Bye bye Benchmark

Binthere, It Comes From The Main Contractors Screwing Every Penny Out Of Every Subbie, In My Fathers Time It Was Called Subbie Bashing Now Its Called Prudent Management. The Big Firms Are The Worst To Deal With By Far, They Seem To Think They Are Within There Rights To Withhold Payment On An Invoice If Its Got The Wrong Number Blooming Scandal, There Not Long Screaming To Get The Job Done, But Pay Us Peasents On Time Never.
 
Gerscaff said:
Binthere, It Comes From The Main Contractors Screwing Every Penny Out Of Every Subbie, In My Fathers Time It Was Called Subbie Bashing Now Its Called Prudent Management. The Big Firms Are The Worst To Deal With By Far, They Seem To Think They Are Within There Rights To Withhold Payment On An Invoice If Its Got The Wrong Number Blooming Scandal, There Not Long Screaming To Get The Job Done, But Pay Us Peasents On Time Never.
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You are 100% right, but with some due dilligence you could start to stem the flow and give some of them a bloody nose to boot.
 
All true, I think I posted this on another thread just a couple of days ago, but when working for one of these so called big boy's they actually told me they priced it at a loss then squeezed the life out the job to try and turn it round. The company men on site were actually very good and straight guys and we did get paid out about 99% of what ever we claimed but as Binthere has noted, whilst they me be pricing them at a loss their published year end accounts look very different.

I don't suppose moaning about it on a forum will change much, but it's nice to know I am not the only one suffering the same problems.

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Binthere said:
You are 100% right, but with some due dilligence you could start to stem the flow and give some of them a bloody nose to boot.
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I use riskdisk to try and stay ahead of the game and what's happening with certain people.
 
No Al u dfo not alone on this one - its hard to hit a compromise between your contractor and urself when u feel liks he's trying to bum rape you every 5 mins...
I think we all get that uneasy feeling when the nvoice is late or only a portion of it payed.
We've pulled away from 2 major companies last yesr for this...1 then went down big time but didnt owe me anything & the other let 50% of its workforce go but payed its dept when all the subbies returned to the plot & started stripping there services that hadnt been paid for...incl us.
But its a hard to decide either to piiis of the client & maybe never get anymore work....or maybe take a hit with the potential of putting urself down.
We keep it tight now and if invoices are unpaid or over 2 weeks past we simply dont supply additional work or labour till the acvounts paid...after all i'm not gonna allow someone to mug me off, whilst theyre latging it up driving around in an aston martin- or build a house & make hugh profits off my bank acvount
 
Yeah, no crystal ball is there. As I said, we use riskdisk but even that is no guarantee of success. Again, one firm in particular is always and I mean always flashing red warning lights all over there name despite running up big profits on jobs. It appears to be just the way they run the firm, they must rape their own firm on a daily basis so if they do go pop the Austin and the big house won't be touched. Doesn't exactly fill guys like me with confidence and then they get all surprised and hurt when we have to get stroppy.

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I don't suppose you could deal with it in such a simplistic fashion if you were a bigger concern yourself, sometimes small is beautiful.
 
Some of the biggest consultants take projects on at a low price with the main objective being to hit contractors with countercharges etc to regain some money.
Instead of being allowed to get on with the job, get paid and move on you spend days replying to letters referring you to clause 25, subsection 8, paragraph 2,point 4 etc etc.
 
I had a meeting with a qs afew weeks ago to pick up on a load of extras it hurt really hard when i had to let about 9k go to enable me to pick up another 40k- but this client gives me a huge amount of work so in the big picture i had to let it go ...but during the discustions he sed that what pissed him off was the small invoices that were for less than £100 even though i tried to explain that all the small ones mounted up & i was expected to pay the guy that had done the job..which wasnt fair to expect me to sub their company or the guy not to be paid...he listened but was still adament that he didnt wanna pay....well fast forward to last week another meeting where to my surprise he didnt argue with anything and paid up @ the end of the meeting he explained to me that he'd had a meeting with the client who had done the same to him but on a bigger scale & that when the penny had dropped about my coversation...so karma does happen lolo but never got my 9k
 
That Would Seriously **** Me Off, Dropping Nine Thousand Pounds. Sheer Brass Neck If You Ask Me, They Are Not Long Saying That They Want This Or That Erected By Such And Such A Date But Never Pay For It, Fekkin Cheeky Sods.
 
Me too but realise it does happen, that's why I write heavy invoice's for absolutely everything extra and then you can afford to drop a pound or two. As for him not wanting to pay the £100 bill's, tell him instead of calling you out every time his thick fookin agent thinks of something at the last minute, sit down on a Wednesday and plan the following weeks activities and then make sure they can all be completed, maybe get a list together so the scaffs can come on site, give him a good days work then leave, everyone is happy.
 
