I had the exact same situation some years back with a client that ran a network of community shelters and non-profit housing. We had a pretty good relationship with this client, but they were a charity, and were under a lot of pressure to save money where they could.
During a reno at one of their properties, the EC was able to undercut our quote significantly. We warned them about this, but they had to watch the bottom line. We got a compromise with them though, that we would spec what was to be installed, sparkie would pull the cable, we'd inspect before the drywall went up, and then we would terminate and test.
Of course, through the telephone game (no pun intended) from us -> GC -> EC, "1 4pr Cat3 and 1 4pr Cat5e with pull string in 1" conduit" got translated into "1 phone and 1 internet", which then got translated into "1 Cat5 and 1 RG6, no conduit, stapled to the studs".
Questioned about this, sparkie thought he was doing us a favour, since "cable internet is faster, isn't it?"
Oh, did I mention that they forgot to call us before the drywallers came in?
Fortunately, the client learned from this lesson, and held the GC to our original specs. They had sparkie rip out all of his cabling and install just the conduit, then backcharged him for my T&M to do it right. Oh, and he got the bill for re-doing the drywall, too.
I really liked that client.
Needless to say, the next time they reno'd a property, we got called first for all the LV.
