If you thought that it’s only in the damp proofing industry where the unscrupulous weave their magic, a little charade I acted in this morning might help you to see the broader picture.

As the title states, I have a little house.  And I let this house out to suitable tenants; have done for the best part of twenty years now.  It’s only a small house and although central heating would be nice, it’s never seemed an essential, at least none of the tenants has ever commented on it (fear of the landlord is a useful thing to have in your locker sometimes). However, the last tenant has just passed on to greater things (a larger house) and as it’s empty, I decided that I’d bite the bullet and install it.

As most of my contacts in the Building Trade seem to have retired or gone to live in Spain, I trawled the local newspaper’s ‘Classified Ad’ section, as I’m sure most people do from time to time. And I came across a 'Humming and Pleating Engineer', aka Plumber, announcing that he’d install six radiators and a combi boiler for just less than sixteen hundred pounds; that sounds fair I thought, I’ll go for that.  I gave him a call and arranged to meet him at the house at a civilised time on a Sunday morning.

As is my custom when meeting people in these situations, I arrived early; mainly so that I could see what he looked like when he didn’t know he was being watched.  I’m not ex MI6 or anything like that; I just find that sometimes, it’s useful to get my first impressions in first, as it were.  If he normally spits a lot, has black curly teeth, or walks with a bit of a run, I go into wary mode; and if kicks out at the nearest cat or scratches his bottom, he and I probably aren’t going to get on too well. Not that spitting, or scratching one’s bottom is necessarily detrimental to a person’s ability to bend copper pipes; but kicking cats is definitely a no-no as far as I’m concerned. As it happened, he had none of these drawbacks, but unfortunately that wasn’t the end of the story.

He’d turned up prompt at 11.30. Good sign. His van was smartly decorated in his company livery; it was taxed; and it didn’t have an orphaned teddy bear stuck to the grille; even better, there wasn’t a sign telling me I could ‘find him in Yellow Pages’. Just exactly why do people put those signs in their cars and shops? If I can read the sign, I’ve already found them! Anyway, I began to feel positive.

Until he got out of his van that is.  Although he was dressed the part, in faded blue, Huckleberry Finn dungarees with bright yellow braces displaying emblems of hammers and screwdrivers, these things came a poor second to my first impression: I distinctly remember thinking “Hmm…this chap looks like he enjoys a good lunch”. Again, that isn’t something I normally bother about, but I was a bit concerned that he’d been engaged in his calorific love affair for so long that he would have significant trouble squeezing in and out of small spaces; not to mention bending down to scratch his knee. And if he dropped something on the floor, there’s a fair chance he wouldn’t see again it unless it rolled away to the other side of the room.  A man who hasn’t seen his own stop cock for twenty years probably isn’t very energetic. Not a good sign!

I opened the door to this large, suntanned person and took on board his pretty ineffectual handshake; it was as though he wasn’t quite sure he should actually be touching me on a Sunday morning. Neutral sign.

Anyway, in he came and, without any of the usual pleasantries, immediately asked me what I wanted.  As we’d already discussed this on the phone, I thought it a bit odd. However, I dismissed the thought he might be suffering from amnesia, and put it down to one of those typical, nervous opening gambits so often employed by plumbers, who, after all, are often shy, retiring people; and so I reminded him.  “I want the offer you’re advertising in the paper please Mister”.  “Six radiators and a combi boiler, except the house isn’t big enough to fit six radiators but five will do nicely, thank you very much”.

A sad look came over his face, like a camel that’s just found out it’s got a leak in its hump and has a long journey to make that day; then the teeth sucking started.

Now, if there’s one thing that’s guaranteed to ascend vertically up my nasal passages, it’s teeth sucking. A calculated silence; a raised eyebrow; perhaps an ironic chuckle. But teeth sucking? No thank you. Especially as I gained the distinct impression they weren’t really his own teeth anyway. More like he was breaking them in for his pet Alsatian.

And then he started on the long and winding road to telling me why my little house, that could only support five radiators instead of his promised six, was too difficult a prospect to centrally heat for less than two and a half thousand pounds. I never did find out what happened to the price in the paper.

