Checkatrade

Tippytoes

We arranged for a fencer to come out and measure up for a new fence. He turned up on time...great. He continually swigged a can of lager whilst were discussing what we wanted. Finally, he asked if we had a Stanley tape so he could measure up.

We sent him packing and ended up doing a damned good job of the fence ourselves.

keystone

cepheus wrote: »

Dacouch. Perhaps you can demonstrate your commitment to the customer by removing one of your members replies to my assessment.

I think you might find that all he did in his post was to reproduce a quote from the guy who runs the site. That doesn't necessarily mean he is that guy.

Cheers

keystone

Tippytoes wrote: »

We arranged for a fencer to come out and measure up for a new fence. He turned up on time...great. He continually swigged a can of lager whilst were discussing what we wanted. Finally, he asked if we had a Stanley tape so he could measure up.

We sent him packing ................

Nice story and the right thing to do but whats that got to do with this thread?

and ended up doing a damned good job of the fence ourselves.

Don't be smug.

Cheers

Tippytoes

keystone wrote: »

Nice story and the right thing to do but whats that got to do with this thread?

Don't be smug.

Cheers

He was on Checkatrade and I think we have every right to be smug....not only did we have the right tools to be able to measure up, but we also bought a saw and hammer.

cepheus

keystone wrote: »

I think you might find that all he did in his post was to reproduce a quote from the guy who runs the site. That doesn't necessarily mean he is that guy.

Cheers

Sorry misread it

Removed!

keystone

Tippytoes wrote: »

He was on Checkatrade

Well why didn't you say so. It would have put your post in context then n'est pas.

and I think we have every right to be smug....not only did we have the right tools to be able to measure up, but we also bought a saw and hammer.

Maybe but theres no need to thrust your veritable smugness down other peoples throats. Thats just plain pushy!

Cheers

Leif

Tippytoes wrote: »

We arranged for a fencer to come out and measure up for a new fence. He turned up on time...great. He continually swigged a can of lager whilst were discussing what we wanted. Finally, he asked if we had a Stanley tape so he could measure up.

We sent him packing and ended up doing a damned good job of the fence ourselves.

The first builder I got from CheckATrade prepared my kitchen. I asked him to quote for putting up coving in two rooms. He said he'd do it 'tomorrow'. A week later, I asked him again. And so on and so on until it was getting a joke, and delaying the house refurbishment. So I did it myself, and I was surprised to find it was easy, and I did a good job, better than whoever did the rest of the coving in the house. So I hung the doors too, and that was not hard. Although this builder did an okay job of the kitchen, some quite large cracks (visible from a distance) opened up in the wall near the boiler, lots of smaller cracks appeared on other walls, and a wet patch appeared on a wall where they blocked an old boiler flue. They used a breeze block, bridging two layers of brick, proving a route for damp (which built up during the phenomenally wet April) in the flue. He also did not finish the kitchen by the promised deadline, ready for kitchen fitters, which could have been nasty. Fortunately I was able to put back the installation without telling him. He also did skirtiung board, and the filling of screw holes was so bad, I had to dig out the caulk, and refill myself with a proper filler. It was a solid days work. And the sitting room ceiling he overboarded developed 3 cracks, which I have repaired, although not as well as I'd like. Is this level of 'issues' normal? I know people talk about snag lists, but the cracks and the damp stain appeared months after I'd paid him.

And I got sick of his promises. He'd always promise to do something tomorrow. I was lucky if he did it at all. It started to become offensive. But he liked spending loads of time on the phone chatting, and making himself sound like a nice chap. I think he spends a lot of his time chatting to clients, and not enough actually doing the work. Ironically his unreliability is why I did not ask him to refit my bathroom, and I then hired a second builder from CheckATrade, who turned out to be complete cowboys. Did I post a review of the first builder? No, I couldn't be bothered as there is not room on the review form to describe what happened. And I know how unpleasant it can be dealing with CheckATrade. The two women I dealt with were cold and unfriendly, using phrases like "We have to be fair to the trade", or not even replying to emails.

cepheus

I still find it rather baffling how every person on here experiences poor service via checkatrade whilst every review on checkatrade is usually highly positive. To be fair they did post my reply on there (albeit with a counter-reply full of lies) so I have doubts if the paradox is solely due to fake reviews.

Perhaps it is down to human psychology. Once a reader sees a string of good reviews they are more likely to post another one, or not bother to post a bad one so they don't appear to be the odd one out. Hence the site become biased through everyone following each others lead.

On here it seems the opposite, perhaps those with good experiences aren't posting? It's difficult to believe that checkatrade companies could be this bad even if companies are chosen at random out of the yellow pages!

I wonder if the same explanation could resolve the paradox of good reviews for electrical equipment on Ebay. Outside Ebay the general advice is not to buy electrical stuff. Some point out that the Ebay review should be for the quality of delivery only rather than the product, although I doubt if most reviewers would know that.

Leif

cepheus wrote: »

I still find it rather baffling how every person on here experiences poor service via checkatrade whilst every review on checkatrade is usually highly positive. To be fair they did post my reply on there (albeit with a counter-reply full of lies) so I have doubts if the paradox is solely due to fake reviews.

A number of people on this forum have posted about good CheckATrade experiences, one chap had at least two good people. And I know someone who had a good trade via CheckATrade. So there are plenty of good trades on the site. But I share your concerns. I have read numerous online posts on numerous forums, and spoken in person with numerous people, and the bodge rate does appear to be 50%. Even if we assume that is a massive overestimate, a 10% bodge rate is far higher than the reviews suggest. Some reviews must be faked, and I know one way to do it, which I will not make public. Perhaps bodgers fake reviews for big jobs, but reviews for small easy jobs are genuine. It is odd isn't it, that they all have incredibly good reviews. I could imagine the first builder I used having good reviews for plumbing, but the second builder was the worst kind of cowboy, and they are still on CheckATrade, despite costing me £3,000.

I'm not sure I mentioned this, but I complained to Kevin Byrne who runs CheckATrade. He said they would investigate. The conclusion was that having paid the cowboys £3,000, for wrecking my bathroom, I owed them further money, something like £50, but they were generous enough to write that value off. :rotfl:And they are still on CheckATrade. It just shows that CheckATrade do not give a damn about the public, and the quality of work by their members, as long as the members pay the fees. Trading Standards are currently 'persuading' the cowboys to pay compensation, which should be a substantial portion of the £3,000, but I will still lose out. And then I will see if I can make a formal complaint about CheckATrade to the regulatory authorities. I suspect they could be done for misleading advertising, since they allow known cowboys on the site.

Tippytoes

keystone wrote: »

Well why didn't you say so. It would have put your post in context then n'est pas.

Maybe but theres no need to thrust your veritable smugness down other peoples throats. Thats just plain pushy!

Cheers

I didn't think it necessary to refer to Checkatrade.....as the thread topic is about them! Oh well, lesson learned not to assume that what is obvious to one, is also clear to another.

My smugness was not rammed down throats. I was merely trying to highlight that "tradespeople" are rarely the Gods they think they are and unskilled people can give them a run for their money by using basic mathematics (to calculate quantities, measurements, angles etc).