Thats Too Much Like Common Sense Mate, We Are Talking Site Managers Here. By The Way Has Anyone Heard The Cisrs Labourers Card Is Being Withdrawn , I Was On A Stewart Milne Site And They No Longer Recognise Them And I Think Persimmon Are The Same.
 
I did hear they were trying to get another card up and running, one where you send a new start away for a week before they even kick a ball with you. I never fancied it to be honest, much prefer to give them a couple of months on trial before investing in training. Never heard about withdrawing any other card though.
 
Lolo wouldnt that be perfect...i told one contractor it was gonna cost £300 to move. A. Ladder access the day b4 he had already booked us in for a strike..when i broke it down he suddenly decided it could wait a day ffs...
I' ve lost count of the amount of freebes i give trying to help a agent out where hes fcuked up..if ur in the area not a prob but that job is about 1 1/2hrs away & right on our limit of travel..
Its hard to guage between being greedy & losing in the long run or being too symoathetic & losing in the short turn lolo....ilive by a saying that we build bridges today that we may wanna cross 2moro ...works for me

With ref to cards i've never heard of this although it wouldnt really surprise me..cash cow running wild again...when the cscs touchscreen 1st came out you would receive a pass certificate @ the bottom of the confirmation letter...many people myself included didnt wanna pay more money for the card so simply laminated the pass slip to show on site when asked....well theyve stopped that now as all you get is the phase passed..on a letter ...shocking really this system under the guize of saftey is reallynjust about £££££
 
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And it's a good saying, but they have to recognise that poor planning and down right stupidity costs cash. Half the time, there wouldn't be a £100 bull if they sat down and thought about it for 5 minutes.
 
Spot on m8 but they dont realise stupidy costs

Old army saying "The Ps"
Prior preperation & planning prevents a piiiss poor performance
 
Gerscaff said:
By The Way Has Anyone Heard The Cisrs Labourers Card Is Being Withdrawn , I Was On A Stewart Milne Site And They No Longer Recognise Them And I Think Persimmon Are The Same.
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Not being withdrawn, but as from September anyone applying will have to not only pass the touch screen test, but also have completed a 1 day CISRS labourer course - essentially a full day induction covering H&S, manual handling, etc. A good idea in theory in my opinion, but the course can be given in house, so how effective it will be in practice will vary from company to company.

I'm assuming CSCS will be introducing something similar to get the site operative card, but have not actually read or heard anything on it.
 
Most Of Us Scaffolders Started As Labourers, We Were All Taught (Or Screamed At ) By Our Respective Chargehands, I Was Lucky My Chargehand Believed In Training The Labourer. But You Were Taught On The Job Not In The Classroom, Classroom Training Didnt Start Until A Part One, What Next? Cisrs Drivers Courses To Learn How To Sling A Pallet?
 
I didn't relise Benchmark had gone under?I was the first scaffolder to go on with them when there started up and I'm still here now **** knows who's paying my wages?
Loose lips sink ships maybe this rubbish was started by a disgruntled employee

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I didn't relise Benchmark had gone under?I was the first scaffolder to go on with them when there started up and I'm still here now **** knows who's paying my wages?
Loose lips sink ships maybe this rubbish was started by a disgruntled employee
 
Qpr68 said:
I didn't relise Benchmark had gone under?I was the first scaffolder to go on with them when there started up and I'm still here now **** knows who's paying my wages?
Loose lips sink ships maybe this rubbish was started by a disgruntled employee

---------- Post added at 12:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:42 PM ----------

I didn't relise Benchmark had gone under?I was the first scaffolder to go on with them when there started up and I'm still here now **** knows who's paying my wages?
Loose lips sink ships maybe this rubbish was started by a disgruntled employee
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Benchmark Scaffolding Ltd. (name changed 07/02/2013).
Now in administration trading under the name of Bsl Realisations 2013, company reg no. 06879914, directors = Robert West And Keith Slight.
If you are still working for Benchmark then the above changes have been effected.
 
Did they ever push through monthly salaried rather than weekly?

I trust they didn't do the name cahnge the day before pay day?
 
If you only knew the full story,Benchmark when into administration to get R capital out of the door as they were bleeding the firm dry,a real bunch of ***** didn't give a hoot about the men just what they could take out
Rob could of walked away with money but didn't,he's a good bloke and will bounce back,some of the blokes on here talk about benchmark and this and that but don't tell you about being sacked
 
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