Checkatrade

Fraise

Adam_Callow wrote: »

hi all,
I just wanted to say that from feedback we saw from this forum and similar forums, with the help of over 1,000 Expert tradesmen up and down the country we decided to build a site to help Expert tradesmen and the public.

it is free to use for both customers and tradesmen.

this means that we don't rely on any income from members.

All reviews are allowed on the site and never removed.

We have partnered with manufactures and builders merchants to advertise on the site to ensure we can keep it live and busy.

We were tired of expert tradesmen being ripped off and the public being victim of rogue builders gaming the system.

We go live soon and i know some people that read this would like a deal..so if you google ' I Need An Expert.co .uk ' then you will find our site and we are giving away £10 vouchers at the moment.

We love working with our members, we wored with over 1,000 tradesmen to build a site they love and allows HONEST feedback.

We saw that certain sites were increasing their fees and only pushing up prices for customers.

We are on a mission...sorry for dropping in the middle of this thread but it made for very interesting reading..

There are thousands of great tradesmen out there, trust me.

Can I ask how if you don't charge tradesmen to advertise, and you don't charge customers either - and you are even giving away £10 vouchers too for anyone booking through you - how do you make your money? Or are you a charity?

By the way, CheckaTrade is a terrible place to look for a tradesmen. ANYONE can advertise with them, and you get the most awful money robbing cowboys on there who don't even know how to fix a fuse

phoebe1989seb

I confess to not having read the whole thread, but do have to give my experience of tradesmen that are to be found on check-a-trade.

We are sympathetically restoring a (non-listed) Georgian house, doing much of the work ourselves. However, there are certain areas where we have to call on better qualified people to assist us, such as building a large, unconventional extension and rewiring the old stone building and we have had masses of issues with the tradesmen we contacted to give quotes/look at or carry out specific jobs.......mainly un-reliability and standard of workmanship being pretty appalling On the whole these have been local builders/trades, found by either local advertisements, online (by googling) or by word of mouth.

Out of all of those contacted, the two most reliable, proficient and tidy tradesmen have been those that advertise on check-a-trade - although I admit we didn't find them there, one being a neighbour, the other guy being someone DH met when he was helping out a friend in his bathroom showroom.

So just wanted to say they're not all bad

keystone

phoebe1989seb wrote: »

I confess to not having read the whole thread,

Thats usually the best way to get people NOT to read your post.

but do have to give my experience of tradesmen that are to be found on check-a-trade

but interestingly you didn't find them there in the first place.

So just wanted to say they're not all bad

Nobody said they were but the whole concept of these sites is open to abuse by unscrupulous people and thats the real problem.

Cheers

BR123

itsmeinit wrote: »

I had a Woodburner installed costing me £2600 which i have not yet paid for:T From the start of the job it was a complete mess, hearth in 2 bits,unleavel,and uneavenly cut, the burnner was placed in the wrong place and on a slope, the flue does not have a 45 degree bend, and the chimney is to short. Plus other bits like skirting board not removed, all in all it was a really bad job done by Jose Rodriguez of Mere in Wiltshire, I removed him from the job and got another firm in to rectify and they told me that they have condemed it and i was not to use it. I am now waiting for the HSE to come round and see how bad it is.
I went on check a trade to check out this RODRIGUEZ and it was all good reviews so we decided to have him.:mad: what a mistake, i have been on Check a trade to put a review (ALL BAD) and nothing comes up. WHAT A BLAGG, Check a Trade needs to be checked out themselves and closed down. ALL the people who have had this same problem should write to watch dog letting them know because all the cowboy builders are on there hiding, maybe that site has been created by the king of cowboy builders. DONT USE CHECK A TRADE, VERY BAD

