On Jun 22, 11:30 pm, mm wrote:
On Fri, 22 Jun 2007 22:58:51 -0400, "Scott"

wrote:
While I appreciate your comments, to suggest that consumers shouldn't shop
around is ludicrous. Also, to suggest that the person who bids more must be
the better provider is just as bad. As a person soliciting for work, you
are a salesman. To suggest that all sales people should get paid to show
their wares is unbelievable. I suppose when you go car shopping, you just
go and buy from the first dealer you stop at. Of course not! You shop
around to find the best price AND service. I'm not saying I don't believe
that your time is valuable it's just the nature of the beast and you decided
to go into this line of work so you must deal with the occasional window
shopper. By far the best recommendation is word of mouth and no complaints
filed against you at the BBB. I have no reason to believe that you don't do
quality work but I'm sure the scammer ready to rip me off would say his work
is top notch too. Using your logic, if he's more expensive, it must be
true!

I don't think he said that. IN fact he didn't say how to find a good
contractor.

In this case, it seems to me that no one would have to pay 300 to 500
for 3 to 5 estimates.

I've never done this, but are these 100 dollar estimates in writing,
with a drawing, showing what size cabinets are used?

So you pay for one, and you get one, and then you take the drawing to
the other guys, and get an estimate from them for the same size, type,
etc, cabinets. They don't have to come to your house, they don't have
to measure. How much, if anything, do they charge for that?

Admittedly if you hire one of the ones who have never been to the
house, I think they will all insist on measuring themselves, after the
contract is signed**. How much would they imbed in the contract for
doing so? Whatever, you'll be paying no more than 100 dollars extra
for the first guy to come out.

**Although maybe not if the customer a release that he measured and
he's accurate, and will pay extra expenses. Surely if I'm just
replacing the cabinets I have with identically sized cabinets, I can
measure the size myself. Rico, would you trust me to do that, if I
signed a release too?

Nope. There's no up side to that. I don't know who the other guy is
and whether he's competent or not. The odds that I'd create the same
kitchen layout are entirely non-existent.

A guy I used to work with told me a story about a friend of his that
had a carpet business. The guy got sick of having the exact scenario
you described happen to him. Someone would take his written estimate,
with room measurements, and shop it around. In other words this guy
was doing the estimating work and people were taking advantage of
him. Know how he fixed that? He started deducting 2' from every
dimension on the written estimate. He actually had an owner call him
up screaming that his measurements were wrong! The owner had given it
to some other guy who never bothered checking the measurements,
ordered the carpet, went to install it and...oops!

R