{"id":82353,"date":"2025-08-20T11:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T11:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82353\/"},"modified":"2025-08-20T11:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-20T11:54:10","slug":"war-veteran-john-rose-quoted-more-than-35000-by-sydney-plumber-to-fix-broken-toilet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/82353\/","title":{"rendered":"War veteran John Rose quoted more than $35,000 by Sydney plumber to fix broken toilet"},"content":{"rendered":"

A World War II veteran from Sydney has been quoted more than $35,000 to fix his broken toilet.<\/p>\n

John Rose, 98, contacted Ferguson\u2019s Plumbing after hearing \u201ca simple glug\u201d coming from his toilet when he was handed the excessive quote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was working out how much money I had in the bank \u2014 so much in this one, so much in that one, and between the two of them come up with this 30-odd thousand or how much it was worth,\u201d the 98-year-old told 7NEWS.<\/p>\n

Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today \"Download<\/a><\/p>\n

Rose\u2019s neighbour stepped in and saved him thousands of dollars that he would rather give to charity.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast financial year I gave away $30,000 to charity,\u201d Rose said.<\/p>\n

The toilet was in the end fixed by a plumber for about $550 in an hour.<\/p>\n

Rose had already paid Ferguson\u2019s $6,000.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe quote continued to grow until John\u2019s neighbour stepped in. Credit: \/7NEWSBad reviews<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s website is full of five-star reviews, but elsewhere customers tell a different story.<\/p>\n

Various one-star reviews say the same thing: \u201cDO NOT USE THIS COMPANY!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeware \u2014 Before engaging with this company … they quoted me $12,500 to connect a washing machine,\u201d one customer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbsolutely shocked and disappointed at the final price,\u201d said another customer.<\/p>\n

\u201cAn extremely disappointing experience,\u201d wrote another person.<\/p>\n

Another customers called it the \u201cworst experience ever\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ferguson\u2019s Plumbing is a name used by Australian Trades (Pty Ltd), which also operates under the following eight company names: Andersons Plumbing AUS; Bob\u2019s Plumbing NSW; Dan\u2019s Electrical AUS; Dan\u2019s Electrical NSW; Dan\u2019s Plumbing AUS; Dan\u2019s Plumbing NSW; Lloyd\u2019s Plumbing and Gas; and Willson\u2019s Plumbing NSW.<\/p>\n

All have been banned for the next 60 days pending an investigation and could face harsher penalties.<\/p>\n

Better Regulation and Fair Trading Minister Anoulack Chanthivong said: \u201cWe can impose significant financial penalties for those who are caught doing the wrong thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could suspend or cancel their licence if the evidence holds up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rose said he was telling his story in a bid to raise awareness about getting a second opinion.<\/p>\n

7NEWS attempted to contact the plumbing company for comment.<\/p>\n

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<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A World War II veteran from Sydney has been quoted more than $35,000 to fix his broken toilet.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":82354,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,8036,135,44,62245,84,670],"class_list":{"0":"post-82353","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-consumer-protection","12":"tag-local-government","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-nsw-politics","15":"tag-politics","16":"tag-sydney"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/82354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}