Rated People website

timdf911

So after a few emails flying around and hard documentary proof, RatedPeople posted my feedback and closed the account of Premier Loft and Extension Company Ltd.

See below - names removed.

However I expect that Gordon Smith will change business name (I suspect he has already registered under 'Premier Loft Extension Company Ltd' - just dropping the 'and' from his original company name) and will be back in business elsewhere conning other unsuspecting consumers.

Bottom line remains to be very wary of websites such as RatedPeople.


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6th August 2012

Dear Mr. xxxxx,


Thank you for your email dated 1st August 2012, in which you attached evidence of the court order which ruled in your favour. I have tried contacting you to update you on our actions, but unfortunately I have been unable to reach you.

As stated in our email to you, Rated People follow a process whereby in the event of a legal dispute we will withdraw any ratings and comments associated with the case until a verdict is reached.

Given that the the judgment for the County Court Order has ruled in your favour your feedback for Mr Smith has been reinstated. For your records, I have attached a pdf document displaying your rating as it would appear on Mr. Smith’s website.

In addition, in light of this development, I have decided to close Mr. Smith’s account (this in reality means he no longer has a website) and he will no longer be able to get business from the Rated People website.

The quality of the Tradesmen on our website is critical to our customer proposition and I can assure you that the service you received from Premier Loft and Extension Company LTD falls far below the standards we expect and I want to once again apologise for the experience that you have had.

Thank you very much for taking the time to make us aware of the situation. It is only with feedback from Homeowners like you that we can make improvements to the Rated People service.

If you would like to discuss this matter further, please contact our Customer Support Team on 0800 953 3002 9am to 6pm Monday to Friday (excluding Bank Holidays).

Yours sincerely,

xxxxxxxx
Customer Operations Manager

dacouch

timdf911 wrote: »

So after a few emails flying around and hard documentary proof, RatedPeople posted my feedback and closed the account of Premier Loft and Extension Company Ltd.

See below - names removed.

However I expect that Gordon Smith will change business name (I suspect he has already registered under 'Premier Loft Extension Company Ltd' - just dropping the 'and' from his original company name) and will be back in business elsewhere conning other unsuspecting consumers.

Bottom line remains to be very wary of websites such as RatedPeople.

Well done for your persistence, it probably helped that you also posted your problem on here (Which comes very high on google) as Rated people read this thread avidly. They had a period where they posted on here but stopped so they do read this.

timdf911

Yes it probably did help to post on here and although RP won't let me post hyper links to the County Court Judgement, I did mention in my feedback on RP that 'google is your friend' to discover the whole story.

Working for google doesn't do any harm either ;-)

Now onto the next stage - the dreaded collections agency....

As with all issues like this - it really is about persistence to get the desired result.

dacouch

You can post a link to it on here after you have 10 posts I think or just take the www out of the link

The google offices in BPR are very nice

Former_MSE_Andrea

Hi everyone

Rated People has asked us to post a response on its behalf. MSE doesn't endorse anything a company says on the Forum.

We view discussion around our ratings system as a top priority. We also view discussion about our service generally as a tremendous opportunity to improve the quality and reliability of our offering.

This post is to address recent comments regarding our ratings system and vetting process. Unlike other recommendation sites, where anyone can rate, RatedPeople.com operates a "closed-loop" rating system. This
simply means that in order to submit a rating, you need to have posted a job on RatedPeople.com, which is then purchased by a tradesman. If you haven't posted a job, you can't rate any tradesmen.

Some posters have raised the point that this system can be manipulated, and we are working hard to make sure this does not happen. We have introduced automated filters to check for IP address/job origination and time stamping. Most recently, we have also implemented a ratings spot-check system, where we randomly check positive and negative reviews to ensure people are not cheating the system.

