Visible Address - Is this Old Fashioned?

[The Medway Handyman]

Bloody sat nav's :-)

[stan]

Cold calls. Only once - positive experience. Positive fellow too. And fairly easy in this society to quickly check up on someone! Chances are they will have a cousin who knows one of the teachers at the local school who is married to that lady down the street who occasionally helps you out at the local committee meetings etc. etc. Two phone calls and you probably have their life history! Anyway: This chap turned up one day; I was at work. This is story wife told me. The guy had been laid off; no job. Looking around for some way to be employed realised he had some sheet metal skills. And he noted there were many houses with water wells which were either still in use or had been replaced by municipal water wells; many of the wells had poor, sloppy coverings, deteriorated covers or nondescript 'well house' coverings. Ours, like many others, had an untidy plywood cover; not fully safe either! He offered and custom made (mainly conical) sheet metal covers. We still have ours; it takes the same paint as the house and is low and tidy with the surrounding concrete square surrounding head of the well. price was fair, but not too low (after all he had two on site trips!) and the workmanship was good. We bought and wished him well (Oh; gee! That was an unintended pun ........ Sorry about that)! This was all some 30 years ago. These days, around this area one often sees such covers (on dug/ shallow wells) and each time remembers that hard working and entrepreneurial person. Hope he did OK? From: Eastern Canada.

[Jon Fairbairn]

Only if they were doing they're job properly... as I understand it, the electronic commerce regulations (Statutory Instrument 2002 No. 2013) do require you give an address:

General information to be provided by a person providing an information society service 6. - (1) A person providing an information society service shall make available to the recipient of the service and any relevant enforcement authority, in a form and manner which is easily, directly and permanently accessible, the following information -

(a) the name of the service provider;

(b) the geographic address at which the service provider is established;

I think "information society service" is generally interpreted to include advertising your services on a website. Whether you're likely to get jumped on for leaving it off is another matter. You're not gaining anything by not putting it on, though. A quick whois query and I Know Where You Live (descending minor chords).

[Stephen Gower]

A combination of that and the Companies Act 2006.

and expand, and yes, the laws do cover websites where you just advertise your services. You need an e-mail address (not a "contact us" form), a geographic address and company/VAT numbers.

[The Medway Handyman]

Most sites don't show e-mail address's to prevent spam. Can't offhand think of a company that does display and e-mail address. Just checked Wickes & Screwfix & they both use a form.

Not limited or VAT registered so I don't have numbers.

I'll ask Trading Standards.

[Pete Verdon]

I wouldn't worry, if it's the sort of business where a one-man-band is a reasonable proposition. If it's one guy who, if he's any good, is probably out working, why would I phone his landline number where he isn't? I'd either have to leave a message, or at best get redirected to his mobile and cost him the redirect charge when I might as well have phoned straight through.

A piece I read recently about the introduction of mobile phones put it rather well - "we stopped telephoning buildings and started calling people".

For the record I have a landline at home, but only to provide an Internet connection. In theory it has a cordless phone on it, but either the handset or the charger is broken and, having never received a valid call on it when it was working, it's a long way down the list of things to fix. I did once wire up the guts of a corded phone from my parts box, in order to dial a work conference call in the US, but now our internal instant-messaging software can use VOIP to dial phone numbers anywhere in the world at no cost to me, I'll use my laptop for that on the odd occasions I need it in future.

Pete

[Mike Clarke]

This raises the interesting question of when is the best time to phone a one man business. If I call his mobile during the day I'm interrupting his work and if lots of people call him it can be disruptive. On the other hand if I call his landline during the evening I'm disturbing the time he has left for relaxation and recreation (or paperwork). So when do the tradesman in this group prefer to get their phone calls from people needing jobs doing?

[ARWadsworth]

During the day please.

Adam

[ARWadsworth]

Forgot to say, if you really are distubing them (doing a quote, up a ladder, having breakfast in a cafe) then they can call you back when they are not busy.

Adam

[John Rumm]

Certainly companies are supposed to display addresses and numbers. However even there there is confusion. Not looked lately, but it used to be the case that the VAT people want a number displayed, but the DTI (as was) had info recommending you don't display it on a web site (as it facilitated a particular type of scam IIRC)

Also companies only need display their registered address rather than their main trading address. This will often be their accountants address rather than their own (true for all but one of my companies IIRC!) .

[Steve Walker]

There was a whole group of them today (have you been expanding?) ;)

I took another look and they've all got a local phonenumber on them, so unless the owner's name is Medway, I don't know why they've chosen it.

SteveW

[The Medway Handyman]

Must be a Mr Medway, there are a few about.

[The Medway Handyman]

I can tell you one thing, mobile phones are altitude sensitive. If I'm up a ladder or lying under a sink, the bloody thing will always ring! You also get 'days' where the piggin thing just keeps on ringing & ringing.

I'm very often away from the van & my diary so if busy, I'll let it divert & call back later.

I tend to return those calls & the ones from the home answerphone whilst SWMBO is preparing the evenings repast.

You do get people ringing the home number at odd times. 10:30pm for a non urgent general enquiry, 8:00am on a Sunday ditto.

I have a different ring tone set up for friends, another for family, another for suppliers.