<<<<A house in Plymouth, Devon, UK>>>>

Whilst a lot of people choose to give us brief instructions as to what they want doing to their house, from time to time we enjoy a nice chat with someone who has experienced getting quotes from other companies to have their house painted and here is one of them!

A site user writes………

Hello, hows it going? I saw you on the internet after seeing one of your teams working on a house here in Plymouth and I see you have an office here, so can you contact me for one of your free quotes please if you dont mind as i want what they had on my house please!

I’ll tell you a bit about it. it is prob late Victorian, has damp, mainly at the rear and lots of cracks that someone at some stage has put a load of gunk in it to seal the crack but its obvious looking at it, it needs far more repairs done and some more cracks have appeared to the front and the side after the winter we had, which was very cold.

I have had 3 quotes so far but i am to be honest not interested in any as the salesman from these companies ( guess you wont be able to print who they are yes?!?),

anyway, the 1st fella was about 18 years old (!), was selling some sort of coating that that trowel on and roll into a pattern and looked awful but he tried, badly, to convince us it would look grate on our Victorian house! By that time we knew he was a fool and showed him the door. Grate indeed, it is a bit like suggesting buying a vintage 1920s rolls Royce and shoving alloy wheels and a sports exhaust on it as some fool says it would look “nice”, where do some of these wallcoating firm,s get their staff from!? (sorry guys, i dont mean you!)

…..and anyway he read a script and we couldn’t wait for him to leave, and then the other 2 turned up in flash cars, the 1st one seemed in a hurry to leave, even before he gave us the stupid price he did, and the last one we had around was a fairly nice chap dont get me wrong, but the price he quoted was absolutely astronomical and he didnt have any houses already painted in Plymouth o show us which put us off a bit!

I have heard grate things about NPA, especially as I know my mate had you guys do his house in Glenholt and he was well chuffed with it, plus he said you have display houses we can see in Plymouth so i would like to see  a few also.

Now I am sure you know, being from Plymouth yourself (!), that people generally dont have a lot of dough down here and as we only bought the house last year, it skinted us, so I would be very keen to get a quote s can you send someone around to see my house as i am very keen to get the cheapest price you can to have my house painted, thanks in Anticipation from John, Plymouth.

THANKS JOHN AND THANKS FOR GIVING US PERMISSION TO POST YOUR EMAIL, I HOPE IT HELPS OTHERS WHO ARE LOOKING FOR A PRICE FOR WORK TO THEIR HOUSE.

EDITORS NOTE: We never print peoples details unless they give us permission. We will update this post at a later stage if “john” decides to go ahead with us………….

A nice little earner?

(I cant legally publish their name so bear with me………..)

AND THIS IS RELATED TO A COMPANY BASED IN ENGLAND, NOT A SIMILAR SOUNDING COMPANY BASED IN SPAIN.

AS YOU MAY KNOW, WE HAVE ALWAYS CAMPAIGNED AGAINST THE “HARD SELL” THAT SEEMS TO BE PREVELANT IN EXTERIOR WALLCOATINGS AND HOME IMPROVEMENTS IN GENERAL. THIS ARTICLE (NOT WRITTEN BY US BY THE WAY), SHOWS WHAT CAN HAPPEN IF YOU ARE GULLIBLE ENOUGH TO BE FLOGGED SOMETHING FROM YOUR DOORSTEP.

A concerned consumer posted comments on another site about a terrible experience he had with a wallcoatings company, who i cant name, but they apply their textured coatings with a trowel and roller. I cannot stress enough, DO NOT AGREE TO A “FREE SURVEY OR DAMP CHECK” IF SOMEONE FROM THIS COMPANY KNOCKS ON YOUR DOOR WITHOUT BEING INVITED. THEY ARE CON MEN AND ARE ONLY INTERESTED IN SELLING VERY EXPENSIVE FINANCE PACKAGES. YOU CAN READ MORE INFO ON OUR MAIN WEBSITE, BUT IF YOU YOURSELF HAVE ANY SIMILAR HORROR STORIES, WE WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU

EDITOR: MY OWN COMMENTS ARE POSTED IN BOLD CAPITALS

Anyway, I would value peoples comments on this………………

My wife had a visit from a Sales rep from Pro****oat 1 night in March 2006, he asked if he could interest us with his product, unfortuantly I was not in, he suggested that he could call back a couple of nights later which my wife agreed to.
Now we did need something doing to our render as it had seen better days, but we were not prepared for what happened next.
The regional Sales manager turned up claiming that his rep was sick???? and that he would get us a better deal from him.