We live near Gillingham and have just had a woodburner/multi fuel stove installed by Jose Rodriguez. I must say that the work was excellent. His approach was excellent. he did what he said he would do and it was all done extremely competently, despite having some problems with our installation - birds nests well stuck in the chimney - the job was completed in time and to the agreed price. We have been enjoying the results of his work since that time. His communications were excellent and the price was very competitive too. Someone who produces a competitive quote and sticks to it is hard to find, yet he did and he was exceptional in his service. The CheckaTrade feedback sounds like it is far representative than yours. I would thoroughly recommend him to anyone.

reesk_2

Do not trust Checkatrader.com or their recommeded traders...they are bunch of cheats...beware!!!

jyh

Unfortunately realised the dodgy nature of Checkatrade too late. Here are my experiences: booked an end of tenancy clean with a company on Checkatrade which had fantastic reviews. The person who took the booking explicitly said I could not have the cleaner and carpet cleaner come at the same time, as the carpet cleaner could only work after the cleaner has done her job, so I agreed to the timing of cleaner first thing in the morning and carpet cleaner coming in the afternoon. Travelled long to the property to meet the cleaner, cleaner did not show up, phoned the company only to be told that I had not booked at all, and that I was not on their system. I asked to speak to the manager and complained. All the while they denied I had ever booked as if I had dreamed the whole thing up and there was never even a "sorry." At that time I wasn't aware of the "no negative feedback" system at Checkatrade, and said to the manager that I would be leaving a negative feedback to warn others, to which the manager replied that he's got so many positive reviews already that he didn't give a dxxx what review I was going to write.
Another cleaning company said he couldn't be bothered to come out to give an estimate, gave a rough price, and simply said this is no guarantee and the price will change on the day of the cleaning depending on the state of the property. I didn't book it in the end.

However a good handyman I have used on several occasions went and registered on Checkatrade after a period of slow business during Christmas, and said that it did bring him a lot of work. I suppose if the tradesmen are genuine then the site gives some help to build their businesses. But for customers, whether you happen to pick the good ones is just up to luck. Personally I have learned my lesson and will steer well clear of the site.

I have had some success with Which? Local, even though their listings are few and the number of reviews are really not that many. Nevertheless I have found some great tradesmen there who live up to their top ratings. There are also others on Which (maybe because of their good reviews) who were too busy to take up my jobs when I needed work done soon, and still others recommended on the site who were no longer in business or who didn't come back with quotes. Now I rely on word of mouth from neighbours, but Which?Local would still be my second best bet.

cyclonebri1

Innys wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Has anyone had experience of this website?

I'm asking because I contacted them by e-mail with a query on Monday and still have not had a reply which doesn't bode well for the builders recommended by their website.... speaking of which....

I arranged with one of their member builders to come round to talk about some work I need doing this evening and guess what? He's not turned up. Bear in mind that promptness is something that Checkatrade prides its members on adhering to.

Not surprisingly, the Checkatrade website doesn't allow you to provide negative feedback unless the builder has done some work for you. So you can only feedback once you have committed to have some work done by which time it's too late anyway. Wot a brilliant system.

I haven't read your full, post

I guess you are looking for a builder or such like???

No real answer but ask yourself, does a guy, a company that does good work? at a good price?, delivers on time?

Have the need to advertise on the ne or even in local rags??

Good tradesmen are hard to find, those you do find are """"SUSPECT""""""""""""""

No offence to our regulars, but there are some real rogues out there band they are on these sites.

NTK

Totally avoid, its nothing more than a money making racket and does nothing for consumers.

Ianwzzz

I had a bathroom tiled by a tiler I found in the local paper. It was the worst tiling I have ever seen. I then looked on checkatrade website and he was on there. I would never use it.

NonGeographicalMan

Perhaps CheckaTrade needs to be renamed as FindADodgyGeezer.:rotfl:

More seriously though why have the OFT never been able to do anything about having it shut down given that it quite clearly makes totally false promises about the mainly dodgy tradesmen that it promotes.:(

I think its reputation is now so bad that any reputable tradesman who possibly in error once took a listing with this service should now be seeking to actively remove themselves because of the damage that a CheckATrade listing might do to both their business and their image with their customers.