Checkatrade

anotherbaldrick

Strange . Out of curiosity i looked up a heating engineer in our area who I know is reliable and does good work. His page came up with a lower score than I would have expected. Looking deeper , one client put in a low score with some criticism of the work , the comments were obviously passed to the company and they have responded with an apology and their explaination of a problem that arose.
Is this not how you would expect such a feedback site to work ?

Professor_Dent

I had an awful experience with Checkatrade, or rather my 83-year-old Dad did, and I had to help pick up the pieces. Really, it dubs itself 'the anwer to the rogue trader problem'... the answer to the rogue trader's prayers more like. As we know, traders pay a hefty annual fee to join and get the site to promote them through advertising. Yet the site does sort of imply that these are firms they can personally vouch for. The name is ambivalent... who does the checking? Them or us? All they have to do is check the subscription has gone through.

We are of course meant to check their reviews on the websites. But firstly, these cards that go through the letterbox with their friendly fonts seem to be aimed at the elderly who may not have access to the internet.

And secondly, the Checkatrade site is obviously not like TripAdvisor or Imdb, where you are allowed bad reviews and can take a view on which you find plausible. Most of the traders seem to be the Citizen Kane or tradesmen on that site, 9.9 all the way!

About this time last year my elderly dad went to the card they put through the door to find an electrician, it was the first time he did that, and the last. All he needed was a few plug sockets and improved lighting for the living room, as his eyesight is deteriotating. Now, he called this 'rewiring' which was his own fault, but still.... the guy he called out moved fast, got himself signed in for a rewiring job costing £6000 for a three-bedroom house. Completely misled my dad as to the extent of the job, said it would involve moving a bit of furniture around, that's all! Rubbish. It means carpets up, dust sheets, like ripping the guts out of the house, not a bit of keyhole surgery.

The Checkatrade electrician's 'task description' was a joke. It consisted of an invoice with my dad's address on it and the words 'Rewire the above property' typed on it. And the feel. No detail about what would be done, no breakdown of the quote at all. He couldn't even type the postcode with capital letters. Was he almost hoping we'd cancel, so he could then claim for labour costs and the deposit?

I could go on. My dad got cold feet and twice tried to postpone with the first two weeks, this bloke glibly fobbed him off. He wanted his payday. We then cancelled, so he claimed over a grand in labour costs, for doing nothing, or rather tried to.

Eventually we got hold of Epsom and Ewell Borough Council and a friendly fellow helped sort it out, he got his own team to work on it for a fraction of a price, they did a full report and of course the house did not need rewiring!

In the end the Checkatrade electrician still got away with his deposit. He still has a 9.9 rating on Checkatrade. I phoned up a woman at Checkatrade who was good at dishing out tea and sympathy while I ran up my phone bill, but nothing seemed to move her to action. When I got shirty and asked exactly what an electrician would have to do to get removed from Checkatrade, she got very defensive and said, 'We're not allowed to give that information out...' Of course, I was taking them at face value, not knowing tradesmen pay several hundred pounds to join them; they are the real customers, not us.

I may as well have phoned up the Internet Movie Database to complain about a movie I'd seen on telly last night.

Eventually she got all businesslike and said she'd look into it and get back to me. Since then, many months later, nothing.

To cap it all, that Kevin Bryne, founder of Checkatrade has web presence himself - on record complaining about the trustworthiness of some of the reviews on TripAdvisor! You couldn't make it up.

As someone else said, you may as well stick a pin in the Yellow Pages.
I understand TrustMark might be more reliable, being Government-backed and not-for-profit organisation, or go to Age Concern if you have elderly parents, as they have a list of locally approved tradesmen. BuyWithConfidence is another one, though someone said you pay a fee for that.

I contacted the NICEIC, but they washed their hands of it as the guy hadn't actually embarked on the work. So a trademan can be registered with Checkatrade and NICEIC - it doesn't mean he won't try to rip you off of course.

AquaJen

We are members of checkatrade and have found it to be one of the better sites. They wanted written references from 6 previous customers and insisted on coming to our office to see us and actually look at hard copies of our insurance and qualifications before letting us join. It is £500 for a year, not £1000. That is for the plumbing category.

Haven't had any bad reviews yet... we've only been with them a year though. Much more cost effective than Yellow Pages, that cost us 2 grand and we got about 5 jobs!