ED: YOU MEAN HE WANTED SOME COMMISSION FROM YOU.?!
Well after a 4 hour sales patter from him and with me constantly asking him how much it would cost, and him telling us basically good things come to those who wait!
We then went through to the Kitchen where he did damp tests on the internal walls claiming that his meter was off the scale saying that we had penertrating damp, if we applied this coating which was a special coating made from crushed marble and resin it would stop damp penertrating and therefore keep the house warmer.

ED: THIS IS A COMMON CON. ALL YOU DO IS LICK YOUR FINGERS AND TOUCH THE PROBES ON THE DAMP METER AND THEN STICK IT ON THE WALL. DONT FALL FOR IT, ITS A CON.

If we had damp in the walls and they applied this stuff how does the existing damp get out????
After measuring the walls up (we live in a victorian terrace with an extension out the back) he told us that the existing render out the back would have to come off back to bare brick as it had blown,and a new damp course would have to be applied before the new render went on, they would also replace all guttering with new, and any defects that they found whilst doing this would be repaired free of charge.

ED: YET ANOTHER COMPANY SELLING A TOTALLY UNSUITABLE EXTERIOR COATING TO RUIN THE CHARACTER OF A HOUSE. ONCE THIS STUFF IS ON, THATS IT, IT CANT BE REMOVED.

We were also informed that they do not use outside contractors, we later found out this is not true, to our cost.

ED: I CAN’T COMMENT ON THAT AS I DONT KNOW, ALTHOUGH THERE WAS A COURT CASE (OR 2) A FEW YEARS BACK INVOLVING THEM?
The front of the property the render could just be applied over the top, now I know absolutley nothing about the building business, I said to him if you put the render over the top then we wont be able to open the windows, his reply was not to worry that would be sorted.

ED: AS YOU CAN SEE, IT WASNT. THIS IS MERELY THE SALESMAN, “closing objections and moving on” in sales talk. He had NO INTENTION AT ALL in ensuring that it would be done as requested, he just closes the objection, thats all. NOTE: there are now laws in place to protect yourself against this, although under a labour government, i doubt if it will be enforced….

Anyway down to the nitty gritty bit-how much will it cost, he gave us a form to fill in asking us how much we could afford per week, as he could get us an “excellent” (!) deal on finance, we put down £25 per week or about £100 per month.

ED: A LOAN SECURED AGAINST YOUR HOME, FOR 10 YEARS! IF YOU DON’T OR CAN’T PAY, BYE-BYE HOUSE……………..

10 YEARS!!!!!!!!!! THE COMPANY GET A HANDSOME COMMISSION ALSO FOR SELLING THE LOAN, ALTHOUGH THEY DONT PASS THAT ONTO THEIR SALES STAFF. (I KNOW, I WENT SECRETLY ON THEIR SALES TRAINING COURSE!)

With his sales patter he said that if we had the back done only it would cost £18,000 thats right £18,000.

ED: MOST OTHER WALLCOATING COMPANIES WOULD CHARGE AROUND £4,000 FOR THE SAME JOB………

If we had the front done as well it would cost £23,000.

ED: OMG !!!!! 23 GRAND! WHAT A RIP OFF!!!!!! AGAIN, MOST REPUTABLE EXTERIOR COATING COMPANIES WOULD BE ABLE TO DO THE SAME JOB FOR PROBABLY ABOUT A THIRD OF THE PRICE THEY QUOTED!

