Checkatrade

nick-nick

I am always wary of these sorts of sites. We had a landscaper come out through Checkatrade and it seems that they bid for leads, some can pay £30 - £40 just to be able to come out and quote. If I was a tradesman I'd be annoyed if I paid that 4 or 5 times just because somebody wanted to know an "ish" price with no real intention to get it done. (Which isn't the homeowners fault either)

roddydogs

But if you dont know anyone whose had work done lately, where do you go to get someone, Checkatrade problems are well known. Is ther another better site?

[Deleted User]

roddydogs wrote: »

But if you dont know anyone whose had work done lately, where do you go to get someone, Checkatrade problems are well known. Is ther another better site?

Really interested in the response to this question. I will be commissioning a tradesman on a full house rewire and central heating installation soon and at present, I've only reached out to checkatrade members because I don't have any other access to a pool of tradesmen.

NonGeographicalMan

bigsambsc wrote: »

Really interested in the response to this question. I will be commissioning a tradesman on a full house rewire and central heating installation soon and at present, I've only reached out to checkatrade members because I don't have any other access to a pool of tradesmen.

I don't know whether the fact that Location, Location, Location's Phil Spencer has put his ugly mug on the tv adverts of https://www.ratedpeople.com means they are any less of a ripoff than https://www.DodgyWideboysUsingAnAdanoidal/NasallTvJingle.com

Reece_

If you really have to go down the route of using one of these recommendation websites, I'd probably say that mybuilder is one of the better ones, talking from using it as a customer and a tradesman.
They do not remove negative reviews, and are a fairer price on the tradesmen. With checkatrade and trustatrade, they both take annual payments to basically put you in a directory of reviewed trades, rated people lists the customers job and trades buy the details in order to give a quote, this can be upwards of £100 just to get someones phone number essentially. Mybuilder also lists a customers job but allows trades to register interest, then the customer can sort through and shortlist whoever they want, the trades then pay a fee, which although can be quite costly is generally cheaper than the likes of rated.
There are a load more of these sites, however the ones I've listed tend to be the most popular with the most trades on, you can try others but response time will be slow.

Reece_

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I don't know whether the fact that Location, Location, Location's Phil Spencer has put his ugly mug on the tv adverts of https://www.ratedpeople.com means they are any less of a ripoff than https://www.DodgyWideboysUsingAnAdanoidal/NasallTvJingle.com

Rated people rip off the tradesmen more than the rest, however reviews for the trades tend to be genuine, as far as I'm aware they won't remove negative feedback.

PATH_3

Is checkatrade.com safe to use?? I am concerned about getting ripped off again after bad experiences in the past.

dacouch

PATH wrote: »

Is checkatrade.com safe to use?? I am concerned about getting ripped off again after bad experiences in the past.

It's not infallible, the reviews are easy enough to manipulate.

Can you not get recommendations from friends?

The Which Trusted Trader is a more reliable source for tradesmen
http://trustedtraders.which.co.uk/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=brand_e&gclid=CjwKEAjw7MuqBRC2nNacqJmIpT0SJABQXAOt5gni3hBH2VaIk-yHIc1RnEHsZ2XK24QYMK21GjGQGBoCYL7w_wcB

cepheus

Just looking at Checkatrade on Trustpilot. This is a consumer review website for e-commerce reviews, which hosts user generated reviews in a number of different languages. The only problem is that this is a consumer review site reviewing consumer reviews! However at least it's more open to consumers rather than being run for the sole benefit of traders.

Checkatrade reviews Bad 2.5 from 0 - 10

https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/www.checkatrade.com

This also annoys me. What greater proof do we need of the failures of commercial TV?

Checkatrade are the proud sponsor of Channel 5's Cowboy Trader and Cowboy Builder.

barnaclebill

I have used checkatrade four times now since we moved to this house, all of them have been good workers and done good jobs and the price quoted was what I paid. One plumber, one carpenter, one builder and one gardener, all of them I would use again and I gave good reviews, checkatrade called me to check if these were my words.
Possibly I have been lucky but I would use checkatrade again to search for a tradesman.