NonGeographicalMan

AquaJen wrote: »

We are members of checkatrade and have found it to be one of the better sites.

I think you mean that it is one of the better sites for luring in unsuspecting punters to pay an hourly rate equivalent to what a GP earns to somebody who probably left school without any qualifications at all.

If the site is genuine can you explan how no customer ever seems to give a mark less than 9.8 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 in 95% of the review and the lowest mark you ever see in a review on any point is 7 or 8 and even that is a rare exception. Is that your experience of the kind feedback real customers give in real ife? In real life for an OK job a customer might give 7. For an OK but expensive job 5 and for not OK and over priced job 2 or 3 out of 10 or less. Where are all the 2 or 3 out of 10 or even 5 out of 10 marks on CheckATrade?????

NonGeographicalMan

AquaJen wrote: »

We are members of checkatrade and have found it to be one of the better sites.

I think you surely mean that it is one of the better sites for luring in unsuspecting punters to pay an hourly rate equivalent to what a GP earns to somebody who probably left school without any qualifications at all.

If the site is genuine can you explan how no customer ever seems to give a mark less than 9.8 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 in 95% of the review and the lowest mark you ever see in a review on any point is 7 or 8 and even that is a rare exception. Is that your experience of the kind feedback real customers give in real ife? In real life for an OK job a customer might give 7. For an OK but expensive job 5 and for not OK and over priced job 2 or 3 out of 10 or less. Where are all the 2 or 3 out of 10 or even 5 out of 10 marks on CheckATrade?????

seahorse1

If Checkatrade refuses to publish your negative comments, post them here in this website. You will find a section on bad builders and dodgy contractors and their details. There are other websites you can use as well such as snagging forum – however be careful of this website as it stops you editing / removing the post there. There is also Facebook, twitter etc. Warn other people and stop these lowlifes from taking our hard earned money and giving us grief.

After another bad experience with a nasty piece of work I certainly will also double check any checkatrader else where.

If you are suffering abuse/harassment from a dodgy contractor report it to your local police and/or trading standards. See how they like to have a criminal record if they carry on with their abuse.

bobwilson

Realise this is an older thread but need to add my voice to this; we left a negative 2 star review on checkatrade and it never showed up on the tradesman's page. He has 10/10 glowing reviews on there. It seems checkatrade only show glowing reviews, which defeats the object. It goes against the whole ethic of the website.

On their home page they say "The answer to the UK's rogue trader problem", but they only compound it.

There really needs to be a website that offers genuine reviews of tradesmen.

keystone

"He who pays the piper....." There is no substitute for personal recommendation.

Cheers

NonGeographicalMan

keystone wrote: »

"He who pays the piper....." There is no substitute for personal recommendation.

That would potentially mean that CheckaTrade is effectively corrupt and dishonest or at best severely lacking in ethical integrity and good judgment given the many claims they make for the genuine nature of the reviews on their website.

On Ebay the seller pays the piper but as only buyers and not sellers can now leave Negative Feedback it does not take long for a dodgy but regular trader to have his feedback score rack up a fair few strongly negative reviews.

This may only take that trader's feedback score down to 98.8% (many buyers are still afraid to leave negative feedback because they wrongly think it will allow the seller to leave negative feedback about them). However as a broad rule of thumb if an Ebay trader has sold 1,000 items or more and they have a Feedback score less than 99.8% then don't deal with them as the reported Negative Feedbacks are only the Top of the Iceberg. It is the fact that on CheckaTrade even very well known local cowboys do not have even one serious negative review about them that tells its own sad story.:eek::mad:

Leif

bobwilson wrote: »

Realise this is an older thread but need to add my voice to this; we left a negative 2 star review on checkatrade and it never showed up on the tradesman's page. He has 10/10 glowing reviews on there. It seems checkatrade only show glowing reviews, which defeats the object. It goes against the whole ethic of the website.

On their home page they say "The answer to the UK's rogue trader problem", but they only compound it.

There really needs to be a website that offers genuine reviews of tradesmen.

Contact them and ask what happened. If the review is not published, after you have given them enough time to respond, then make a formal complaint to the ASA and Trading Standards. Making claims such as "The answer to the rogue trader problem" requires that they act accordingly.