Wallace Plumbing Repair

I have two complaints. First, I will confess that I did not ask for a cost estimate in advance, a mistake that I will never make again. The plumber left without giving me a bill. An hour later, his wife/girlfriend delivered a bill for $695. The bill was not itemized. There were no receipts. When I asked about their hourly labor charge, I was informed that they "don't charge by the hour but by the job." I found the bathroom faucet that he purchased at Lowe's, and it sold for $45. All of the materials combined could not have cost more than $75, which means he tried to charge me more than $600 per hour for his labor. I complained and refused to pay the amount. The woman who brought the bill and I finally settled on $300, which I still believe was too much for the services provided, but it was worth it to be rid of her. My second complaint is that he purchased a bathroom faucet without asking me anything about the kind that I wanted. What he brought back and installed was an ugly, bottom-of-the-line faucet. Did it not occur to him that I would like to select my own faucet rather than to choose one that is better suited to a mobile home than to a home where people with good taste happen to reside. However, my overriding complaint is that these two people tried to scam me. They clearly decided that since we had not agreed on a price beforehand, they could charge any amount they wanted and they would try to get me to pay it. I wonder how many people fall for this and write them a check without demanding an itemized explanation of the costs involved. There is no way that anyone could justify paying a plumber $600 per hour, so this was clearly a case of a plumbing firm trying to scam a customer. Fortunately, I was adament about not paying the amount on the bill, although I believe I still was overcharged significantly.