Quotes

[Jawloms]

I've just purchased 30 laptops as I have a trolley set of them which need replacing. I budgeted around £400 per unit. I had seven different companies send me quotes, all came in around the £10.5K-£13k mark with varying specifications, makes and models. Then I got a quote from someone offering me "food for thought". Bearing in mind they received the same spec requirements as everyone else did, their offering was £690.30 per month for three years to lease the kit, after which I give it all back and lease new stuff, or I can pay a "fair market value" to own the kit. That would mean well over £25k for kit with a lifetime limited to three years. They asked for feedback. Here is my reply so far;

 

Happy to provide feedback. I'd say your offering is absolutely ridiculous. I've said my budget is £12k, this is for units I'd expect to last me 4-5 years. You’re offering me something which will last only three years at over twice the cost, not including the "fair market value" I would still have to pay at the end of the term to actually then own the kit. I fail to see in any sense how that's an effective or efficient way of spending public money. Unless I missed something?

 

Stuart

Any suggestions? Anyone else want to add ludicrous quotes they've received?

 

Stuart

[mikeprice]

I think they do this because some schools have no concept of working out costs over 5 years - so if they are given a cost for the first year they say 'wow - that's cheaper'

 

and YES - I'm thinking of those wonderful cloud systems that teacher come back from conferences needing

 

and library systems - when I asked for quotes for those I managed to VERY easily negotiate massive reduction in the up-front costs - but the on-going yearly 'subscription' was non-negotiable and very high cost when you looked at it. I think we all know the companies!

 

OH - and then there was the printer/photocopier companies that submitted replacement costs where the numbers in the tables didn't add up to the totals at the bottom - they were bemused when I asked if they could send me the original spreadsheet they used to work it out - turned out they just typed it all in - not just one company - that was 2 of the 5 I asked for quotes!

[Brimstone]

Sounds ludicrous to me, as any school compliaint operating lease has to be less than the capital costs

[DrBeaker]

...OH - and then there was the printer/photocopier companies that submitted replacement costs where the numbers in the tables didn't add up to the totals at the bottom - they were bemused when I asked if they could send me the original spreadsheet they used to work it out - turned out they just typed it all in - not just one company - that was 2 of the 5 I asked for quotes!

 

THAT is shocking.

[mikeprice]

To be fair to one company I should say that a few months later the owner of the company rang up to see why they had been rejected - when I dug out the quote and my notes and told him about the adding up, he confessed that this specific salesman had done this several times - and had been sacked but was now trying to claim unfair dismissal - hence he was checking exactly how much damage the idiot had done.

He was also shocked that anyone working for him would do the calculation about costs without using a spreadsheet.

 

The other company that couldn't add up was the current support company - which was a problem as they had been really good for many years. I eventually managed to use a different (more senior) salesman who understood my spreadsheet and realised that I would be able to use it to compare all the different quotes and it would show up the 'tricks of the trade'.

We ended up with a much better deal - as long as they remember my dire warnings about keeping an eye on the paper usage!