Re: End of an era.
Lovely story, Glyn:- thank you for that. Rather sad too. I'm sure there were lots of people who repaired things for the love of doing it and helping people. So long as they could get by financially, that was good enough. Getting rich was not the idea. I was similar I suppose. I had a workshop on a cheap industrial estate during the '90's so low overheads. I should have charged a fixed call out but never did- consequently, I spent loads of time running round after customers and earning no money for it. I loved it though and would still be doing it now if it were possible.
£45 call out sounds reasonable to me. What the engineer does when he gets there is immaterial. The overheads of the business and keeping the engineer on the road need to be paid for. The extra VAT should have been mentioned, however.
By way of comparison, I was in PC World recently and they had a notice up with their repair charges. A TV repair (if I remember correctly) was 'from £95 plus parts, plus VAT.' I bet they don't get many timewasters at that price!
Cheers
Nick
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