A recent thread spoke of contractors who, it was claimed, wildly overcharged for an after-hours service call. Why, if the work was declined, then the customer got billed for diagnosing the problem!
This is what I believe happened in the thread you mention.
The customer was quoted a $79 after hours dispatch fee. This is a fee just to come out look the job over and quote a price nothing more. Some customers I believe think this is for comming out and diagnosing the problem. I would try to make sure the customer understands that this fee is just a dispatch fee and after arriving at the job we will quote a price for the diagnosis and the repair before we start.
I believe in this situation, after the plumber arrived and looked the situation over he was fairly confident that the valve was bad but would not know for sure unless he diagnosed it.
The plumber then gave the customer a total price for diagnosing and replacing the valve of $303 plus the $79 dispatch fee. At that point the customer had the option of just paying the $79 for the dispatch fee and the price quote from the plumber.
If the plumber went ahead with the diagostics and determined the valve was in fact bad but she declined to have him replace it she would be charged the $100 for the diagnostics.
So in other words I believe the plumber told the customer that he suspected the valve was bad but would need to diagnose it to verify that was the case and that it would be $100 for the diagnostics and $203 for the repair. If the customer gave the approval to proceed then after the plumber completed the diagnosis and determined the valve was in fact bad the customer had the option of declining to have the valve replaced for the $203 and just paying for the diagnosis of $100 plus the $79 dispatch fee. The customer could go out and buy the valve and replace it themselves if they wanted to.
I believe the customer had the option to opt out at any time.
At the time of the initial call the customer could have declined to pay the dispatch fee and have the plumber come out.
At the time the price was quoted the customer could have declined the $100 for the diagnosis and just payed the dispatch fee.
After the diagnosis was completed the customer could have declined to have the repair done and just payed the dispatch fee and diagnostic fee.
