TERMS & CONDITIONS

Our Contract With You

Bookings taken over the phone or via email are a contract between the customer and the company (British Bug Control). Calls may be recorded and we reserve the right to utilise recordings to resolve any issues that should arrive. Under this contract we commit not to reveal any personal or commercially sensitive information about your operation, property, family or personal arrangements. You commit not to discuss or put into any public domain or reveal or publish in any way on any platform, including but not restricted to online review websites and forums, any information about our company, methods, staff or our arrangements with contractors which we deem to be commercially sensitive. You further commit to not put in any public domain anything about our service which we deem to be unfair, untrue or vindictive. By commissioning our services, you agree that should you contravene the above commitment, you will remove any such information within 24 hours of us asking you. Should you refuse, we reserve the right to take legal redress and seek compensation for damage.

Prices, Parking, Toll and Congestion Charges

If we give a price over the phone or email and without a survey, we reserve the right to amend the quotation if, when we see the job, it is not as described or as we understood it to be. Should we arrive on a job where a survey has not been carried out and ascertain that in order to carry it out effectively and professionally more work is needed, we will discuss a new price with you. You are within your right to decline an ungraded service, but not the service originally booked. Should you cancel any service once our operatives are on site, for any reason whatsoever, you will be charged the agreed price. You understand when entering into a contract with us, that surveys are chargeable. Should a technician attend a survey, and not find any evidence of infestation or deem that no work is necessary, you understand that you will still be charged for this survey.

PLEASE NOTE: If parking is not provided by the customer, any parking costs will be added to the bill. Any toll or congestion charges will also be added to the bill. Customers are required to aid the technician in finding parking if asked and provide permits for the visiting technician is available applicable.

Treatments

Where insecticidal or fumigation treatments are taking place our operatives are required to wear special breathing and protective PPE during application. Do not under any circumstances enter rooms during treatment or for at least four hours afterwards. We advise pets are kept out of treated rooms for 24 hours. British Bug Control cannot under any circumstances be held responsible for triggering any sprinkler or alarm systems. This applies to all work including heat treatment. The customer must provide adequate information on disabling and resetting alarms and locks on the premises. If we have to move items in order to carry out the agreed work, we will not accept liability for any damage caused save where negligence can be proven. In the case of heat treatment it is not one size or one cost fits all. Heat treatment for bird mites for instance, is a much longer approach than heat treatment for bed bugs or fleas for instance, and as such will be more expensive.

Attendance and Call Out Fees

We agree a date time window for attendance with you on booking and advise how long we think it may take. If we arrive on site during the time window and cannot gain access and cannot get in touch with you on the numbers you have given to us, we will charge a call-out fee. This also applies to landlords and letting agents who book on behalf of tenants. In such situations, it is your responsibility entirely to ensure that we can gain access when we arrive. Call out fees will be charged at £80 + VAT per technician in attendance for insecticidal and fumigation work, and £150 + VAT for heat treatment work. If we have agreed to carry out additional follow up visits at no charge, and we cannot gain access at the agreed time, you will be charged the normal fee for that treatment.

Terms of Payment And Overdue Accounts

Where the customer is being invoiced, we expect payment within 14 days unless otherwise agreed. Where payment is by credit or debit card, payment is due as soon as the treatment is completed. Only in exceptional circumstances will we accept cash payments. We employ the services of a debt collection company for over-due accounts. Our accounts team will do its best to give you notice of an account moving into debt collection. However, it is not our responsibility if the phone number or email you supplied do not work, if email goes into junk, or if we have the wrong phone number or email. Once an account is passed to debt collection it is out of our hands. The debt collection company will pursue the outstanding amount in full, and add interest to the outstanding amount. They will also add their fees. Paying us the original amount after it has been passed to debt collection does not amount to payment in full for these reasons, and the debt collection company will continue to pursue you for the additional amounts. We take a 25% non-refundable deposit for some treatments. Unless by prior agreement, the balance will be charged using the payment method agreed as soon as such a job is completed. By booking our services you are entering into a contract with us, and agreeing to these payment terms.

