everything is negotiable

*Barbie*

We got the final invoice from our contractor last night, so i read through it with DK and called out some of the charges that seemed questionable. We did have a few scope changes which I was happy to pay for (e.g significantly more expensive tile, new doors, new toilet, shower door) - but there were some labor charges that were added and some red flags on tax stuff. 

I marked up the invoice and called the PM, and ended up cutting off about $1300 in charges - enough to cover the deductible for the insurance portion of the work, and the cost of the new over-range microwave that I bought. 

PM was impressed that I called him prepared, with a clear understanding of the jargon and abbreviations that he used in the quote, and agreed to everything that I asked him to remove. He said he's never had that type of conversation with a client before - I was like, "I've been telling you all along, I do this stuff for a living -just on a much bigger scale (multi-million dollar chemical plants/manufacturing facilities/R&D labs)."

MissKittyDanger

Glad you got it all sorted! It's kind of disgusting how much they over charged you though. If I need contractors, I'll remember to ask you about the jargon

cowgirl8238

*Barbie* said:

We got the final invoice from our contractor last night, so i read through it with DK and called out some of the charges that seemed questionable. We did have a few scope changes which I was happy to pay for (e.g significantly more expensive tile, new doors, new toilet, shower door) - but there were some labor charges that were added and some red flags on tax stuff. 

I marked up the invoice and called the PM, and ended up cutting off about $1300 in charges - enough to cover the deductible for the insurance portion of the work, and the cost of the new over-range microwave that I bought. 

PM was impressed that I called him prepared, with a clear understanding of the jargon and abbreviations that he used in the quote, and agreed to everything that I asked him to remove. He said he's never had that type of conversation with a client before - I was like, "I've been telling you all along, I do this stuff for a living -just on a much bigger scale (multi-million dollar chemical plants/manufacturing facilities/R&D labs)."

Ouch, that is a significant amount...I sure hope that was just a mistake (or a series of them by the sounds of it) or do they try to pull shit with everyone to make extra profits when people don't check??

kvruns

I'm glad you were able to figure it out and get it reduced although I feel bad for those who either don't look or don't know enough to ask and get screwed. 

I did something similar with our wedding catering because some of the charges and times were  ridiculous so I questioned them and was able to get a few removed although not as much as I wanted but it saved some $$

*Barbie*

I'm guessing in part they were trying to recoup costs that ran above the initial quote, some of it seemed to be duplicate, one item was something that we found the work unsatisfactory and wanted credited, some of the tax costs were duplicated, and they were trying to charge their overhead/profit on the subtotal with tax, rather than the subtotal before tax. I would say some was mildly shady - other stuff was probably oversight or tied into whatever program they are using to calculate the final bill. 

some stuff like plumbing costs - the charge was increased by 4 hours, but there was no scope change beyond the new toilet added - and when he billed the toilet, it was billed as R&R new toilet - which was a combination of labor and cost of a new toilet. I told him that i'd pay the R&R charge, but he needed to take off those extra 4 hours. 

same with demolition charges - he had them built into the tile portion of original quote, but had a different crew do them. the 8 hours charges (2 guys/4hr each) was way over what they actually spent (they were at our house for 6 hours total, and only 1-2 of that was in the bathroom)  so i told him i'd agree to 4. 

Admittedly, I hadn't really looked too hard at their initial quote, so may have pushed back a little more then, but they were actually really reasonable price-wise for what we were expecting, so I let DK manage it. (I'm a little annoyed at the project management costs (overhead/profit) since the project management piece was managed so poorly.) 

SP29

*Barbie* said:

We got the final invoice from our contractor last night, so i read through it with DK and called out some of the charges that seemed questionable. We did have a few scope changes which I was happy to pay for (e.g significantly more expensive tile, new doors, new toilet, shower door) - but there were some labor charges that were added and some red flags on tax stuff. 

I marked up the invoice and called the PM, and ended up cutting off about $1300 in charges - enough to cover the deductible for the insurance portion of the work, and the cost of the new over-range microwave that I bought. 

PM was impressed that I called him prepared, with a clear understanding of the jargon and abbreviations that he used in the quote, and agreed to everything that I asked him to remove. He said he's never had that type of conversation with a client before - I was like, "I've been telling you all along, I do this stuff for a living -just on a much bigger scale (multi-million dollar chemical plants/manufacturing facilities/R&D labs)."

Huh, that's kind of interesting. Kind of makes it sound like he knew those things were in their (or put the charges in there along the way and didn't review everything at completion thinking "oh well- they'll pay it"), but was hoping you wouldn't notice and pay the bill anyway.

short+sassy

On a different industry, hospitals are NOTORIOUS for duplicate charges and charging for things that didn't happen.  They are also tough to figure out because it's written in medical billing jargon.

I don't remember the details, but one of my coworkers was overcharged by thousands of dollars for her delivery.  She had a marathon 6-hour phone conversation with the hospital's billing and that was in addition to dozens of other calls to them.  She was eventually triumphant.