Monday night on the 11th of June would have to be one of the funniest and awkward moments I have had with a customer so far to date doing emergency call outs. I have added screen shots of the text messages back and forth from that night as some people might not believe the story.

We received a job from one of our booking companies late Monday evening letting us know that a property owner rang to report water leaking through the ceiling at their rental property. They were unsure whether it was a burst pipe or water leaking from the upstairs bathroom. The roof was starting to sag and the gyprock was at risk of collapsing if left unchecked overnight.

We arrived onsite at around 7pm and isolated the water main to the property. There was a consistent drip coming from the gyprock and a large bulge in the ceiling. We were able to drain all the water that had built up in the roof space by puncturing a hole in the gyprock. There was a 20mm copper main that had a failed weld that was spraying out a fine mist of water. We have uploaded a video (click here) of what we came across on arrival to the site and the burst copper pipe that was causing the issue.

The repair was straight forward, our vans are always fully stocked with supplies to deal with all the emergency call outs that we attend. We cut out the damaged section of 20mm copper and used our Viega copper crimping tool to repair the water main. Water was turned back onto the property and the tenants were happy to have it all sorted out that night. Pictures and videos were taken for the customer to supply to the insurance company for the claim.

I left the premises at around 8:30pm and pulled up down the road to complete all the paperwork and contact the property owner and run them through the job and collect payment. I then messaged the property owner the videos and pictures of the job and the job sheet with the description of work and total amount owing. Then it all went a little pear shaped…

Within 2 minutes we received two rather odd picture messages back. To put it politely there were 2 pictures with fingers shoved up a males hairy back side!!! I was to say the least a little shocked then I was furious. I thought that this person was basically telling me to go and stick it, and had no intention of paying for the work that was completed. I called the number straight away and had my calls screened and not answered!

I sat there for a little while wondering what the hell was going on and didn’t really know what to do. I then started to receive more meme pictures taking the piss out of me. I rang the company that had sent me the job and double checked the details were correct. They said that the customer rang off a private number but they double checked all details prior to ending the call. When someone rings me on a private number for an after hours emergency job I am always sceptical. I was sitting on the side of the road fuming that this customer wasn’t answering my calls and more importantly paying the bill.

I decided to head back to the property and talk to the tenants and see if they knew the property owner and had his mobile. I told them that I was having difficulties getting in touch with the owner and if they could give me his mobile. They read out the mobile number and every number was correct… except for the last digit!!! It was a 4 instead of a 5!!!

I breathed a sigh of relieve and had a good laugh about it. I found it hilarious that someone could send back messages like that within minutes just taking the piss out of the situation. Fair play to them they would have been cracking up themselves.

So finally I had the right contact details and messaged the details to the right number. I rang the customer a few minutes later and the customer answered straight away. Was the easiest person to deal with and was so thankful that we attended the site that night to sort the issue out.

Looking back it was one of the funniest call outs I had been to and one that I wont forget. To who ever was texting me back I hope he or she had a good laugh as well.

Below I have added screenshots of the sequence of messages that were sent!

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