MyHammer.com - anyone actually had any success from it?

Luvmyfreebies

Not sure of this is the right forum for this or not, but here goes.

Just had the most dreadful, rogue-trader-type experience with a landscape gardner that I found via MyHammer.com. :mad: I posted a job on this site to get some major landscaping work done in my garden - repairing some fences, laying a new patio and re-turfing - about £2k-worth I figured.

I got 4 enquiries and went with the one who actually phoned me to offer come round, measure and up submit a proper, written quote. He had 2 recommendations on the site, gave us an address of a job he's recently completed for us to go and look at (an offer we didn't take him up on - more fool us). He submitted a reasonable quote (£1600) and came round with a proper written contract and schedule of work. He was a nice, presentable, personable chap. We agreed the job, paid him a small deposit up front (approx 25% of the total) so he could order the materials, and agreed that the remainder would be paid on satisfactory completion of the job. He got to work almost immediately and did about half of the work in 4 days, which was pretty good going.

Then it all went pear-shaped. On the 5th day he asked us for the remainder of the money so that he could pay his contractors and buy the rest of the materials. After some l-o-o-o-o-ng discussion we agreed to pay another £600 on the strict proviso that the rest would not be paid until the job was completed. The patio was built, ONE of the fences had been mended, the old turf had been taken up (and deposited on our drive and spilling onto the pavement with the other waste and rubbish to be cleared away), and the garden had been levelled, so about half the job done. He assured us that he was coming back the next day to clear the drive and finish the work.

And that's the last we saw of him. MY OH phoned him on his various phone numbers 30 times over the course of 2 days. On consulting with the Trading Standards office they sent us a letter template to send him (recorded delivery) to formally request that the work be completed within 'x' days time frame. Another week went by and still no contact. In the meantime we had to hire 2 skips to get the drive-way cleared - and do the work ourselves, which we don't have the time or resources to do which is why we wanted someone to do it for us in the first place!! Another letter based on a TS template was sent to him last week threatening legal action. My OH drove to his address and it looks like a shared house in a run-down part of town - and nobody answering the doorbell.

Apart from reporting him to Trading Standards and leaving the most negative review on MyHammer.com I could without putting myself at risk of libel, I don't think there's much else we can do.

The most depressing aspect is that instead of a nice tidy, neatly turfed garden I now have to look out at a load of mud and broken fences, with no time to do anything about it and no faith in inviting anyone else to get it sorted.

I thought this sort of thing only other people. It's happened to me, so be warned. :mad:

Gordon9

Sounds like a realy bad experience you guys had! sorry to hear of your troubles with the cowboys, ive heard nothing but bad stuff about my hammer as apparantly its all polish cowboys with no insurance but i would reccomend using rated people or even better is check a trade as they fully vet the trades and monitor as on a various amount of trade sites any monkey can join and just tick the yes box to everything which would promote cowboys that are not even registered as acompany.

isayoldchap

He done a good job in my Mum's house recently.
I like to see what others want to pay for jobs.

I have found that to every quote I get on myhammer,I get five times more enquiries here www.mybuilder.com which I got in the Wickes booklet

Of course I agree to have a look on Checkatrade too.

Taylor_Property_Interiors

I am a tradesman and I have been a member with My hammer for 3 months. I found that it was impossible to win a job unless you quote peanuts which made the job barely profitable. This is due to some tradesmen being willing to work for barely nothing for whatever reason, customers understandable quest to pay as little as possible and another reason which I will come back to later. As a tradesman you have to pay £44.70 every 3 months for membership, about 10% of the price of the job if you win after posting a quote on the job profile or about 15% of the recommended price for the job to be given the contact details of the customer so you can quote them without going through the site. Alternatively you pay about 2-3% of the recommended price for the job to give a quote and not have to pay if you win the job, however I would say for each 50 quotes you give you win 1 to 3 jobs, and so will undoubtedly make a loss. I found that the only way to win jobs is to quote very very little and hope nobody quotes less and that the customer isn't put off by the extremely low quote and that the customer still wants the work to be done, as I have found that 30% of people who place job adverts don't go though and choose a tradesman. I soon decided that I will not continue to be a member after my 3 months was up. I mistakenly assumed that I would have some sort of warning before the 3 months was up and would maybe be asked if I was happy with the service and if I would like to continue for another 3 months, or least that instead of paying I could cancel my membership when the time came. Instead I receive an invoice in the early hours of the morning stating that £44.70 is due and would be taken from my Pay-pal account that day. I received this hours AFTER the 2nd 3 month membership began. Luckily I was awake and was able to cancel their access to my Pay-pal account so they could not take the money. I sent them an email immediately saying I don't want to continue my membership and that I was disgusted they had not sent a notification that the membership was almost at the point of renewal instead of invoicing me the morning it was due, hoping I wouldn't see it and then take the money without me knowing as they have access to members bank accounts via Pay-pal. I have also heard that they often take money out of members bank accounts apparently mistakenly and then make it extremely difficult for the person to get the money back. Any decent company would say that's fine, cancel the membership and apologise for not warning me sooner. No, instead a get an email saying that I am now legally bound to pay £44.70 and must continue my membership. I will not pay the money, but I am sure that their are many tradesmen on this site that do not want the hassle of not paying, or didn't have time to cancel their My hammer Pay-pal subscription because they weren't on the internet before the went to work to see the invoice and are simply on My hammer because of this devious tactic. Those tradesmen are probably the ones that now feel they need to quote very little to win jobs to try and make the most of their membership and at least break even with the money they have wasted on this awful devious site. So this is a good site for customers because they will get some good tradesmen for very little cost, but please I urge you not to use it, don't give this company the fuel it needs to keep running. Find tradesmen by asking friends for recommendations, looking for adverts or looking for their personal websites, don't let companies like this rob them of their hard earned profits.

