Skip hire company boss fined for coercing customers into paying extra fees
Surrey County Council reported on their news site that skip hire boss Brian Place, director of 1st Place Gab & Skip Hire Ltd, had been sentenced and fined by Guildford magistrates for using aggressive commercial practices, which stumped up charges for residential skips in the Surrey area.
Brian Place was ordered to pay fines and court upwards of £30,000 after residents complained to Surrey Trading Standards officers.
The problem with skip hire
This story, in particular, reminded us that many homeowners throughout the county are being ripped off with skip hire every day, whether it’s from stumped-up charges or hiring a skip when it’s cheaper to use a rubbish removal service instead (see rubbish removal costs).
In Mr Place’s case, residents were left furious after skips were left on driveways (one in Wokingham) for months after the business demanded additional and excessive sums to take them away. Several complaints came from multiple customers involved, many of whom lived in Frimley, Camberley, Aldershot, Wokingham and Leatherhead, who had hired the skips as part of current renovation work at their homes. Part of the paid arrangement with 1st Place Grab & Skip Hire Ltd included the delivery and collection of the private skips.
As the company worked with building companies to provide skips, Place’s argument lay in that when one of these businesses went bust in late 2017, the skip boss was out of pocket and needed to be paid by the residents. However, the skip boss did not have any contracts in place with residents, who had already paid for the skips through the builder and were already thousands of pounds out of pocket. But Place demanded money to remove the skips, which he claimed the builders owed him, leaving skips on driveways for several weeks.
Three customers desperately paid Place, exchanging funds ranging from £250 to £600. However, two customers refused to comply, meaning skips were left at home for many months. More backlash came then in February 2018, when one Leatherhead resident dispensed of their building services, who was working with Place, who had removed the skip but then charged the residents when the builder failed to pay the correct waste charges.
When the residents refused to pay, Placed returned a few days later with a skip full of another customer’s rubbish and dumped it on their driveway, demanding £1,200 to take it away. To make matters worse, once the resident refused again, Place dumped a second skip outside their home and increased the charges to £1,600 for removal.
Understandably, the resident alerted the Trading Standard, whose officers investigated Place’s activities and arranged for the skips to be removed from the Leatherhead home and the homes of two other customers who also refused to pay.
Not a good way to do business!
The Hampshire-based skip boss pleaded guilty at his hearing to five counts of aggressive commercial practice under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 and also pleaded guilty on behalf of 1st Place Grab & Skip Hire to five identical charges levelled at his company.
The total fines accumulated £346 for each of the five counts (£1,730), prosecution costs of £4,419.50, which included the costs the council incurred to remove the skips, and a further fine of £4,886 for each of the five counts and a victim surcharge of £170. In total, Place had to pay £31,335.90.
Denise Turner-Stewart, Surrey County Council’s Cabinet Member for Community Safety, Fire and Resilience, commented:
“The skips left outside people’s homes caused great inconvenience and Place exploited their desperation to get rid of the skips to pressure them into handing him money, even though they’d already paid builders for the service. We hope this case serves as a warning to any other traders tempted to resort to such practices. Intimidating tactics of this kind simply won’t be tolerated in Surrey.”