Homeowners can always go back to amend their ratings and tradesmen are able to comment. We do not delete reviews of tradesmen, whether negative or positive, without investigation; however, there are circumstances where a comment may be deleted immediately if it breaches our guidelines. This may include cases where:

* The rating contains personal contact details.
* The rating is deemed by RatedPeople.com to be
threatening, racist, obscene, defamatory or discriminatory.
* The rating includes an external URL link.
* The rating does not directly relate to the project.

Anyone suspicious about the ratings on the site is welcome to contact
our team who will be happy to investigate further.

In addition to monitoring ratings, we also perform ID verification on all tradesmen who join our service. We also check for Gas Safe certification, ask about Part P electrical accreditation and Public
Liability Insurance. We recommend all our homeowners to ask for references and credentials before working with a tradesman.

We welcome all feedback and encourage tradesmen and homeowners to
contact our Customer Service & Support hotline at 0800 953 3002.

dacouch

AquaJen wrote: »

We were not vetted at all for Rated People, just filled out a form on the website and pay a quarterly charge and a per job fee. Checkatrade were a lot more thorough, we were interviewed at our office, had to provide qualification certificates, insurance, company registration etc. Then they requested at least 6 written references before they even listed us.

Comments on this please Mr/Mrs/Miss PR person from Rated People please via MSE Andrea

dacouch

While you're at it, there are plenty of tradesmen on this thread that complain you auto renew without permission and getting credits for bad leads is like getting water out of a stone.

How about tidying it up for your paying tradesmen and your customers.

timdf911

In this internet age doubtless RatedPeople want to continue to have a good reputation and successful business - as would any other net based service.

So when they're vetting contractors for joining their site might it not be a good idea to also perform the following background checks ?

1. Company records for a history of failed companies
2. County Court judgments
3. Criminal records background check
4. Credit history check

These four things are easy to perform, don't cost much and would surely weed out those contractors who are most likely to be problematical ?

In addition it'd be a good idea to make clear to consumers how the system works and how contractors have to pay for leads. This may discourage consumers from posting jobs which aren't for real thus disheartening contractors.

I also notice the contractor I had problems with still has his RP website up - you can see that it contains my adverse feedback proving that you can post such back on RP albeit with some difficulty - however I expect in due course this contractors site will be taken down per the RP email which says his account has been cancelled, time will tell.

timdf911

So Rated People have taken down the website for Premier Loft and Extension Company Ltd (located near Southport) - this is a good thing to prevent anyone else getting taken by a cowboy builder such as this one.

This would also explain why most if not all of their contractors have good ratings - they obviously boot off those contractors who have been proved to be substandard and not trust worthy. Again a good thing.

The problem is by the time they've been booted off the damage has been done - ie one or more consumers have been taken advantage of.

Rated People and similar sites really should perform better background checks.

As it turns out, I've just had a new bathroom installed by a local company with a real shop front.
They did an outstanding job for a reasonable price and really put Premier Loft and Extension to shame in terms of quality, timing and cost.

The lesson I've learned is to use reputable local contractors with a real physical presence such that if there are any issues you know where to go back to.

Premier Loft and Extension have disappeared - so much for their warranty !

Edit they are now trading under the name Acorn Building and Joinery Ltd, Southport, same address, same "craftsmen" just another company name change !

Daisy_Daisy

Herongull wrote: »

With any forum where people can leave comments about goods and services, you need to think about how the website earns its money.

If it is coming from the suppliers paying to registering on the website, then draw your own conclusions.:eek:

If the website has other sources of income (eg small adds) and the suppliers are not paid for being mentioned, then ratings and opinions expressed may be worth reading.

Tripadviser and Amazon comments are worth reading. Obviously do not take each comment as gospel. Some people commenting could be unreasonable or spiteful or else are friends of the seller, but if there are consistent patterns in the feedback, then it probably relates to a genuine issue.

I agree entirely. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be any forum or website for rating a bad builder. I've posted on here under the Bad Builder Forum but it isn't that well viewed. All the other websites I've found seem to work in the same way as Rated People, ie you have to commission your work through their website before you can post a review. Has anyone else found anywhere that you can leave genuine and honest reviews of bad trades?