JaymesKenin_2

In short - no.

SparkyBrad

I am also in the same boat as Taylor properties, With the addition of them now using a Debt recovery company. I am tempted to just pay the 40 odd pounds but my priciples are telling me not to. I hope a newpaper like the Sun, or Mirror pick up on My hammer and make it difficult for them to continue trading in this discusting manner. I am thinking of going to the local newspaper The Bristol Evening Post, to see whether they are interested in the story. I'm guessing there are lots of people (genuine tradesman) out there in the same boat as Taylor Properties and myself.

johnnyboyrebel

isayoldchap wrote: »

He done a good job in my Mum's house recently.

Noone has stated any names so what are you talking about??

BigMac1989

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

Noone has stated any names so what are you talking about??

We found an Electrician
He done a good job in my Mum's house recently

johnnyboyrebel

cazzymouse wrote: »

We found an Electrician
He done a good job in my Mum's house recently

??????

cazzymouse said "he done a good job" (excellent grammar) but noone has stated who "he" is so not sure what your copy and paste is stating??

Glassspec_glazing

Taylor_Property_Interiors wrote: »

I am a tradesman and I have been a member with My hammer for 3 months. I found that it was impossible to win a job unless you quote peanuts which made the job barely profitable. This is due to some tradesmen being willing to work for barely nothing for whatever reason, customers understandable quest to pay as little as possible and another reason which I will come back to later. As a tradesman you have to pay £44.70 every 3 months for membership, about 10% of the price of the job if you win after posting a quote on the job profile or about 15% of the recommended price for the job to be given the contact details of the customer so you can quote them without going through the site. Alternatively you pay about 2-3% of the recommended price for the job to give a quote and not have to pay if you win the job, however I would say for each 50 quotes you give you win 1 to 3 jobs, and so will undoubtedly make a loss. I found that the only way to win jobs is to quote very very little and hope nobody quotes less and that the customer isn't put off by the extremely low quote and that the customer still wants the work to be done, as I have found that 30% of people who place job adverts don't go though and choose a tradesman. I soon decided that I will not continue to be a member after my 3 months was up. I mistakenly assumed that I would have some sort of warning before the 3 months was up and would maybe be asked if I was happy with the service and if I would like to continue for another 3 months, or least that instead of paying I could cancel my membership when the time came. Instead I receive an invoice in the early hours of the morning stating that £44.70 is due and would be taken from my Pay-pal account that day. I received this hours AFTER the 2nd 3 month membership began. Luckily I was awake and was able to cancel their access to my Pay-pal account so they could not take the money. I sent them an email immediately saying I don't want to continue my membership and that I was disgusted they had not sent a notification that the membership was almost at the point of renewal instead of invoicing me the morning it was due, hoping I wouldn't see it and then take the money without me knowing as they have access to members bank accounts via Pay-pal. I have also heard that they often take money out of members bank accounts apparently mistakenly and then make it extremely difficult for the person to get the money back. Any decent company would say that's fine, cancel the membership and apologise for not warning me sooner. No, instead a get an email saying that I am now legally bound to pay £44.70 and must continue my membership. I will not pay the money, but I am sure that their are many tradesmen on this site that do not want the hassle of not paying, or didn't have time to cancel their My hammer Pay-pal subscription because they weren't on the internet before the went to work to see the invoice and are simply on My hammer because of this devious tactic. Those tradesmen are probably the ones that now feel they need to quote very little to win jobs to try and make the most of their membership and at least break even with the money they have wasted on this awful devious site. So this is a good site for customers because they will get some good tradesmen for very little cost, but please I urge you not to use it, don't give this company the fuel it needs to keep running. Find tradesmen by asking friends for recommendations, looking for adverts or looking for their personal websites, don't let companies like this rob them of their hard earned profits.

They stopped my account as they wanted Id proof so I said cancel membership as I found it absolutely useless, I recently noticed they have still been taking out £53.00 every 3 months of my PayPal for over a year, they requested payment and I cancelled, they said I had to pay for another 3 months at £63 or threatened me with debt collectors. I'm now researching for people who have been treated unfairly like me and reporting them to watchdog to see what they can do, anyone out there who has a bad experience, tradesman or customer looking for a job, please please please take the time to email watchdog, and trading standards, a company as bad as this should not be allowed to rip of good people like us. I now use mybuilder and it is a good all round site for both.

burnlyf

johnnyboyrebel wrote: »

??????

cazzymouse said "he done a good job" (excellent grammar) but noone has stated who "he" is so not sure what your copy and paste is stating??

Look at the title of the post cazzymouse posted..