn it into a simple money transaction and they'll appreciate that.

I occasionally tell certain contractors to add $500 to the quote in case of unforeseen issues, costs, price spikes etc. and to give me a $500 discount at the end if they were accurate as they thought they were. I usually only do this for slightly larger projects or ones I felt the contractor was too optimistic on completion time. I've only had one guy take me up on the offer and give me a $500 discount. Many more said they couldn't offer the $500 discount, but had eaten more than the $500 bump in total overages. Quite a few also said they would have stopped and negotiated overages which probably would have ended up over $500, but with the $500, they just decided to saw it off because it was "close enough", so I've always believed I saved money on those. A few of those, it helped me to evaluate whether I wanted to keep working relationships with them. Some would tell me I was 5-6 weeks out for a small project, call me a few days later and say they'd push projects or called me first for a cancellation. So I think that extra I've offered has paid me back as well in real money than I had "overpaid".

I had a GC fire the foreman in the past because the guy was an idiot. I was in the working area looking at the status of the project which had fallen badly behind (advised by the GC) and found out completely none of the subs had access to the blueprints to see what was going on. They were working off of verbal estimations of "install framing here ish" or using screen shots of pre-city approved blueprints. Blue prints were in the utility room that was already complete. It was so dumb. GC was flabbergasted that the guy he had manage the project and had worked with hundred of times before was doing dumb #### like that. It's harder to do the project without the blueprints than with. I made sure that GC ate a #### ton of the overages after finding that out at about 60-70% project completion. That's just dumb as ####.

I knew a guy who had just started off and liked being a lone wolf, but he had great eye for detail. After a few small projects, I hired him to be a GC. I paid him $30 an hour because he thought he wasn't qualified to do so and thought. I was offering him $50 an hour to GC (his going rate at the time) and he talked me down to $30 because he thought he'd be ripping me off charging that to do "nothing". OK fine, $30 while GCing, $50 while working, win/win. $30K project later, he was more excited for his $200 cash bonus for meeting the deadline (was more of a casual bet at the time) than the final payment of the project. Not that he didn't want payment, but the recognition of his work was huge for him ($200 was so small vs the total cost of the budget). He's more established now and charges way more and typically working out of province, but when I'm able to line him up for a small project, he makes time for me and I'm happy to hire him. Just that trust and knowing we have a good working relationship/communication/identical vision etc. is worth any premium I pay.

That's why sometimes I offer "worst case scenario options" that are win/win even if it's a wee bit disadvantageous for me at times. When #### goes sideways, we solve it together. Cut that hole and patch it to save 3-5 hours of swearing for something dumb like fishing lines. These contractors often appreciate it and it often turns into a win/win even if certain things aren't perfectly. Many contactors/subs are honest people that far more happy they can wrap up the project and move on to the next one vs charging more hourly rate dealing with an issue and not progressing. Sometimes, it's not money, it's pride they'd prefer.

One guy gave me a discount because I gave him pics taken on a DSLR that he could add to his portfolio. Pics were at good angles, good quality, good lighting, post project cleaned, no mess/bad reflections etc. than he had already taken on his phone (yellowed out, blurry, dirty, bad angled etc.). It didn't cost me anything but time because I already had the camera. I spent the time to appreciate his work, help him out and he made sure it was quid pro quo. I didn't expect anything, he knocked off $100. I'll take it.

I'm going to have to start charging per character.

[photon]

I guess I'm lucky, I think the closest I've ever come to being screwed over by a contractor is when a tenant asked if she could paint the unit she'd just rented (which is usually a disaster) with help from her painter contactor friend (ok, sounds better), I just need to buy the paint. I talked with the painter lady for a bit to at least try and tell if she actually knew what she was doing, talked a good game.

So I did that. They painted. Looked quite good.

Then I got a huge bill from the lady for the work! We never discussed price, at no point did I say I was paying anything other than for the paint. No signed contract.

She went on to tell me about her kid's insulin needs and a bunch of other stuff. Eventually I gave her I think $1000 (this was a long time ago) because that's less than the cost of my emotional anguish and any damage they decided to leave me with after a midnight moveout or something.

Otherwise my worst experiences with contractors have just been on the not as good as I'd have hoped side of things.

[blender]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

No, they don't. No one deserves to get screwed/ripped off by a "business".

You are 100% correct and I will clarify. No one deserves to be scammed by an actual targeted scam. That isn't bad contracting; it's fraud.

What I am referring to is the reputation that contractors get as "scammers" when actually they or their clients or both are incompetent.

We all know what we are talking about here, but you are correct that no one deserves to be taken advantage of.