Never use second hand fibre parts!

We include the following footnote on all of our quotes;

Customer sourced components - we appreciate that you may be able to source and free-issue parts that cost less at purchase time than we have quoted. However, we will stand by the quality and usability of components we supply. In our experience we have come across customer-supplied parts that not only prove less reliable but take much longer to install. In these cases we will have to bill for any excess wiring days caused by free-issued parts.

We did a job a few months ago where the customer insisted on supplying fibre pigtails and splice-protectors. The pigtails (OM1 LC-ends in case you wondered) were of a very poor quality and took many goes to splice properly. In the end we disposed of them and used our own stock (including the splice protectors). However - we hung onto the protectors (they looked fine) and used them on a job last week. When we fired up the calibrated laser tester (-19dB(m) at 850nM in case you wondered!) we found we were getting >20dBs of loss on each circuit. It turns out the girth of the protectors was too big for the splice-bridges and so the increased pressure on the fibre-joint meant the junction was compromised. We had to re-do ten desks worth of duplex wallboxes.
The name of this purveyor of sub-standard fibre parts that have bitten us in the backside twice now? See here!