Rated People website

metzamillion

I am a tradesman and have used rated people in the past a great deal.

To begin with it was a very good and fair system and if you kept your quotes keen , turned up on time and looked professional you would win some of the leads purchased.

Unfortunately ' Rated People' have become too big and too greedy. The price they now charge for the leads is hugely excessive and they try anything to not re-credit a poor lead.

Also they automatically changed my membership to 'annual' rather than 'quarterly' and took £120 direct from my account for the privilege .
I suspect the reason for this is that most tradespeople 'see through' rated people and cancel their membership after the first 6 months.

Rated People and such like should remember that without us tradespeople they cannot exist. They need us more than we need them.

My advice - get your van sign written , get a good optimised website and avoid these 'trade parasites'.

unbelievable1

Casscat wrote: »

This thread has been quite illuminating as I had no idea how Rated People worked. I think if consumers realised that tradesmen have to pay to join up AND pay per lead they might be a bit more careful about the jobs they post. I have recently listed a job for the first time as I am moving house and need a lot of work doing at the new place. Because I don't yet own the property and need to get various people over there to quote for work (electrics & plumbing as well as the carpentry I advertised) I am trying to limit the number of people I have traipsing through the property. I listed my job as being circa £4k but in truth I am anticipating £6-8k. The first firm to contact me was in Surrey and I am in Hertfordshire - the daily commute for a two week job would eat up many, many hours of their time. The second firm had really unattractive (to me) examples of their work on their website - totally inappropriate for a listed property and not at all what I was looking for - and that put me right off. The third seems to be what I'm after (reasonably local, good examples of period style joinery on the site and able to take on all the work listed on my schedule including cabinetry, sash window overhaul and flooring) and he is now preparing a quote. Upon listing the job I was hassled relentlessly by firm no.2 to the point where the guy actually got quite aggressive towards me over the phone. He was very angry about not being given the opportunity to actually price the job. Okay, now I know that he paid for the lead I can partly understand his annoyance, but as a consumer using the site there is no obligation on me to allow all respondents to quote if I don't wish to. I would have wasted even more of his time had I asked him to go to the property because I could tell that there was no way I was going to commission him - the handiwork profiled on his web site and his unpleasant manner put paid to all prospects of that. If a job is listed on Rated People then it is up to the respondents to try to win the opportunity to quote and thereafter to be awarded the contract. I'm fairly certain Rated People give no guarantee that all leads will result in actual quotes which just stresses the value of good marketing and a good attitude. Once you have the lead you have to sell yourself and your services to the prospect so a well crafted email, an attractive and professional web site and a reassuring and warm telephone manner will count for a lot. The responses on this thread lead me to conclude that there are misunderstandings on both sides of the process where Rated People is concerned.

Dear Sir/Madam
To anyone thinking of using Rated People for contract work,

I hired a bathroom fitter via rated people for a complete bathroom refit. I checked his testimonials and ratings on his own website (H's plumbing biz) which contained copied and pasted comments from Rated People all of which were positive.
-The fitter/plumber from Hs plumbing made a complete mess of the bathroom and flooded the whole floor as well as leaving early on the 2 days he was there and claimed he was 'Gas Safe.' I have since discovered this is a ongoing qualification he has not yet achieved. He also took £252 of our money. On day three of his employment with us we never heard from him but he had left our home with our house keys and 10 travertine tiles.
I later found he had drilled our bath panel on back to front and had hidden a broken tile there along with bath towels and other debris and broken tools. When he came to quote for the job we were assured by his would be friendly manner and were given false claims he had dealt with this type of work before particualarly the fitting of natural stone tiles. When he started fitting the tiles I received a phone call at my workplace from his saying he couldn't fit the tiles and we should employ a professional tile fitter. During the conversation I was disappointed to hear he had already fitted several of the tiles and then told me he didn't even have a proper tile cutter. He also quoted to take away the old bathroom suite which was left at the front of our house along with the old toilet outside my bedroom door and he left by leaving our bathroom without a door.
When I got home at 3.30pm to see how he was getting on he had already left for the day and the tiles/toilet and basin/bath/shower had all been left unplumbed. As well as all this he had moved our toilet stack without sealing off the waste pipe properly, which meant if the job had been finished the smell from the waste would have been coming back into the house! When I finally got hold of the Hs plumbing (also works subcontracting through Yil Sam Plumbing) he told me his wife had fallen down a flight of stairs and was 6 months pregnant. He promised to show the next morning at 8.30am and didn't and that was the last I heard from him.
Since Rated People is endorsed by Channel 4/ Travis Perkins/ Wickes and Tile Giant I am very concerned as to how this individual was vetted.