But I did find out that the gas pipe from the meter would have to be of humungous size because of the pressure drop from the meter to the boiler. Err..what about the pressure drop from the Russian gas fields to the house - a couple of thousand miles or so? Never mind.

Because the ground floors are solid, each of the downstairs radiators would have to have pipes dropped from the floor above; and this would involve so many problems it would almost make you cry.

He could only put the teeniest of radiators in the house unless I paid for bigger ones.

No, he couldn’t use thermostatic radiator valves on combination boilers.

The list went on, and on, and on, and on…and each item on his list was pure, unadulterated bull…t!  And all because he’d come to the house on a fair wind and a false promise, and he was becoming increasingly desperate to achieve substantially more than his advertised price, which in other words was  – a come-on.

I did ask him exactly how small the house would have to be to get his six radiators at the price offered but he just did a sort of pirouette (believe me, that had to be seen:  think hippos doing Morris dancing) and for reasons I never did figure out, raised his arm, leaned against the wall and started to tap it gently with his forehead – honest. I can only think this was done to gain sympathy.

Perhaps he was praying that I would eventually realise: I, a mere idiot customer, was stretching this great man’s patience to the limit. He was trying so hard to educate me in the finer arts of ‘rip-offsky’ and all I did was ask sensible questions. At this point I began to consider gnawing off one of my fingers as a diversion!

When he came back from his pagan, head-banging ritual, he looked me in the eye and told me that as well as the job costing a lot more than any normal person could reasonably expect, he could only do the work for pound notes; or beer vouchers as we used to call them when I was in the building trade.

Naturally, he wouldn’t need to charge me VAT if he worked on that basis, and he would give me a ‘proper receipt’, for the tax man.  Then, another gem: to convince me he was a bona fide, all singing, all dancing, honest-to-goodness workman who upheld the highest traditions of his profession, went to church on Sundays (before the meeting, obviously) and loved his momma to bits - he flashed his CORGI registration card.

Oh boy! CORGI registration. Do I kneel and kiss his feet; do I praise the Lord; shall I roll over and show him my tummy – what exactly did he think this would achieve?

Well, I couldn’t bring myself to do any of those things actually, I just looked on in stunned silence; and I’d better not get started on CORGIs, or I might also veer dangerously into the realms of the NICEIC, FENSA, or any of the other multifarious organisations who make a living from bestowing legitimacy onto people I wouldn’t allow with a hundred yards of my grandsons’ Wendy House.

He hadn’t finished yet though, and when it eventually appeared, the coup-de-gras was worth waiting for.  He also wanted a deposit – pound notes remember.  ‘How Much’, I asked, trying to hide my rising hysteria.  Sixty-percent quoth he. Sixty percent! This extra-large muppet is expecting me to give him the best part of a thousand pounds before he even lifts a floorboard. Nay, before he even turns up at the house with his tools.

To shorten the tale, I responded in the only way I knew how: I said “No”.  “But that’s how we work” he whined incredulously, as I gave him back his business card and opened the door.  His broad shoulders seemed vaguely pitiful as he walked back down the garden path, spitting, scratching his bottom and looking for the nearest cat.

Which brings me to the sad conclusion of my Sunday Morning sojourn.  Just how many people does this guy, and others like him, rip-off on a regular basis.  If he’s as successful as some of the other clowns I see selling totally unnecessary damp proofing treatments, he’ll be doing quite well. And if I were a dear, timid, little old lady; instead of a dear, timid, little old man, I guess I wouldn’t have stood a chance.  My wife has long stopped going to garages when there’s anything wrong with the car; she always sends me instead. She just knows instinctively that she’s going to be conned; and it’s a bitter complaint I hear from many of my lady clients.

Unfortunately, I don’t have an answer to this endless charade of people feasting on each other’s gullibility.  I know I can do something about it in my line of business; but Plumbers, Electricians, Roofers, Glazers, TV Repair men, Web Site designers, garages…where does it all end? Answers on a postcard please.