A client has recently clipped a phone line. He was expecting a repair bill for £500-£800 but he now finds that he is being sued to replace a phone pole as well!
To defend the claim, he has been asked to provide photos – which he has not got. We often hear about utility companies chasing people for disproportionate amounts of money for broken cables.
A few years ago, a contractor received a bill for over £12K for a broken line. He got billed for hundreds of metres of downed lines. He wisely took multiple photos showing the damage and the number of telecoms engineers on site. He had been invoiced for a team of 8 people, even though there were only 2 on site.
The end result – the claim was settled for £800. This has saved the client a huge amount of money over the years as he did not have to claim on his insurance.
Whilst the risk of damaging something is part of the job, the lesson here is clear. ALWAYS take photos otherwise the small bill you are expecting could end up costing you thousands of pounds.
