musings

Earlier in the year our burglar alarm control box started overheating. We phoned Hi-Tec Security Ltd who originally installed it, and they sent an engineer. He diagnosed and rectified the fault in half an hour, and charged us £109.86.

Here’s the breakdown:

Callout: £30.00
Labour: (@ £39.00 per hour) £19.50
Battery £44.00
VAT £16.36

Now, you might think I would have an issue with the callout charge. Their office is, after all, only 1 km away. Not at all. I am quite happy to accept that there is a flat rate, and £30.00 is the sort of figure companies charge. Similarly, £39.00 per hour labour is reasonable.

What I do object to, is the swingeing £44.00 + VAT (total £51.70) for a replacement battery. I did a quick check on the internet, and I could have obtained one for less than £15.00 including VAT and delivery. Same brand, same specification. Or I could have walked into my local Maplin and bought one for £28.99 (a bit pricey, but still £22.71 cheaper than Hi-Tec Security Ltd).

So I wrote to Hi-Tec and asked them to check their figures. Their reply was what I would describe as a ‘good effort’. They said:

The price you quote is lower than the price paid by Hi-Tec Security Ltd and does not equate like for like. For example, there is no costing included for return of used product and recycling and reclamation costs.

Did they thank me for drawing attention to a source cheaper than their current battery supplier? Nope. Oh, and the old battery was left with us by the engineer. So much for the recycling and reclamation I have apparently paid for.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 15th, 2007 at 12:10 pm and is filed under technology, uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.