Here in Scotland if you want a tradesman to do some work in your house, there’s generally a minimum ‘call out charge’ of say £50-£60 which covers the first half an hour – one hour’s labour.

Well, we had a new back door fitted a week or so ago, and we needed the contact switch for the burglar alarm refitted to the new door. I could have done it myself in ten minutes, but our maintenance contract with the burglar alarm company ADT Fire and Security says only they can do it, and the company who insure our house insist that we have a maintenance contract on the burglar alarm. So suddenly we find ourselves in the wonderful world of monopoly economics.

I came home from work to find a new contact switch fitted, just like this £2.29 one in the Maplin catalogue. The fitter had shortened the old cable, connected it to the new switch (two screws), and mounted the new switch on the door (four screws), and secured the cable with three staples. He had also left behind a bill for £20 (parts) and …wait for it… £140 labour, a total of £160.

I rang up ADT Fire and Security (for that is the name of the monopolists) and was told I would have to complain by fax. I did so, and they left a voicemail to say the job had been mispriced and they would re-invoice for … £115.

I have of course sent off another fax, but beware. I’m not saying that ADT Fire and Security are complete cowboys intent on exploiting a captive market for every last penny they can get. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t touch ADT Fire and Security with a bargepole (Google webcrawler, have you got that yet – it’s ADT Fire and Security).

However, be careful not to get into a situation where you have no choice of supplier – you will inevitably be ripped off.

Now, why did I post this on my blog under the category ‘Open Source’

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 7:07 pm and is filed under Open-source. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.