"We had a window cleaner who had a beat up old Transit van"
Standard ciu stereotype for dodgy wc.,judge em by their vehicle 
In my 16yrs window cleaning, the stand out "cowboys/liars/bullies" (delete as appropriate) I've encountered, have been driving newish sign written professional looking vans. Appearances can be very deceptive. (other than that a very good moral to your post Spruce,). I post as a driver of a non sign written transit van which is getting more beat up by the year 
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Hi Nick. I didn't mean to offend you or anyone else by my comment.
I did mention that these two guys worked very hard and did a good cleaning job for their customers. I would never take that away from them.
Before the Transit van they had a very unreliable, tatty Transit Connect van which, more often than not, was at one of the workshops we pass by regularly being repaired. This van was sign written and had an Ionics Logo on both sides. Inside was a strapped in Wydale tank and 2 Claber hose reels. They used fiberglass poles with Oval Vikans on them.
I often saw them out working and chatted to them from time to time. The owner was a nice guy.
I agree that we can't judge a person's work ethic by the van they drive or the equipment they own. It was certainly the case here.
In business making a profit centered around 2 things; pricing and expenses. These guys skimped on equipment and I imagine their running costs equipment wise were low - excluding the cost of repairs to that Connect van.
The very fact that he admitted that there wasn't enough money in window cleaning suggested to me the reason why he got that well used Transit van. His business couldn't afford it and we all know how expensive vans are now.
So no, I wasn't calling them out as a cowboy outfit. Their reason for failure was that their prices were too low.
When he decided to sell up he offered the business to his helper but his helper didn't have any money. So he sold it off to a well know cowboy outfit that can only be described that way. They have since lost most of the customers they bought because they have such a bad local reputation.
Interestingly I was approached recently and asked for a quote to clean this person's windows because he admired how clean and well presented my van was. My van isn't sign written. That's the first time I've ever heard that.
