Why you cant trustatrader.com

There is a website advertising on our local commercial radio station like this one (may be this one).

A thought I had was, if anyone can leave negative or positive feedback, what stops a tradesman making up a lot of positive feedback about themselves?

I am a fully qualified and registered electrician. I recently joint trust a trader, they asked me to send them photocopies of all my qualification certificates, insurance, and a detaild form with professional information, they called 5 of my customers and interviewed them, the only company that really checked my details and recommendations, and this is why I joint the

Regarding this complaint, I think that if you had problems with 2 tradsmen I would ask the quastion why? This might be because you are one of those customers that will always find something to complain about, did you ever have something done for you and you did not complain?

Or maybe you have another reason and you are trying to discredit Trusta trader for that reason.

A tradsman cannot make up a lot of positive feedback about himself because there is a date, name and address in each recommendation, ofcourse 100% froud proof is not possible; you have them in the Parliament, banks etc.

macnoonix wrote: »

Hi there , I joined this site to defend Trustatrader . I became unemployed in July 2010 as an electrician and spent 8 weeks queueing for a fortnightly dole cheque of £80 . Luckily at the time my wife was in the process of receiving a cash settlement from her ex husband and after a lot of careful thought we decided to apply the money wisely and started my own business . After a few months of trying to pull my business off the ground I began to build up a client base and in January went through a fairly rigorous process of supplying documents and literature to Trustatrader for membership . This was a very comforting process for me because I knew that not everyone becomes a member and only those with the necessary qualifications , insurance and paperwork would be considered . For this reason I would imagine that the gentleman with the bad experiences with Trustrader should acknowledge that despite a rigorous vetting process there are instances that some tradesmen slip the net . However , we have been the target of word of mouth builders and can assure you that they too have a tendency to be poor .

I am now looking to renew my membership in January and have enjoyed a very happy relationship with the site and my clients who have accessed me from there and have had no problem with endorsing the site to other tradesmen

Trustatrader has a feedback system and I have never had any negative feedback myself and cannot imagine the site would screen negative feedback . They will always contact the clients to validate negative feedback and take a dim view of poor workmanship .

I hope this has been helpful

Trevor

T.Nixon Domestic Electrician

I'm very suspicious of this post, mainly because it is too quick to support the web site, but also because he says "we have been the target of word of mouth builders and can assure you that they too have a tendency to be poor . "

This is certainly not my experience, and not the experience of friends.

I used a builder recommended by a colleague's parents. Excellent.

I used a tiler recommended by the (good) company that did my kitchen. Excellent.

I used my late mother's plumber. Excellent.

I used a kitchen company with huge numbers of excellent reviews on an unpaid review site. Excellent.

Numerous friends have used trades obtained by word of mouth and had good work done. In fact they have used them several times.

I used a builder from CheckATrade. So so, with issues e.g. bodged filling of screw holes in skirting board, damage to window frame etc. The project manager drove me nuts with his "I'll do it tomorrow" promises/lies, when in reality he had no intention of doing it tomorrow, and I was lucky if he did it in a month.

I used a bathroon design and fitting company from CheckATrade. Complete cowboys, and I am about to send a letter informing them that in 14 days I will start court proceedings to get back the £3000 deposit. They screwed up a bathroom refit, and I had to have it redone. They lied about what they did, and the work was incompetent e.g. using cement based adhesive with porcelain tiles on bare plaster. Not only should they have used primer but they falsely claimed to have done so. And when I tried to remove tiles, I found they almost fell off the walls. These are 45cm by 24cm tiles in the bath area, and could seriously injure someone if they fell off. I had three surveys that confirmed poor workmanship. As to whether I will ever see any of that £3000, who knows.

I posted a review on CheckATrade, and took many weeks to apepar, and then it was pulled as the bodgers claimed to have suffered a death in the family. It took several weeks to re-appear, and almost straight away a response appeared, containing nothing but lies. The bodgers claimed to have refunded some money, and claimed to have used an adhesive that did not require primer. I showed written proof to CheckATrade that the response was fraudulent, but they did nothing (well, they claimed to speak to the bodgers, but said that all conversations had to remain private due to data protection regs). Oh, and CheckATrade edited my review such that a sentence saying "I have lost £3000" became "I have made a loss". Quite different! I have heard elsewhere from trades that many reviews are fraudulent, and although I have no proof of that statement (and CheckATrade would deny it) it would not surprise me were it to be true.

Basically CheckATrade is nothing more than a sales brochure for companies. Some are good, at least 50% aren't. A colleague used them, and got a good trade. A job agent I spoke to used them and got a bodger. If a trade is any good, they get work from word of mouth. If they are either new, or bad, then they use a site such as CheckATrade. My view is avoid these sites. They are not your friend, as they act for trades.

maninthestreet wrote: »

The business model of trustatrader (and at least one other business that replaces 'trust' with 'check' in their name) is that they offer a paid business directory service to tradesmen. So the tradesmen are their customers, not the members of the public who choose to use the services of one of their customers. Not surprisingly, trustatrader is not gong to bite the hands of those that feed it......

I think this just about sums it up...

An ex of mine used two (well recommended) tradesman from one of these sites - one to fix gutters, who bodged the job but at least he (eventually) come back to fix it - and one to install a kitchen sink and replace a power shower, the sink was fine but the shower, oh dear....

Leif wrote: »

I find this post offensive. The first post on this site and you support trade advertising sites. Are you by any chance employed by one of these sites?

Firstly I am sorry, and apologise if you were offended, this was not my intention.

I did not have to join Trustatrader, it was, as I mentioned, because it looked to me that they checked the people who join. I am a member of NAPIT, IET, TrustMark and FSB, the first 3 bodies you can join only by merit.

99% of my work is recommendations, and I must tell you that even by recommendation you are not sure 100%. I had a builder, doing work in my house, he was recommended by a good friend, this builder was bad professionally and left my house without finishing the work and with my money.

I do a lot of electrical inspection, You cannot imagine how many times I find that a property was tested and inspected by a registered electrician and it was far from complete, I found dangerous faults missed, made up test results, certificates not complete if issued at all etc.

My point is that there is no 100% in any subject, it is not fair to condemn the website and its members because you had one bad experience.

I am new to Trustatrader and if I will find that they are not what I think they are, I will stop my membership, and promise you that I will come back and write about it here on this forum, My company is an independent, one person company, and I do not have interest in promoting any other comopany.