Guild memberships, kind of OT

[Clyde Hollinger]

Charles,

Good advice, and you certainly did the right thing by checking first.

The red flag for me was that the guy "came by my house...."  I caution every
single person reading this to be very wary of anyone just stopping by,
although I tried this once myself.  When I needed work and before I got into
piano service, I drove around the neighborhood looking for houses that needed
new roofing, since I knew something about that.  (I wasn't a scammer, you
understand!)

You've likely started a thread that may yield a lot of stories, and here's
mine.  Before we had a paved driveway a guy stopped and offered to put some
"left-over" loose stone on it.  He quoted me a price per square foot and said
it shouldn't cost more than about $200, but in any case it would be that
square-foot price.  I asked for his number and said I would get back, since
the driveway did need the stone.  My math showed that at his price the job
would cost me more like $900.  A friend told me that for that price (this was
years ago) I could almost have the driveway paved.

If there's ever a chance of being scammed, be sure to check thoroughly first
the person's credentials.

Regards,
Clyde

Charles Neuman wrote:

> This starts out off-topic, but I thought it was an interesting story which
> relates to the piano business and being a member of a guild.
>
> A chimney repair guy came by my house and noticed that our chimney needs
> repair. It's true: It's been on my list of things to get done. So he's
> right there with a ladder, so I figure why not get an estimate. Really
> nice guy. Lives nearby. Gives me a special deal (not in writing, of
> course). Turns out he could even do the work the next day. Lucky me,
> right? But I decide to think about it first. Good thing I did. A quick web
> search revealed that he had been charged with operating a business without
> a license. I think that's a bigger deal in the home repair business than
> it would be in piano technology. In any event, the DA apparently
> investigates cases that result from customer complaints, so that set off a
> flag. He had registered a business recently, though.
>
> Here's the part about Guild membership:
>
> I look at his literature (with old crossed-out phone numbers and no
> address). He says he's a member of the National Chimney Sweep Guild. Aha.
> That's easy enough to verify. They list members on their web site. He's
> not there. So I email the Guild with all of this guy's phone numbers and
> various business names. They never heard of him, not in the national guild
> or in the relevant local guild. Interesting. I told them I could mail them
> the literature that misuses their logo.
>
> So, knowing someting about the PTG, my general advice for looking up
> someone for any business would be: Look for yellow page ads and see if
> some of them have guild memberships or special certifications. If so, find
> out what they are and then pick someone who has the ones that might be
> important. I realize most customers don't do this, but maybe it's a
> practice that could catch on, and it would make PTG membership even more
> valuable than it is.