I have made separate complaints to WatchDog and Rated People and am in the process of seeking legal counsel. I've had a half baked apology from Rated People and am left without compensation or without being able to leave a bad rating for this person.

I would hope that this individual can be investigated and not allowed into peoples homes.

I have certainly learnt my lesson and will never be using these types of websites again. Suffice to say people like this should be properly vetted as it gives other tradespeople bad press.

I have since had to fork out £2,500 to have my bathroom refitted and undo all the bad work which was done initially by Hs plumbing.

If you do come across this cowboy I would advise treading with some caution.

Rated People do not allow any facility to adequately rate a bad tradesperson - an unfair procedure for the consumer.

Whilst we are all under financial pressures in this climate, the headache and emotional upheaval just wasn't worth the cheaper deal.

Yours
Hacked off Unbelievable 1

RP2000

unbelievable1 wrote: »

Dear Sir/Madam
To anyone thinking of using Rated People for contract work,

I hired a bathroom fitter via rated people for a complete bathroom refit. I checked his testimonials and ratings on his own website (H's plumbing biz) which contained copied and pasted comments from Rated People all of which were positive.
-The fitter/plumber from Hs plumbing made a complete mess of the bathroom and flooded the whole floor as well as leaving early on the 2 days he was there and claimed he was 'Gas Safe.' I have since discovered this is a ongoing qualification he has not yet achieved. He also took £252 of our money. On day three of his employment with us we never heard from him but he had left our home with our house keys and 10 travertine tiles.
I later found he had drilled our bath panel on back to front and had hidden a broken tile there along with bath towels and other debris and broken tools. When he came to quote for the job we were assured by his would be friendly manner and were given false claims he had dealt with this type of work before particualarly the fitting of natural stone tiles. When he started fitting the tiles I received a phone call at my workplace from his saying he couldn't fit the tiles and we should employ a professional tile fitter. During the conversation I was disappointed to hear he had already fitted several of the tiles and then told me he didn't even have a proper tile cutter. He also quoted to take away the old bathroom suite which was left at the front of our house along with the old toilet outside my bedroom door and he left by leaving our bathroom without a door.
When I got home at 3.30pm to see how he was getting on he had already left for the day and the tiles/toilet and basin/bath/shower had all been left unplumbed. As well as all this he had moved our toilet stack without sealing off the waste pipe properly, which meant if the job had been finished the smell from the waste would have been coming back into the house! When I finally got hold of the Hs plumbing (also works subcontracting through Yil Sam Plumbing) he told me his wife had fallen down a flight of stairs and was 6 months pregnant. He promised to show the next morning at 8.30am and didn't and that was the last I heard from him.
Since Rated People is endorsed by Channel 4/ Travis Perkins/ Wickes and Tile Giant I am very concerned as to how this individual was vetted.

I have made separate complaints to WatchDog and Rated People and am in the process of seeking legal counsel. I've had a half baked apology from Rated People and am left without compensation or without being able to leave a bad rating for this person.

I would hope that this individual can be investigated and not allowed into peoples homes.

