Call out Fee but not Disclosed

Mandacity

I have a retail business and I got cameras installed a few months ago. Payment up front. Installation and hardware.

It’s an app on my phone that allows me to view at any time of day and watch play back.

I had a day light robbery in the summer. I wasn’t able to view playback for the guards etc. I called the company and they sent an engineer out who helped to troubleshoot it.

I then received an invoice for this. At no stage was it disclosed that there was a payment for the call out.

I am challenging this as it was not disclosed.

On the phone a staff member did quote and say that as it was done in Dec 2023, its over a year and that I wouldn’t get a service beyond a year but it hasn’t been within the year. I think this was a slip up on her part. I wasn’t able to get a word in. She hung up on me.

* A previous employee had said, you are not paying so it will be a bad debt on you. I explained I am not declining to pay I am challenging the process.

I don’t think it should be an expectation of customer to assume there is a fee. It was never in written or verbal form. They should have declared that there would be a fee at the time of the call out or in the T+C’s.

Last comm’s are they hung up on a call and called it crazy that I wouldn’t know to expect a fee for a call out. Maybe that is ignorant of me to not know that but they assumed that I would know this. I think its a gap in their process and this has highlighted it.

Thoughts? Advice on how to proceed.

TIA

10-10-20

"I wasn’t able to view playback for the guards etc. I called the company and they sent an engineer out who helped to troubleshoot it. "

Hi. So who's issue was it, a deployment/configuration problem with the camera/app (from day one), a new issue on a feature which previously worked, or was it user problem where you didn't know how to use the app? This makes a difference.

Did you have a support contract with the company in question, what does it say for each of the above situations?

In my opinion it's not excessive to charge a call-out fee for user error or new faults, but it is if the system was not ever configured correctly in the first place.

Lenar3556

Significantly, this is a business to business transaction so consumer protections arising from the Sale of Goods and Supply of Services Act for example are not operative in this case. Businesses are expected to negotiate the terms of any business relationship and the contract between yourself and the installer at the time of installation (and on agreeing any site attendance thereafter) is what applies here. Now, to what extent that was ever actually documented or agreed is another matter.

Nothwothstanding the above, in general terms, I would second the above poster’s comments around what was the cause of the breakdown? If it was user error, or some other external factor which was entirely outside the control of the installer it would seem reasonable that a charge would be made for the attendance. If however it was an install, configuration, or materials failure arising within the first 12 months of installation, it would be normal business practice that this be resolved at the installers cost under warranty.

I wouldn’t loose too much sleep over it, maybe find another firm to maintain it into the future. How much was the call out fee out of interest?

Mandacity

Thanks both for taking time to read and your reply's.

It was never documented the actual fault but my understanding was that it was something that worked before and didn't work on this particular date/time (the playback on the app)

No support contract.

They don't want to be a service provider for me and that's fine but I don't want to it to be written off as bad debt either on my business.

"If however it was an install, configuration, or materials failure arising within the first 12 months of installation, it would be normal business practice that this be resolved at the installers cost under warranty."

I might look in to this further, thanks.

They resolved with it with the hardware I had and not the phone.

130Euro approx. for the call out. Its the principal of it not being disclosed.

Is there any legal business to business agreement where the cost has to be confirmed before progressing with a service?

10-10-20

You could go ask for an incident report, that should provide you with a relatively technical report on what was carried out once they arrived.

But being honest, that's a common B2B charge (onsite support), especially if you consider that they have to staff themselves for these situations which entails a cost, and 130 EUR for that service probably isn't the right hill to die on.

whippet

Generally in a business context if you don't have a support contract / SLA in place you will pay for call outs etc. Both your business and the other business are in business to make money. So charging for the time to send someone out to site to resolve an issue needs to be paid for by someone either through a once off fee or support contract