On the 19th of May, when builders started working at a property in my road, a skip was ordered and delivered. It bore the name BADGERS SKIPS (which it seems is also known as QUICK SKIPS). The company appears on Yell.com trading as BADGERS quick skips. Ignoring the fact that the skip was rotten with rust (after all what do we mere mortals know?) it was delivered within a short time of the builder calling them.

It was cash payment only, something I have later discovered via the web that seems to be this company’s standard business practice.

The builders did their work and on completion the following Tuesday, they called Quick aka Badger skips to say “Come and get it”. The man on the phone said it would be collected within 2 days.

Yeah - right.

Despite their Yell.com entry clearly stating that they offer “express collection” they most definitely don’t. At the moment its beginning to look like they NEVER collect their skips.

In fact as I write this, over 3 weeks later the damn thing is still sitting on the drive of the property concerned.

They have been phoned many times by the home owner and also by the builder. To be blunt they have received nothing but bulls**t and, in the case of the home owner, out and out abuse, sarcasm and as close to being called a liar as makes no difference. This I know from hearing the conversations first hand (The joy of speaker phones and off line recording!) The builder and home owner both have been promised on numerous occasions that “The ticket is with a driver so it will be collected today/this afternoon”

The company claim they called once but couldn’t get up the road. That is possible as the council decided to dig the road up making all access impossible despite their promises to maintain access at all time. However apparently none of the road workers ever saw a skip lorry anywhere near the road. How interesting is that?

Due to their inability to collect the skip the home owner has had to cancel further work because their driveway is inaccessible. Apparently this was pointed out to the ‘person’ on the phone who had considerably less than no interest and basically stated that this was tough - the householder would have to wait. He also told him that no company would cancel a delivery if access wasn’t available. Oh really? Strange that, especially since that’s exactly what has happened due to the skip people NOT collecting their skip.

The garage at the property is also inaccessible. Consequently the owner, who is registered disabled cannot get his disability adapted vehicle out of the garage. Since it was to due be MoT’d and taxed, it has now had to be SORN’d as it can’t be got out for use. There is also only minimal access room for the owner to get into and out of the garage for anything.

He’d been happy to not use the vehicle for a week but a month (and probably more) due to lies and apparent scamming is totally unacceptable.

Now we come to the interesting bit.

It seems that this company have got previous for not collecting skips.

I went on line for the home owner to see what, if anything, could be found out about this company. I discovered a great web site called www.Canyoutrustthem.com.

On it I found entries relating to Badger aka Quick Skips.

And why were there entries?

Because it seems they make a habit of not collecting skips as well as lying and being abusive.

One entry shows the writer as having one of Badger’s/Quick skips skips for over 3 months!

And guess what? It seems they’ve very recently done the same thing elsewhere in the Westerham area.

They’ve done it again to the builders who had called them for the first skip and also to another builder who went on the recommendation of cost and speed of delivery from the first builder.

It seems now that he had had problems before when using them under another name which I won’t mention as I have no proof or experience of them but he didn‘t recognise them as being the same company.

So watch this space as we’re heading for a month since delivery.

The last time a collection was promised was for the afternoon of Friday June 18th. Needless to say this didn’t happen. The company have now been e-mailed detailing the situation especially that the home owner is a registered disabled person and we will see what happens next. But my recommendation is that you avoid this company LIKE THE PLAGUE!