Cancellation And Deposit Policy

Reserving our services at an agreed time and date is a binding contract with us and will result in us turning other work away at those times. We do understand that arrangements can change. However in booking our services you understand that you are reserving a technicians’ or team’s time who would otherwise be carrying out other paid work. If you are cancelling more than 48 hours before our arrival, no charge will be made. If you are postponing more than 48 hours before our arrival and re-booking, no charge will be made. If you cancel or postpone within 48 hours of our agreed arrival time, we reserve the right to charge 50% of the agreed booking fee or retain the deposit. If you postpone or cancel within 24 hours of our arrival time, we will retain the deposit or charge 50% of the agreed fee, whichever is lower. Heat treatment postponements or cancellations cannot be accepted less than 24 hours before our planned arrival day as we have turned away other work for your booking and will have booked accommodation. For example, if your planned work is on the 6th, at any time, you cannot postpone or cancel on the 5th at any time without this applying. To be clear, if you cancel or postpone a heat treatment less than 24 hours prior to our arrival date we will always retain the deposit. Should we arrive at site and be unable to gain access, you will be charged the deposit in the case of heat treatments, and the full agreed fee for other treatments. If we are unable to carry out an effective treatment due to poor preparation, you will be charged the deposit in the case of heat treatments, and the full agreed fee for other treatments. We reserve the right to not carry out the treatment in the event of poor preparation which would render the treatment ineffective. If our teams or technicians are already travelling to site, and a cancellation or postponement is forced upon us, we will always retain the deposit in the case of heat treatments or charge 50% of the agreed fee for other services and treatments.

Guarantees

Heat treatments for bed bugs and other insects normally (but not always) come with a guarantee the terms of which are set out in the booking and preparation documents sent out. Multiple occupancy properties such as hotels, guest houses, care homes, properties used as bed and breakfasts or AirBnB have shorter guarantees (12 weeks) than residential properties with permanent residence (24 weeks). For any guarantee to be valid, the disclaimer must be signed and returned to us prior to the day of treatment. If you do not do this, we conclude that you are not agreeing to our terms and that no guarantee is in place. We will therefore carry out the treatment, but not offer the guarantee. There are occasions where no guarantee is offered with heat treatment. This includes where a customer opts not to have insecticide applied. It can also cover very heavy infestations; or when the source of the infestation is from above, below, or either side, and we are not heat treating those rooms. With hotels we treat a minimum of two rooms. One room heat treatments never come with a guarantee. Note that we cannot guarantee to rid a property of bed bugs in one visit, even with heat (no-one can), although we will obviously do our very best. Normally if re-treatments are required, insecticidal treatments are enough to knock out any stragglers. Reheats will be considered if this approach is failing and it can be demonstrated the you still have live bed bugs in your property. There is a 14 day settling in period post treatment before we will consider a re-treatment, while the insecticide’s residual is still working. If you see any live bed bugs in this period, please kill them. We are only guaranteeing for the insect we are treating for. Experiencing bites post the settling in period does not constitute proof that you still have bed bugs. In this situation we will provide you with monitors in the first instance. However, proof by finding one or more live bed bugs post 14 days does activate a guarantee. To activate your guarantee if possible take video(s) or pictures and email it to us to info@britishbugcontrol.com. Note that insecticidal or combination treatments for bed bugs do not carry a guarantee. Under no circumstances will we accept any fees for staying in other properties post treatment.

Non-Preparation Delays

Treatments for insects may require preparation which we will discuss with you prior to our arrival and if needed send through by email if provided. Should the required preparation not be done when our technicians arrive, resulting in postponement in the job, you will be charged a call out fee if £150 + VAT for heat treatment and £80 + VAT for standard single technician jobs. The operatives reserve the right to refuse to treat if they feel non-preparation means the treatment will not work. Should non-preparation result in delays in starting treatment, you will be charged an additional £150 + VAT for heat treatment and £80 + VAT per hour for other single operative work.

Disputes

Should you wish to discuss what happened on a treatment with us, you should call the office on 01832 770483 or email us at info@britishbugcontrol.com. We do not issue refunds. However, if we agree that the treatment or proofing job has not been carried out as agreed, we may agree to attend again and re-treat. The decision will be down to the directors of the company. Any such discussions must begin within 48 hours of the treatment having taken place. We will always look to respond to any disputes within 72 hours (working days, Mon-Fri).

Reports, Surveys, Paid Invoices

Treatment reports are available at request and supplied by email as PDFs. If you would like a treatment report, please contact the office on 01832 770483. Survey reports for bird work are also supplied as PDFs. If you have not received a paid invoice for work carried out by us and need one, please call the office or email info@britishbugcontrol.com