Case study Should I have taken the money on 'Opinion Only' basis?

K

Kerrigan

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Hi guys,

Looking for your thoughts on the following please:

Brief description - I advertise my business on a well known, reputable website situated here in Ireland. I have an excellent history with people who have chosen me to do their work. Without blowing my own trumpet I rarely have a work scoring under ten and take my job pretty seriously.

Some weeks ago I was employed to do a job at a property. The description of the work to be carried out was "Opinion Only" i.e. no labor, no materials - just an opinion. The advertiser knew there was a call out charge and a figure was agreed. The figure equated to less than €100.

I went and viewed the issue that was raised and soon into my conversation with the tenant of the property I knew something was not right and very much of kilter and words were being put into my mouth. I understood they were trying to make a case against their landlord and they were commissioning me to lie about my findings. I took my fee and made a written submission to the tenant telling them they were incorrect in what they were doing etc. etc.

To cut a long story short they have made umpteen complaints against me to the website I trade through and have inundated me with emails and calls.

I am not so much concerned about the harassment I have been receiving but I am most concerned with the way the website has treated me. They have suggested I pay back the small fee I received from the advertisers. I refuse to do so.

Since my refusal I have been asked to submit my qualifications to them and so on so forth. I have also been told that I should never have accepted the small fee off the advertiser to begin with if I did not feel they had a case.

My business is being jeopardized.

Any ideas what I should do next please?
 
Kerrigan said:
Hi guys,

Looking for your thoughts on the following please:

Brief description - I advertise my business on a well known, reputable website situated here in Ireland. I have an excellent history with people who have chosen me to do their work. Without blowing my own trumpet I rarely have a work scoring under ten and take my job pretty seriously.

Some weeks ago I was employed to do a job at a property. The description of the work to be carried out was "Opinion Only" i.e. no labor, no materials - just an opinion. The advertiser knew there was a call out charge and a figure was agreed. The figure equated to less than €100.

I went and viewed the issue that was raised and soon into my conversation with the tenant of the property I knew something was not right and very much of kilter and words were being put into my mouth. I understood they were trying to make a case against their landlord and they were commissioning me to lie about my findings. I took my fee and made a written submission to the tenant telling them they were incorrect in what they were doing etc. etc.

To cut a long story short they have made umpteen complaints against me to the website I trade through and have inundated me with emails and calls.

I am not so much concerned about the harassment I have been receiving but I am most concerned with the way the website has treated me. They have suggested I pay back the small fee I received from the advertisers. I refuse to do so.

Since my refusal I have been asked to submit my qualifications to them and so on so forth. I have also been told that I should never have accepted the small fee off the advertiser to begin with if I did not feel they had a case.

My business is being jeopardized.

Any ideas what I should do next please?
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Kerrigan ;

I really sympathise with your thread.

Tough if the customer did not like your opinion.
How dare Website suggest you only take work were you must agree ! That's weird.

Suggest.
Write to Website and clearly state you did a professional job , at an agreed price, your professional opinion is what was paid for.It concerns you that they are impacting on your professional competency.
Leave it at that .

Don,t give them your qualifications etc .
If they are stupid nuff to come back , well maybe you will then have to get crankey!
They should
 
No you were not wrong to take the money, it was clear that you were to be paid.

What you are now doing is looking back on this with hindsight and regret for the way it turned out. None of it of your making.

It does seem totally unfair that one person can make 'umpteen complaints' on a website. Take tripadvisor as an example, people give good or bad reviews to restaurants, but customers only get to do it once, not umpteen times which seems totally unfair. So one customer being upset versus 9 being happy is a fair review and would lead most people to conclude the restaurant was good.
 
Gerry Canning said:
Suggest.
Write to Website and clearly state you did a professional job , at an agreed price, your professional opinion is what was paid for.It concerns you that they are impacting on your professional competency.
Leave it at that .
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It's a good suggestion, but what if they decide to ban him from their website, they could presumably do that and it seems he drums up good business there. The customer must be making the website owners life hell as well. It's totally over the top for the customer to have sent Kerrigan so many emails and calls. All this for a 100 Euro estimate.

