Hi everyone,
looking for some guidance as this is the first time such thing has happened to me in Switzerland.
I own an apartment and hired a company to clean my windows and motorized blinds since I am on the first floor and the windows are only reachable from the outside with a ladder. Small and probably insignificant detail is that the company reached out to me making me an offer and I accepted it, I didn0t actually reach out to them.
To cut a long story short, the employees of the company came to clean, did in general a rather louzy cleaning and on top of this damaged one of the blinds i.e. they cut one of the 3 tapes that bring the stores up/down resulting in them being skewed now..
I noticed the damage when the employees where still there and when I asked them about it they claimed "it was like this from the beginning". This is what they also told the owner of the company later, so they refuse to take responsibility...
What are my options here?
First of all I havent paid them yet and I am not intending to till this is resolved i.e. either in the best case they fix it using their insurance or in the worse case I fix it and I just pay them the difference fixing cost - cleaning cost (if any).
Is there a state consumer protection agency that I can refer to for advise in the matter? Any other suggestions are appreciated!
Thanks a lot
So to get this straight.
1 adult says the company broke something.
Several adults say the company did not break something.
So unless you have hard proof that they indeed did break it, this is a case of "life sucks" imho.
I assume it is undisputed by all parties that they indeed performed the act of cleaning. So unless they did not do a job as agreed upon withholding that payment might end up in a Betreibung and a higher bill.
You can consult the ombudsman, or contact your legal insurance (if you have any)
This is a case where I'd accept my losses.
As for future, stay far away from companies that approach you for cleaning, fixing the roof, placing tiles in the garden etc.. etc.. unless you can check references/reputation. Better to perhaps pay some more and pick yourself to avoid a big chance of being screwed-up in one way or the other.
AND, take photos of everything, in all the possible positions (open, closed, up, down etc.) before you have a company/person start to clean whatever needs to be cleaned. Do an inspection with the person doing the quote and state you want them to put on the offer that they inspected the object and there was no damage.
Don't trust anybody. It is certain that if the employees damaged it, they will not be in a hurry to tell the boss that they screwed up.
Have it fixed and then send them the bill. If they don’t pay it, initiate a poursuit against them.
How old is the blind? Is that particular blind more in the sun than the others?
Those tapes are incredibly strong but they do rot over time in the sun, such that they get very fragile and can 'break' with minimum force.
Oh - and as other have said, never get any work done by cold callers - online, by telephone or physically turning up at your doorstep.
Do you need a new tarmac driveway laid?
That's what I'd do. You might get the repairer to offer an opinion on how it could have happened.
Oh I love the ones where they scrape away 8 cubic meters of ground which they have sold further on in the street never to be seen again
Thanks everyone for the suggestions. The company did not come entirely out of the blue. They have a contract for some common areas of the building so I thought if the Verwaltung trusts them they must be ok.
The blinds are 8 years old, so not brand new but these tapes should last for 20 years or so. Also these blinds are not exposed to the sun more than others in the house.
My guess is that as they were cleaning the blinds and moving them right and left, the tape was rubbed against the edge of the hole which it goes through and it was cut. It may have been that this spot was weaker than the rest, or they applied more force to it who knows.
If you want to be nice(r) you could ask them to repair the damage, otherwise you will have it fixed and will send them the bill.
They (should) have insurance for this.
Which may or may not count for anything (your opinion)
There are certain responsibilities which weigh higher on the service provider than on the customer.
One could reasonably expect the workers to point out any obvious defects and also to inform you if something was broken during the works, whether it was their fault or because of an existing defect. They should also be insured for such events.
Having said that, I think it's likely the blinds were already damaged. One wouldn't expect cleaning to cut a cord (if it was done properly). They can be quite easy to do a temporary (--> permanent) repair and I'm a bit surprised the guys don't have equipment with them to make such a repair.
If they came, cleaned, then went away without saying anything other than "sign here" then it sounds suspicious.
As for the cleaning there can be two types of cleaning - they go through the motions of cleaning or they make the stuff clean. I suppose this wasn't clarified but one could reasonably expect the stuff to be clean afterwards. It's always advisable to have some kind of written service agreement which deals with expectations and what happens in the event something goes wrong.
You could talk to your Hauswart and see if they have any ideas.
I'm looking forward to the posts that say you should consider the payment a donation because of coronavirus.
My opinion is that if there is no proof that it is word against word, in this situation it is several adults against one. Also it is OP making a claim so he has the burden of proof.
But if you think that if a couple of movers all shed their shoulders about the scratch on your floor and you can't proof that they did it, that you're going to get money from them, hey it must be a happy world you live in.