CheckATrade any good?

PoorMan

NonGeographicalMan wrote: »

I'm sorry but I just don't believe that the Reviews on Check A Trade are in any way honest or reliable. It looks to me like a scam where any trader can set himself up and make it look like he has hundreds of contented customers not one of whom has ever been unhappy or felt ripped off.

I have just been looking at satellite aerial installers and this is a well known difficult area with even the simplest job like replacing an LNB usually resulting in a £200 bill. It is an area that also inherently encourages dodgy workmen because some of the work is quite dangerous (climbing old roofs to fix aerials to chimney stacks etc) but the money that can be earned is very large.

So looking up satellite installers in my area every single one of them has a customer satisfaction score way over 9 and 95% of the reviews score the installer at 9.8 on every point. Now may be I have an over cynical view of humanity but I think its really very unusuall for customers to give a 9 or 10 out of 10 rating on every point. Any site that was realistic would have plenty of reviews for some traders with scores of only 3 or 4 on some on the points even if it was only on value (since good quality workmen can often still be very expensive). But instead all we get is a choice between installers with average scores of 9.8 out of 10 to 10 out of 10. This just isn't at all credible.

Checkatrade is not the scam, but it has turned into a joke because of a few individuals that have signed up and are willing to part with funds, knowing they can earn a lot more.

You mentioned satelite, my experience last year was with an aeriel that required some body to climb the roof near Fareham. The most local person to me was on the site and also had his own webpage pointing back to Checkatrade.

Whilst the problem was down to alignment and the two hours charge was expected, about five weeks later there was a stain in the bedroom. I had given positive feedback when I had all channels back, but when I rang him to ask if he had seen any damage on the roof and was willing to drive the three miles to check out the reasons, he refused, saying I needed to get a roofer in, this time recommended by a friend.

The problem turned out to be three broken tiles just above the chimney directly below the aeriel. Easy enough to replace according to the roofer, but the damage to the ceiling took somewhat longer and cost somewhat more.

When I called the rigger, he denied he could possibly have been at fault as he uses special ladders. He has also changed his name on the site and I cannot adjust feedback left, or remove the original as a result of the name change.

As somebody else has mentioned, go for personal recommendation or your local trading standards office / council for a specific job on your property, unless you have enough money to cover the cost of any damage. Even the prime reason for using somebody off the site, that of pli insurance won't help if the person that turns up refuses to honour the work, fully knowing his reputation can't be tarnished within the Ts and Cs.

tpt

ask yourself how checkatrade know that a reviewer has ever used the tradesman in question. To my knowledge there is nothing to stop a tradesman getting all his mates and everyone in the pub to leave a positive review. As ebay handle the sale and usually the payment, they know that a transaction has taken place.