Double glazing, part two...

Remember this one ?
Well he never rang back.
Hardly suprising really as he didn't write anything down during his visit and as far as I know he doesn't have our phone number - pillock.

Well on Tuesday evening we had the man from Safestyle around to give us a quote for the same door and two small windows - bear in mind that Anglian quoted us £1200 and hinted that he might do it for £1000.

The man from Safestyle was a scruffy fat little bastard who I disliked immediately with his "Hi I'm your best mate" stylee of selling - I made it easy for him, told him we'd already had a quote showed him the door and windows, asked him to measure up and give us his best price.

Not good enough.
He wanted to show us his sample windows.

I won't invite reps into the living room, they are not worthy, so we made him stand in the dining room and go through his spiel and an hour later I'd heard just about everything I needed to know in order to chop down a uPVC tree and make the fucking windows from scratch myself., to say I was bored and regretting the whole experience is an understatement, I just wanted him to measure the fucking window give me his price and fuck off out of my life, I will never get back that hour that he wasted and I feel like billing Safestyle for it.

Eventually the tape measure came out and lots of mock tapping away on his calculator and finally a price of £1500 which he assured me was a "really good price"

I told him that we'd had an even better really good price the week before from Anglian and of course he asked what their really good price was at which point I had amnesia and forgot what the rep with no name and no portfolio had quoted me, it was mock amnesia but it might as well have been real because the Anglian rep had left no trace of his presence the week before, let alone anything as complicated as a written quote.

The Safestyle rep chucked £1200 into the ring, that was a really really good price apparently.

"Let me think about it" I told him, he asked what there was to think about, I replied that there was £1200 to think about, he asked if he could phone his boss and I told him he could phone who the hell he liked - the conversation involved lots of muttering and shuffling around and eventually his boss offered the job for £1000.

I honestly wish that the whole double glazing trade would just fold up and die or go away and reinvent themselves, I eventually got rid of the Safestyle rep after he left me with his "quote" - a piece of note paper from his pad that he had scribbled a drawing on that apparently is supposed to look like the doors and windows that we need together with "£1500" written on it - his name and contact number are nowhere to be seen.

Having mentioned all of this to Ned my brother he has recommended a local lad who buys the frames at trade price and fits them for you, he's a builder, and when he comes to measure up and give you a price thats exactly what he does, measures, quotes, then fucks off - sounds like my sort of guy - I already know that he's going to get the job but he can't come for three weeks which tells me that he's very busy so must be doing something right.

In the meantime I've got this perverted sense of humour that makes me want to ring some more double glazing companies for quotes just to see if Anglian and Safestyle are typical of their trade, or even if they are the best of the bunch - I do know that I've googled both company names and the word "complaints" tonight and I'm horrified at the stories I've read.


What an arse-end of a trade to be in !