Check-a-trade recommended?

orwen

Hi,
Have someone willing to do some minor work for me around my home but I can't find them listed under 'Checkatrade', or anywhere else come to that. They have an (unlisted) phone number - presumably mobile - a trade-page on FB & nothing else, no postal address, no business address. In fact nothing comes up at all when I google their trade name.
Am in the process of contacting Checkatrade just in case they are listed, if so no worries.
But suggestions please?
Thanks.

Doozergirl

No one on this board rates Checkatrade either, so I'm not sure what that would achieve.   Checkatrade is an advertising medium, not much more, and we get as many complaints about Checkatraders as about random Facebookers.  

Good people often don't need to advertise, but having nothing tangible other than a Facebook page that isn't correctly populated doesn't instil the best confidence.  If you want to use this person theN you need to do due diligence, get a written quote with some proper details and make good effort to contact previous customers.  The advice never changes, even if someone appears to have good reviews in the likes of Checkatrade.  

orwen

What's the minimum I should ask for in terms of references. This is a carpenter - presumably a carpenter would train with a professional body awarding qualifications and so forth? Should I also ensure there is insurance cover? Thanks.

Ebe_Scrooge

orwen said:

What's the minimum I should ask for in terms of references. This is a carpenter - presumably a carpenter would train with a professional body awarding qualifications and so forth? Should I also ensure there is insurance cover? Thanks.

A professional qualification, or a good old-fashioned apprenticeship, should make sure he has the necessary skills to do the job.  Whether he chooses to actually do a good job, or to bodge it and charge you £1000 for something that should cost £100, is a different matter entirely.  It's an oft-quoted mantra on here, but really the best way is to ask friends and neighbours (via a local community Facebook page if you have one) for recommendations.

orwen

Thanks,

FB wasn't my friend here - asked for recommendations & the tradesperson popped up on the local page & recommended himself, it was only afterwards I realised that there had been no actual local recommendation at all. Am now trying to contact anyone associated with him, to get some positive feedback. I'll give it until tomorrow then request a formal quote mentioning some of the points kindly raised here.

Will update with thanks.

orwen

No recommendations from anyone so far - several local people I contacted said they had never heard of him. He's in Hampshire, I just found 3 other same-trade businesses using exactly the same trading name: in Jersey, Truro, & Wolverhampton!
:-o

BananaRepublic

Without a reference he could be decent or a chancer bodging his way along, you don’t know. There are neighbourhood FB groups, why not ask there? If one name is mentioned by many people, chances are they are decent. Ignore single recommendations, could be her mum! (Sorry, just seen you’ve done that. Try again! There is also a neighbourhood app funded I think by Google, try thst. Also try other FB neighbourhood groups. I read ones for my village, and the nearby town.)

As for CheckATrade, I had two bodgers from them who screwed my bathroom, I threw them out half way through a refit. CAT investigated, said the bodgers were generous and would not charge me more (I’d already paid a lot). Trading Standards stepped in, agreed the work was sub standard and I was due compensation. It took six months to get it, and I was still out of pocket as the refit had to be redone. I wrote a bad CAT review. It was removed, supposedly because the trade had suffered a death in the family. A month or two later it reappeared, with a response from the trade that made me look bad, and them good, and by then they’d done loads more jobs with reviews. CheckATrade support the trade, not you, avoid. 

Doozergirl

orwen said:

No recommendations from anyone so far - several local people I contacted said they had never heard of him. He's in Hampshire, I just found 3 other same-trade businesses using exactly the same trading name: in Jersey, Truro, & Wolverhampton!
:-o

That doesn't surprise me.  The trades are rarely original in their naming practices.    That doesn't mean anything at all.   

orwen

Thanks, just out of interest, who regulates carpentry & the trades in this country please, which authority?

BananaRepublic

orwen said:

Thanks, just out of interest, who regulates carpentry & the trades in this country please, which authority?

I don’t think there are any such authorities. Some trades do require qualifications, so Part P for sparks, and Gas Safe or whatever it’s called now for gas boilers. There are guilds, such as the Guild of Master Craftsmen (note the sexism) but in practice I suspect it’s just a posh sounding name to put on a business card. You might as well get someone who is a member of the Tufty Club. My late mum said “It’s hard to get a good builder”, and when her builder started insulting me, she told me off! It is hard to get a good trade. 

I’ve just had an idea. When I needed a tiler to do my kitchen floor, I rang up the kitchen company that fitted my kitchen, and very good it was too. They gave me the names of two tilers. I used one of them, and he was good. Of course this means you need to find a reputable kitchen shop (not Wren, B&Q or Wickes by all accounts). Mine was Optiplan FWIW. 

Mutton_Geoff

orwen said:

Hi,
Have someone willing to do some minor work for me around my home but I can't find them listed under 'Checkatrade', or anywhere else come to that. They have an (unlisted) phone number - presumably mobile - a trade-page on FB & nothing else, no postal address, no business address. In fact nothing comes up at all when I google their trade name.
Am in the process of contacting Checkatrade just in case they are listed, if so no worries.
But suggestions please?
Thanks.

Trying to find proof of qualification or trade listings is barking up the wrong tree. It is pointless looking for proof of his training or education. You just need simple references from independent people, ie his last 2-3 customers. And not friends he's asked to pose as customers.

To be honest, if you were approached by him after posting a request, I would run a mile. No decent trade needs to pick up work in this way, it's almost all word of mouth and the good ones booked up weeks/months ahead.

Keep looking. And don't use "cheapest" as your criteria. You can either have something done fast, done well or done cheap but never all three combined.