In recent years the distrust of users towards certain trades such as electricians has increased due to the intrusion, low preparation, scams and high prices of professional assumptions, which far from solving our problems, end up making them worse.
Let's be honest, the work of an authorized technician is not cheap, due to the high risk involved in their work, purchase of very expensive materials, travel, immediate availability, etc. but this does not mean that many "professionals" take advantage of these high prices and ignorance of people to charge excessive amounts for certain services, deceiving the consumer and damaging the image of electricians.
With the double purpose of: clearing the name of all the honest professionals in this sector and of making the population aware of the importance of hiring a trusted technician, we are going to show a series of frequent electricians' scams in which you can see involved. We also include some tips so that if you live these deceptions in the first person you know how to handle this situation and ... Avoid getting ripped off!
TIMES OF ELECTRICIANS AND TIPS TO AVOID THEM
Scams for emergencies, displacements and labor. It is the most common scam in this sector. As these rates can not be quantified, many workers take advantage of the need or urgency of the people to overload the price of this type of service.
Some of our customers have told us that they have come to pay for a simple inspection of the installation around € 300, due to travel fees, holidays, etc.
Tips:
Always ask for a quote, even if it is rough especially "labor", "displacement" or "festive". Once the specialist is in your home, request the "rates at the moment" and from there decide whether or not to accept the service offered.
Request different budgets from different electricians. In this way you will have an estimated average price and you will know more accurately the cost of these extras.
A common hoax is posing as an electrician in a community of neighbors or in an address and claiming an inspection by annual review or similar. Many people trust to see the supposed professional with the uniform of the company and well equipped. (
emergency lighting)
The modus operandi of these scammers is to inspect the installation, detect a nonexistent fault, or even sometimes cause it, and ask the owner for money to purchase materials urgently. Once the payment has been made, the "technician" never returns.
Tips:
Corroborate always that the person who comes to your house is what he claims to be. Ask in which company you work, check the company on the internet, that the license numbers match those of the workers of the company, that the logo of the uniforms matches your corporate image, etc.
Whenever someone shows up without notifying call the responsible company and ask for their technician. This action usually frightens the scammers, for fear of being caught.
In the event that a part of the money is requested in advance (usually happens) to make a receipt in which it appears: the amount of money paid, the DNI of the two and signature of both parties.
Distrust all those who do not intend to invoice for the work done. This means that they are not registered in the Social Security and therefore they are not professionals.
Before paying any material, ask for a budget of the expenses and later if you agree to accept it.
Be at all times with the professional observing how he performs his duties.
Falsification of data. It is not difficult to find the cases of hiring a "technician" and that instead of a worker in the sector, there is a person who pretends to be such a professional. These usually charge money for badly done work and in most cases unfinished. Most of the time scammers cheat their victims with the sample of forged documents of the alleged company they work for, as well as invoices, budgets, etc. that have no validity.
Example:
An example of this is the one suffered in the first person by a woman who contacted us through our website . This requested an electric bulletin for her home and a few years later when she contacted her electric company for unrelated topics, they demanded the bulletin that she had already delivered. That is when he contacts us asking for help to resolve the situation, and the document provided by the electrician as a sign of the completion of the bulletin was illegible because it was a copy of a tracing sheet. Also, I could not ask for any responsibility from the company since it had closed.
A clear example of a scam of electricians since the electric bulletins do not have a tracing sheet or anything like that, what this supposed "technician" did was cheat.
We show you a copy of an electrical installation
certificate.