Report: #1351956

Complaint Review: Total General Contracting Services

Total General Contracting Services Was not paid when invoice was submitted. Complained about hourly rate/hours charged. Total General quoted electrical to customer, which they under quoted, then had customer by what they felt was sufficient. Then they hired another electrician to come in after us after we refused to return until paid. Campbellford Ontario

Reported By:

Fern — PETERBOROUGH Ontario Canada
Submitted:

Wed, January 25, 2017
Updated:

Thu, January 26, 2017

Total General Contracting Services

14 Trent Road

Campbellford, Ontario

Canada
Phone:

705-653-4646
Web:

www.tgcs.ca
Category:

Home Improvements

*UPDATE Employee: Dear Consumers

Consumers beware of Total General Contracting Services. Jim Gillingham quoted a job on areas that he does not have the knowledge about. He under quoted an electrical portion of a project we were involved in. When we were hired, they never asked our hourly rate, then when our invoice was submitted they said they would pay us less then what our rate was. Project manager was paid to be on site daily and was not. Project manager accused us of not being on site for what we had invoiced for, even after proof was given. Told Total General project manager that more things had to be completed, but we would not return until paid for previous work. Project manager told customers that we would not return, and went out and hired another electrical company to complete. They paid them but not us. Customer had to end up paying us a portion of the outstanding.

1 Updates & Rebuttals

alias

Campbellford,
Ontario,
Canada

Dear Consumers

#2UPDATE Employee

Thu, January 26, 2017

Dear Consumers,

The company that made this report appears to not want to divulge their information and hide behind an alias. We at Total General Contracting Service were hired by our clients to complete a job which was not to have an extensive amount of electrical work required. The job entailed moving and adding a few receptacles and changing out some lights and removing baseboard heaters that were throughout the home equipped for Forced air Furnace. The electrical company was hired for the clients on behalf of us. Our project manager was on site daily, whether it be for an hour or 8 hours.

This company submitted their first invoice after 70% of the work was completed priced at approximately $14,500. After their initial first visit and work was begun, we will own up to the fact that there were extras added to the job and also there there was a complication with the house that was not expected to occur. It was requested that the bill be separated into multiple bills. Four to be exact; the original, the complications bill, extras requested by our company and the extras requested by the clients. The first bill received was all combined, and the request had to be asked of again to have the bills separated. When the bill was finally separated into the requested 4 bills, there was a substantial increase in the cost nearly $11,500. increase. We contacted this electrical company questioned the increase, and they took the time over the holidays to sort out the overcharge. When presented with the final revised bill, it still was over $21,000. Our company never refused to pay our bills, only disputed with the above electrical company that they were far to high for the work completed. We reviewed the bills thoroughly after they disputed that their time and costs were justified. Not only did we find that they charged us more hours than what was spent in an 8 hour day, but we also had these bills reviewed by competitive electrical companies whom agreed the charges were too much. Our company did have to hire another electrical company to come in and complete the work in order for our clients to meet their move in date. The only reason we had to do so was because the disputing electrical company would not return to the job because we had not paid a bill that we were still in discussion over.

On January 23rd, 2017 the electrical company, our company and the clients met on the job site to settle the above mentioned bills. Our evidence of overcharges by their company was pulled solely from their final revised bills and presented to them. It was clarified with them present that their company was only on site between the hours of 7am-4pm on the days listed on their bill (9 hour day - less one hour lunch) which they agreed to verbally. Based on their bills they charged us an hour rate spent on each job plus materials for each day. Multiple jobs were completed in one day, and those multiple jobs added up to hours over the agreed 8 hours of daily work, in most cases 11-12 hours each day in total. Materials were not disputed, only amount of hours, and the rate of cost per hour charged to us. On this day it was agreed of a settlement of $15,000. Which was paid in full to their office the next dayJanuary 24th 2017.