But then we know one other thing about this tenant, they wanted Kerrigan to lie in a case against the landlord, so they are liars. And when you're dealing with that it's near on impossible to sort out.
 
Bronte said:
It's a good suggestion, but what if they decide to ban him from their website, they could presumably do that and it seems he drums up good business there. The customer must be making the website owners life hell as well. It's totally over the top for the customer to have sent Kerrigan so many emails and calls. All this for a 100 Euro estimate.

But then we know one other thing about this tenant, they wanted Kerrigan to lie in a case against the landlord, so they are liars. And when you're dealing with that it's near on impossible to sort out.
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Bronte . Point taken.

Rephrase letter to (mollify) website ie his job was opinion and sadly it did not agree with customers requirements and that he is sure website would not wish he can only make a living by being a bit untruthful and hope they appreciate his view.
 
Hi Gerry and Bronte,

Thank you both for taking the time to respond. I was feeling pressurized and did not see the limit to where I could be pushed by the website i.e. their suggestion of refunding the money to the customer and also never to take money off a customer if you don't believe they have a case. I wrote to the website explaining everything that happened and they were initially somewhat satisfied but warned me not to take money off customers again for giving an opinion. They told me they would remove the bad review from the customer. It seems that when the customer saw the review was removed they decided to make further complaints. This time I am being investigated by the website i.e. - to hand over copies of my qualifications, a tax clearance certificate etc. I've handed over the tax clearance but I'm stopping at the qualifications as the demands could go on and on. Where will they stop?

The latest complaint against me is highly slanderous and if the website make this available to view then my business is well and truly over. I have wrote to the customer telling them to withdraw their comments. If I was one of the big contractors out there I can guarantee these individuals would be hauled before a Courtroom.

I also pointed out to the website in question that if I were to sign off on what the tenant was proposing then I would be spending time in Mountjoy Prison.
 
Kerrigan.

Have seen something similar on a local website.Seems that the Web has loosened too many unthinking comments.
Very difficult to counteract.
The posters I have seen on my local website appear to have nothing but (spouts) for mouths.
Every twit on the negative side of commentary seemed to be having a go. Anyone who queried was lambasted.

Hopefully matters in your case will settle .
Maybe (if things don't die off) re-contact website and (quietly) say some of the comments appear libellous so would they please take care.
Tell them you have no issue showing your qualifications but would they please in return kill this off.

Wonder ;
Is this (abuse) without responsibility very common on websites.
 
What really annoyed me about this whole situation was the whole scenario regarding taking money off the individual. I would never take a call out charge off anybody but this case was completely different whereby I was asked for my opinion as the job description and it was suggested a call out fee would be paid as they wanted my opinion in writing obviously to give to their solicitor. However my opinion was not what they wanted to hear. Hopefully this will sort itself out in time.

Unsure Gerry but in the case of this website I have seen a side of them that is almost backing the side of the customer and not us the workers who are their bread and butter. My opinion is us as workers are disposable and can be replaced by umpteen others.

Normally you would see a disclaimer on these type of websites whereby they generally keep out of tit for tat arguments but I have found this is very much not the case. I'd been going along happily working and out of the blue I have this charade to contend with as well as producing documentation for them.

And to lighten this thread slightly I am now in receipt of an email from disgruntled customer telling me they are unemployed and though they should have received a lot more for the money they paid out! You couldn't make this up.
 
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Kerrigan time for you to not correspond with this person and if they persist tell them you're going to a solicitor for harrasment and libel etc.
 
By sending defamatory comments to the website, your customer has already placed themself in a position to be sued. You won't be able to get any meaningful damages out of them, but a warning might persuade them to back off.

I don't know whether they've broken any law in suggesting you should produce a false/fraudulent report.
 
The customer continues to send emails but I have ceased any engagement with them. When legal action was mentioned the website never mentioned the complaint or problematic customer again! All has gone very quiet on their end.

One lesson has been learned from this debacle and that's to never underestimate a website that states they will not get involved in customer spats as I have found this is very much not the case.
 
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