Keeping it anonymous for now, here's the story:

I've had a quote for roof repairs which came to £5975 or £5750 or something like that, I forget. The brunt of the work is to replace wooden boxwork (soffits, fascias and bargeboards) with uPVC ones.

I told them that I can't afford this work right now, and wondered how much they would charge just to re-attach a loose gutter, although it was actually a much longer e-mail than that. The reply I got was very short and just told me they're too busy to be doing little jobs at the moment.

Now here are all the things that concern me. First, they said they were pretty much available immediately to do the big job, so they don't have any other work booked in. Secondly, they've told me that they aren't VAT-registered (value-added tax), so I don't have to pay VAT on top of what they've quoted. That's only legal if their annual turnover (which I believe is revenue, not profit) is under £61000. However, they said the job is probably five days' work for 3-4 people (15-20 person-days' work). If they can charge this amount for just a week of actual time, and legally not be VAT-registered, then they must work no more than 10 weeks a year (excluding time spent quoting). That's OK; I like the idea that people shouldn't have to work full time if they can earn enough to live on by working part-time and doing a good job. But it does make me not believe this "too busy" excuse.

They also chose to answer my text-based question about VAT with a phone call, which suggests efforts to avoid leaving a paper trail.

To their credit, they have a van with their identity professionally printed on it, and their domain has been registered to them since 2008.

This company has no reviews anywhere that I can find, just a few testimonials on their own website where while they probably aren't fabricated, it's certainly possible. Given that they haven't actually done any work for me, would it be inappropriate to leave a review and just cover the experience I had getting a quote, thereby saving other consumers some time and also perhaps encouraging these guys to operate a little more transparently with future customers? Or is it unfair to draw conclusions from just the above, especially when the only cost so far has been time, and their time as well as mine?

[EDIT]
More reasons I'm concerned:

• The quote seems strategic, designed to be as close to £6000 as possible without being obvious, and it's a nice round number.

• The quote lacked a breakdown for the various different tasks, and when I started asking for that, they seemed impatient.

• Now that I've checked, their analysis of the problems with the roof differs from that I got from my homebuyer's survey. They used the buzzword 'rot'; the survey mentions stained wood but nothing more sinister. They didn't use ladders and have a proper check (although it is a bungalow so maybe that's OK). They didn't mention the dislodged cement or damaged undercloak boards which the survey found.

Worth noting I am in the process of getting further quotes. The question is just whether this is all review-worthy.

Sound sketchy. Super sketchy. Here's why:

In finland at least, no business can be VAT-exempt. If you're not VAT-registered, your customer is responsible for paying your VAT for you. At the end of the year, if your business stays below a certain turnover threshold, you'll get the VAT back from the taxman.

I don't think you should waste any time dealing with them. IMO People looking for reviews online won't fall for the scam anyway, and gullible individiuals don't usually read online reviews.

I don't see any harm in leaving a review if you disclose the details of your interactions (i.e., no work was ever done, but they seemed shady). Of course, you may want to hold off until you get some more opinions and quotes and interact with a few of the competition. You may find that they're less sketchy than you thought, or at least no more sketchy than the rest of them. That is, you may find the next guys do the same thing. Whether or not they do probably depends on whether or not they can get away with it, but unless there's somebody better out there people usually end up stuck doing business with sketchy people and sketchy people are free to be sketchy... Unless you're skilled enough to do the work yourself or lucky enough to personally know somebody generous that does.

I generally don't accept such "favors" from people that aren't immediate family. And family generally wouldn't accept payment anyway. Of course, you usually end up "repaying" them in other ways. For some it'll never be even, but that's just the nature of things.

Oddly, this has become a general policy of mine.

I used to be preoccupied with impressing people, now I'm preoccupied with keeping it all an elusive secret.

Well, thanks for the tips so far.

The second company has now visited to give me a quote, but before they arrived, my own boss visited and gave me some advice. He reckons it's not rotting - except in one place we found where there's just a little bit of rot that's easily possible to seal in. All it needs is securing where it's a bit warped, and then sealing and painting so it doesn't get damp again. He clarified that this isn't a serious long-term fix, but it should last a few years at least, and it is an unequivocal statement that redoing all the boxwork simply isn't necessary at this point.

So, on to the second company. I explained that a friend had advised me I should be able to do some work on the wood to keep it going, and I wondered if he could quote for that. He said please don't do that, because it's all warped and wrong and you just wouldn't. Fair enough, obviously all opinions are welcome. The problem is, he became impatient and immediately threatened to just leave. I thought about it and said let's proceed with the quote anyway and that'll give me time to decide. He still took issue with my apparent lack of trust, and even after I explained that I'd had a bad experience, he was too confrontational and too sensitive. He said they were a legitimate company, and I had to point out that I'd expect a legitimate company to be more willing to take the time to earn a customer's trust. I had to tell him I don't want a confrontation, and send him away. It felt bad to alienate a company like that, but I just can't employ someone who doesn't respect that I am the boss.

This brings me to the next question: is there any roofing company that would not try to sell me something I don't need? Probably not. They all need their income, and the income from fixing up the existing boxwork would apparently be minuscule. I can't dismiss the fact that the survey identified some very specific roof problems, and did mention that the wood was stained in places suggesting it gets wet, but didn't take issue with the wood in principle, and definitely didn't mention rot. They must have been competent and importantly they're independent.

(Aside specially for bambams who accused me of racism once: the guy I had to send away was black and is now the third unpleasant black person I've met in the last few years I did meet one nice black person though and we're friends )
[EDIT] Ooh wait, I just remembered, Dell sent a nice black guy to fix my computer, so the score is 2/5

Assuming there are a lot of options why not be forthcoming with your hesitation on the phone when arranging for the quote? That way the company has the option of being rude right off the hop and saving you the trouble of even meeting them face to face. Assuming they need the work they will likely also be more polite on the phone where it's not so easy to intimidate you (and maybe where you could be more intimidating yourself). And perhaps knowing up front that you're paying attention and trying to avoid getting screwed they'll be more willing to humor your ideas and obey your wishes.

As for the patch work on the existing wood, I'm not sure if you could really "seal" that in for years. Maybe if you could dry the wood entirely prior to any coverings, but I really doubt it.. I'd be hesitant to spend much on a temporary solution. It would be a shame if left untreated it ended up causing extra damage and costing even more money. But yeah, you really just need to find an honest roofer that can accurately assess the damages and give you a fair rate on the job...

Do you guys have any handyman TV shows over there? As a long shot you could always attempt to submit a video to them asking for their help. If you get lucky it'll be a TV show that will pay for the repairs themselves.

Append:

Do you have any competent friends locally that could meet with the contractors with you? It might help to have two of you there to bounce ideas off of, and it might also help to shift the situation in your favor having the contractor outnumbered. It's much less easy to be a prick to two people. It would also help if you know anybody big and strong.