Paying tradesman by bank transfer

Rob5342

GenieBoy said:

Checkatrade and similar sites are full of rip off merchants. If a trader was genuinely good and they would be getting plenty of business from word of mouth they wouldn't be advertising on services like this.

Checkatrade always seems very far from impartial to me. People have to pay to be on it, and every review seems to be in the 9.5 - 10 range.

propertyrental

Ghostcrawler said:

Is his business on checkatrade?

Have you got formal quotation from his software accounting?

I recently did work amounting to £3800 and paid in two installments.  Contacted through checkatrade and got formal quotations.

There are several commercial sites like checkatrade. The only thing about them you can guarantee is that the contractors have paid to be marketed on them. That's how the sites make their money.

By all means use them to identify potential traders, but then do your due diligence into the contractor- don't assume that because they advertise on such a site, they must be OK!

Far better, use a site that is impartial, and actually evaluates traders before allowing them onto the website eg

* Trading Standards approved   https://www.buywithconfidence.gov.uk/

* Consumers Association  (which?)   https://trustedtraders.which.co.uk/