Lost two jobs to brokers this week

Actually his liscence was revoked. He may apply for reinstatement in two years. It is unlikely they will reinstate it then.
The charges in Alabama were for no certificate of authorization. The forgeries and misuse of other surveyor's seals were in other states where there should be criminal charges on every count.

By the way, I am not the Alabama surveyor who got the job in Arizona.

I am staking two restaurants on a site in Birmingham that had an ALTA boundary and topo done from an Indiana company that does have a COA in Alabama. The site formerly was a Circuit City store and had to be resurveyed into two lots, wich they produced. The new lot line was not monumented on the ground but the record plat they produced states that 5/8" rebars w/ plastic cap inscribed 'PLS-----' (to be set). The text on the plat required by the city states that iron pions have been found or set at all corners and curve points. The survey is dated November, 2010.

I called the surveyorand asked when the corners are to be set. I got the reply "I thought we had been back to set them", and there must be some grace period (there isn't in Alabama). Plus,he said they couldn't have been set because the building was in the way. Only one of the three corners was inside the now demolished building. Also, they did not show a 3" capped pipe sticking up about 12" that is about 1.5' inside their boundary line. It marks the corner of an adjoining lot.

We have enough trouble with local jake legs. We sure don't need them coming from three states away.

Minimum standards? They don't need no steenkin' standards.

Sounds like there is little fear of your state board?

I don't follow that post. There are not any laws that I'm aware of that govern how much a surveyor can charge. Ideally, "the market" will sort this out. You can't go on giving away your work to keep crews busy forever.

For Mike...

> Lets presume for a minute this is the case; how much money did he leave on the table by pricing his work at that price? Work smarter,not harder. That ridiculous price, even for a "update" is just shooting yourself and others in the foot. People will come to expect that as the "fair" price for taking on the liability and will think all these others out there are just ripping them off. Do you think the realtor and the lawyer involved give a break like that because they did the closing before? That is just stupidity.

I guess in many instances it would be better to "leave some money on the table" instead of pricing ourself out of a job we've already got the inside track on. I can remember not too long ago, that any price we threw out for an update survey would ALWAYS be less than what a competitor would charge to start from scratch. Wow...I can even remember the days of turning down work not too long ago and recommending another firm who possibly could do it cheaper. That's not the case nowadays. I would find it hard to look at myself in the mirror if someone who had to do the job from scratch beat me out on my own job. If he's Crazy Eddie's Surveys, Inc. and charging $150 then I can't do much about that. But if we are comparing apples to apples in the pricing of the survey, I can and should possibly somewhat lower (not tens of thousands lower, mind you, but a little) than the competition if I've got the inside track and have already done the work. This is exactly why I don't bid on any survey-broker work. You might as well troll on Craigslist for your work, if you really think you are going to make decent $ doing their work. Low bid is the rule there.

BTW, as a real-world example, my cousin is a real estate agent, and he confirms that the lawyers, title abstractors, and realtors are just as hungry for any work, and yes, they are sometimes discounting their fees as well. Probably nowhere near to what we have done to ourselves, though...

Mike

For Mike...

I don't know about lawyers but I think it would be foolish right now not to haggle with a realtor or title company about fees. They are in the same boat as surveyors. The lawyers I work with, though, basically operate on the "I'm not the cheapest but I'm the best" pitch. I would guess that some lawyers are cutting their fees somehow to get what business they can. They're not all filthy rich Porsche drivers, they have to pay the light bill too like everybody else.

If your customer is the Fed Gov, then you probably can't charge them more than your "standard" fee for such work to regular clients, even if that is lower than other bids.

> Say you are down to your last crew...If you let them go, you have no one to service your existing clients when (if) they call.
>
> So, you have them doing busy work, they cost you money.
>
> Now, you can have them go out and work, sure they only return 50% on what they cost, but at least that is less than returning 0%.
>
> The math doesn't work out long term, but it does work in a "hoping for recovery" short term plan.
>
> Still sucks...

-

ARE YOU FRICK'N KIDDING ME - DUDE - REALLY????

You guys might be good surveyor's - but you suck a business people

-

Surveyors are good at being doormats; more so than other professions.

I struggle to get up off the doorstep myself sometimes.

The world needs nice guys but sometimes you need to buck up. This is right in line with giving away residential work as a favor to commercial clients. I don't see other professions doing this but maybe they do.

I am just saying that this is clearly a case of unfair trade practice when a company offers its regular services to contract clients at a rate of "x" and then turns around and offers its regular services to other clients at a rate of "x/2 or less" to keep other companies from competing with them.

It would also open a can of worms for that company when it is exposed to the contractor's knowledge that such trade practice are occurring and they are paying excess to cover losses made to other clients.

While in the above scenario, the broker equalizes the amount by charging the client the normal fee, the surveyor that is charging 1/2 normal fee is still the lowballer who is undercutting the rest of the competition.

BTW, my main problem is why would any client work thru a broker? Don't they know they are paying extra?

If they have that much money to burn, pay the service provider, he needs the money for his services. Why just give the profit to a middleman.

I think that most projects submitted to brokers are from clients who are not local to the sites and don't want to take the time to locate a surveyor. Or, they have multiple sites in different cities.
I don't like that, but what can we do about it?

6th...

Well, I dont claim to be a great business man...I know you are great a spewing your anger.

I asked an honest question, and I would love to see an honest answer. I am NOT the manager at my company, and I do not make these calls, and as far as I know, we are not doing this.

BUT, it is an honest question I have. It seems that you, 6th, think that they company should die and let you get the work?

-David

> 6th...
>
> Well, I dont claim to be a great business man...I know you are great a spewing your anger.
>
> I asked an honest question, and I would love to see an honest answer. I am NOT the manager at my company, and I do not make these calls, and as far as I know, we are not doing this.
>
> BUT, it is an honest question I have. It seems that you, 6th, think that they company should die and let you get the work?
>
> -David

David,

I'm not sure what your question was.

I'm not spewing anger,
I'm making an observation.

Simply put- Providing a product or service below the cost it takes to produce it, is foolish and bad business.