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Hi guys; this thread is aimed at all you one man bands working in depressed areas and is a follow on from my post on labour rates.
The trouble you get in areas of high unemployment is the customers inability to pay for repairs to their appliances, this in itself should be no detriment in you making a good income from them, what I am talking about is repairs on credit! Yes I can assure you it is viable and also these folk can become the mainstay of your business.
Firstly let’s consider the type of people who fall into this category, there is the long term unemployed, the single parent family, those on long term sick and those just on benefit because it’s easier than working.
The first three are no problem but the last is a definite no no. so lets take a look at how this works, firstly let me ask how many of you do a no call out charge? (Dirty phrase on here) If I’m guessing correctly quite a lot of you because you need the work, no problem as these are the type of people who will call you because they don’t have the cash to pay a call out charge and they need to know if their appliance is worth fixing, so you go along and give them a price on the job and you see that look of horror cross their face “where am I going to get £45 from” and believe me such small sums to someone living on benefit are hard to find. So the next step is to offer them the same repair on credit or if the job is BER and you do recons offer them one of those on credit the trick is not to charge interest or it gets a bit complex you can charge an admin fee without having to do the maths and everything is hunky dorey.
Now this may seem a risky business to some of you but mainly you will get the cost of the parts you fit as a deposit with the rest paid weekly and believe me, in their position they need you more than you need them and if you are fair with them you will get the work from all their mates and their families as time goes on, and with modern methods of payments you do not even need to collect the money as I used to have to. 😉
To do this type of work you will need to get a credit licence do not try to do it without as none of your debts would be enforceable and it only cost around £110 you can pick up an acceptable credit agreement pad from such as Staples for around a fiver.
Richard Scanlon Snr
Re: Please give me some credit!!!
I have personally done this and it was a total waste of time.
They all promise you the earth then every week you have to call on them because they don’t turn up and pay you, then all the excuses why they can’t pay you this week.
When the miners strike was on I also helped about 200 no labour just parts I had three come in and pay when they went back to work.
So if you want to chase around after dead money and get adgitated through being suckered go ahead.
Kirk
Re: Please give me some credit!!!
Hi Kirk, sorry to hear about your bad experience in this area and after helping so many in their time of need no wonder you’re a bit pi**ed about it, in my experience I had a different tale to tell that is why I posted here.
You will have seen over the last year or so the number of different firms starting up in the rental business and this is always a good indicator of the way things are going, you will also have seen the interest shown on this site in washers for reconing for rental purposes, the outlay for both of these ventures is greater than actually doing repairs on credit, as I said in the main part the initial deposit will cover the cost of the parts so the risk is restricted to your time and although it doesn’t always work out I have never lost out on any job in the long run.
Richard Scanlon SnrRe: Please give me some credit!!!
Without going into huge detail on the social aspects or morality of this, although I guess I am a bit, is that is this not taking advantage of the most disadvantaged people in society? I mean the people that are least ableto pay get to pay more for a repair as I assume that there are interest charges involved and normally on the crapiest of products as well, so they get stiffed twice. They bought a pile of poo then have to pay over the odds to haveit repaired.
That strikes me as immoral in many ways.
I may well be getting this wrong and correct me please if that is the case, but I often see and do not agree with taking advantage of people in this sort of situation. And so many do.
Would it not be better to accept payments through existing recognised schemes like the Shopacheck (IIRC) idea?
K.
Re: Please give me some credit!!!
I would just like to set the record straight for anyone and everyone who reads this post so there can be no further misunderstanding on this point. I am in no way suggesting that anyone should take advantage of the ones who can least afford to pay for our services. What I am saying is that there is a market to be had with these people and with a little trust and good will you will not only have a customer for life you will have there families custom as well.
I never charged interest on the jobs I did and I did them at the same price as a cash paying customer but I did charge a £5 admin fee due to the paperwork and the tax man insisting that if someone owes you money you have to pay the tax on it.
There is valid work out there for the taking you will never have the get rich quick scenario but you will have a decent weekly income.
Richard Scanlon Snr
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