I told him there and then it would be too much.He then went into price reduction mode and said that as he was the Regional sales manager blah blah he could get £4000 off, and then another 10% off which brought it down to £17,100. I said it was way too much. So he said if we had it as a show house then he would give us another reduction, I asked him what was involved, and he said they would take before and after pictures, put a sign in our windows,blah blah blah, we could have another £2,000 off, told him it was still too much, he told us if we signed on the dotted line that night he would do the whole package for £13,000, with the finaince at 19.9% which he claims is competitve.

By this time he had been with us for 5 hours and we were getting very tired.

we both wanted to go to bed.( when was the last time a rep turned up during the day, its just a ploy to brainwash you)

ED: CORRECT, THE LONGER THEY ARE THERE, THE MORE LIKELY YOU WILL SIGN TO GET SHOT OF THEM. THIS IS CALLED “GETTING THE CAMPING GEAR OUT” IN THE MURKY WORLD OF TEXTURED COATINGS CLOSERS (SALESMEN).

ALWAYS MEN BY THE WAY…………..

“He said his guys could start the job on Monday the next week, this was on the Thursday night. so we just signed on the dotted line thinking we were getting the job for £10,000 less.”

ED: THIS IS ANOTHER CLASSIC TRICK. THE REASON THEY INSTALL IT QUICKLY IS THAT ONCE THE PRODUCT IS ONE THE WALL, YOU CANT CHANGE YOUR MIND. BASICALLY THEY DO THE WORK BEFORE THE COOLING OFF PERIOD ENDS AND BEFORE YOU HAVE TIME TO COMPARE QUOTES FROM OTHER COMPANIES……..

WHILE I SYMPATHISE WITH YOU, YOU SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN CONNED INTO THIS. REMEMBER IF SOMEONE APPROACHES YOU “OUT OF THE BLUE”, YOU HAVE 14 DAYS COOLING OFF PERIOD TO CHANGE YOUR MIND, DESPITE WHAT THE SHARP SUITED CONMEN OF PROT***T WILL TELL YOU! SPEAK TO FRIENDS AND FAMILY BEFORE YOU GET WORK DONE AND IF ANYONE APPROACHES YOU, FORGET IT, THAT CANT BE THAT GOOD IF THEY HAVE TO KNOCK ON PEOPLES DOORS!

IF IT SOUNDS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE, THEN IT IS!

He also said the job would take 2 weeks unless there where serious problems.
Well they turned up on the Monday about 10 in the morning and were gone by 2pm. I kept popping home during my lunch breaks to see how they were getting on.
To cut a long story short it took 6 weeks they ad to replace half the bathroom wall cos the bricks were rotton, these bricks came from the remains of our front garden wall which they had to knock down, they asked me for £150 to completely replace the wall, foolishly I agreed. course this guy was so unreliable that they sacked him, thats why the job took 6 weeks, he gave all sorts of excuses as to why he had not turned up for 2 or 3days at a time.
After complaing to Pro****coat new guys were sent round to finish the job off, including stripping off the new render out the front because we could not open the windows, refixing the ridge tiles which the managed to take off, why I dont know, rebuild next doors barbecue, replace the new guttering which was totally substandard.
To date our back lawn is completely messed up and we will have to relay which I only did myself 2 years ago, I had to refit the outside light cos they just left bare live wires dangling.
And after a very mild winter our house is no warmer then before if anything it feels colder.
And now our guttering is totally naff and needs fixing again.
In the end I organised my own finance, which I got off the internet at a very competitive rate of 4.5% so saving myself a bloody great big fortune.
Would I recommend this company to anyone, the answer has to be a big NO.
It is completley over priced and overated, I have been told a builder who a neighbours a couple of doors down that in effect all they are using is fiber glass and resin and ordinary render, and the job should only have cost £5000.
To date we have had no photos taken, no signs put in the window and nobody has come round with a view to having the render put on there house.

ED: THAT’S BECAUSE THEIR “PRO*****COAT SHOW HOME REFERRAL SCHEME” IS ACTUALLY A CON TO MAKE YOU SIGN UP ON THE DAY………

So we have been well and truly ripped off………….

END

dont-buy-wallcoatings-from-the-doorstep