I have certainly learnt my lesson and will never be using these types of websites again. Suffice to say people like this should be properly vetted as it gives other tradespeople bad press.

I have since had to fork out £2,500 to have my bathroom refitted and undo all the bad work which was done initially by Hs plumbing.

If you do come across this cowboy I would advise treading with some caution.

Rated People do not allow any facility to adequately rate a bad tradesperson - an unfair procedure for the consumer.

Whilst we are all under financial pressures in this climate, the headache and emotional upheaval just wasn't worth the cheaper deal.

Yours
Hacked off Unbelievable 1

I work at Rated People read your comment and double checked for you. I can confirm that the reason you were unable to leave a negative rating for this tradesperson is because he has been blacklisted from rated people and will no longer be able to use the service.

Hope this information has been helpful. Happy to help if require any more info.

paulsproperty

mark7363 wrote: »

the same happed to me today paid for lead and rang customer and was told job was being done tommorow didnt get the chance to quote they should be forced to allow all winners to put a price in for the job not first come first served if he can get there straight away they havnt got a lot of work on so how good are they a £200 job is c--p as by the time you pay the £10 + fuel and time to quote then materials there is not a lot left out of the £ 200 for profit(wages)

I had a lead sent through via txt today by RatedPeople, 1st Oct 2011 at 13:43. I responded and was given a mobile number which I called at 13:45. The person who answered was not the person RatedPeople gave me and she did not want any work period!
This was the first and last lead I will be taking up with RatedPeople.
I have contacted RatedPeople for a refund. Will post the result.

doberryfirkin

I am very glad I found this thread as I was just about to use Rated PEople and reading the experiences here has made me think twice.

treacles_2

Rex_Mundi wrote: »

Not specific about this site, but I don't know how anyone can trust a website using online recommendations for tradespeople. A tradesman could have 50 good reports on a website, but all of these could have come from him/herself or family and friends (this is very easy to set up on even one computer).

If you are not sure, always better to get a personal recommendation from family/friends, and if possible, see an example of their work first.

dont talk rubbish, i have been a member for 4 years.
This would have cost a fortune to ask people to rate me for work i have not done. I dont think you know what you are talking about.

Rex_Mundi

Thank you treacles. I had forgotten about this thread, and you posting today and bumping it to the top of the board has led to me reading through it again (including lots of posts I had missed).

I posted over three and a half years ago on this thread about my wariness over sites of this nature. From reading all the replies since then. I think I was right.

I feel sorry for all the posters that have picked a tradesman off the site after seeing good ratings and had a nightmare with the tradesman and/or shoddy work. This certainly proves to me the failings of sites of this nature.

I am also highly suspicious about the number of new members that have only ever posted once on this thread and nowhere else. Not only the ones that praise Rated People, but also the ones that slate it then mention that they think A N Other website is far superior.

Anyway
.
.
.
.
.
.
I was having a trawl around the net the other day and I came across this site.... dodgydavesratingsiteforbuilders.com I was a bit suspicious, but one builder (Dodgy Dave funnily enough) has got 391,472 positive reviews and no negatives. I mean.....it's on the internet so it must be true???:rotfl:

savemoney

Hello Rex nice to see you are back.

dacouch

treacles wrote: »

dont talk rubbish, i have been a member for 4 years.
This would have cost a fortune to ask people to rate me for work i have not done. I dont think you know what you are talking about.

The only cost would be whatever ratedpeople charge for 50 or 60 leads

Nicos_2

I used rated people to get some roof repairs. I went with the majority of the comments posted instead of trusting my instincts. The guy took an hour to do the job charged 750 pounds. The first sign of rain and the roof is in an even worst state. I have called him but its beyond his skills, do not trust rated people it is not a kite mark for quality, My battle is not over as I will sue. But also I feel angry at the endorsements given to operations like ratedpeople from newspapers. If you feel angry write to these papers and contact your trading standards. Rated people is a scam and a disgrace.