Rated People website

taxiphil

I recently had a crazy experience of using Rated People which I thought I'd add to this thread.

I posted a job for a new section of garden fence: basically to replace three old wooden posts with concrete ones and fit two new wooden fence panels. I specified my maximum as £500 (which was also the maximum recommended by RP) but I was expecting to pay less than that.

A guy immediately phoned me and his opening gambit was "I've just paid to get your details. What's your address so I can come round?". A bit aggressive and pushy, I thought. His tone suggested that because he'd paid for the lead, he was guaranteed the work.

He had no feedback on Rated People's site and when I Googled him I found absolutely no trace of him.

Nevertheless I let him come round and quote. He was one of those "sucking air through the teeth" types - i.e. making out that the job was an extremely difficult challenge. He huffed and puffed for a few minutes, then tried persuading me to go for new wooden posts instead of concrete ones - apparently wooden ones are "better", but I insisted I wanted concrete.

A few days later he emailed me a quote. £680 !!!!

I priced up the materials myself with Jewson, and they came in at £240 max, so basically he wanted £440 for what was surely no more than half a day's labour.

I replied, politely explaining that £680 was way over my budget.

I then received a series of aggressive emails from him in which he accused me of being a "timewaster" and asked me to refund his Rated People fee by PayPal! He said there was no way I would find anyone who would do the job for less!

He seems to have given up now, but I was quite concerned at this guy's intimidating manner and wonder what effect it would have on a frail old person living alone.

I've since found someone through a recommendation by a neighbour who's done the whole job for £400 to an excellent standard.

I won't be going near Rated People again.

timdf911

Taxiphil,

sounds like a typical RatedPeople tradesman - all bluff and bluster plus they think they 'own the job' just because they bought the lead.

Sounds like you had a narrow escape there.

As it turns out I've just had six 6' fence panels and 7 wooden posts replaced with concrete much like yourself.

Took the guy a couple of days but well worth the £850.

Needless to say I didn't use RP. I used a local recommendation from my gardener.

Disclaimer - I'm not saying all RP tradesmen are rubbish it just seems as though RP attract a certain type of tradesman who are out to make a 'quick buck'.

toniq

A facebook group has been set up for people to share their horror stories of rated people, I'll add my case to it in a bit.

https://www.facebook.com/RateRatedPeople

housewife52

I would definitely not use this site again having been very let down by a tradesman who, having received the agreed amount, walked off the job when I refused to give him more money after he had to return to undo a botched job and provide a replacement part.....apologies to all the decent tradesmen out there.

timdf911

Housewife52 - why not name and shame the cowboy on this site ?
You may help someone else avoid his clutches ?

And I agree Rated People is far from the best place to find a trustworthy contractor.

knightrider_2

Using rated people to get quotes hasn't filled me with confidence yet. Didn't like having to put all my details down that went out to everyone. I'd rather choose who I want to quote. Also, wasn't 'sure' about the first contractor who actually came round to quote, is the beat way I can put it.

Wouldn't use again.

timdf911

1. The contractors who contact you to quote seem to think once they've quoted it's 'their job' and can get a little nasty if you choose not to go with them. I guess because they've had to pay RP to quote.

2. The types of contractors Rated People seem to attract are not necessarily the best or most trust worthy. That said there are clearly some good contractors out there.

3. It's very difficult to post even slightly adverse feedback about a RP contractor without a lot of hassle from RP and the contractor.

Roger_Morris

I've (finally!) been approached by Rated People, to advertise with them on their site (today) after being in business almost 6 years now, and after looking at their terms, I won't be biting!

For anyone looking for what they purport to offer (something similar to "Checkatrade" and other similar outfits), I would urge small traders to check out what is available within their County with Trading Standards.

I'm based in Chorley, and I've had my business accepted onto the local Lancashire Trading Standards Safe Trader Scheme since it was started in 2010. To get on, I had to go to three of my previous "domestic" (as opposed to commercial or business) customers and ask them to fill out my supplied Trading Standards feedback proformas. That done, there was a wait whilst Trading Standards received them and checked them out for authenticity. After that, they contacted me and made an appointment to visit my premises, during the visit they went through my business with a fine tooth-comb (H&S statement, van, stock, tools, Public Liability Insurance, etc, etc). After that I had my business accepted.

On each domestic customer visit, after completing my work, I give the customer a feedback proforma, in a SAE, addressed to the Trading Standards office in Preston. The customer is free to rate and comment in their own privacy. Rest assured, Trading Standards do check all feedback received (contact address and phone number is required from the sender), and ALL feedback (good and not so good) is published on their website (though for legal reasons, no defamatory or personal remarks are allowed), including complaints (if any) regarding the service received.

For myself, it's been my very best advert, and I have to state, that for both members of the general public, and traders on the Register, this service they provide is FREE.

For anyone requiring services of a tradesman, they visit the website, select the trade required, and input their postcode into a box, press a button, and the site then lists all appropriate companies on the Register, in order of closest to the postcode, working outwards. The searcher can then click on each company to see their details, services offered, and all feedback of their performance received (with regard to this, the feedback has to be within the previous 12 months, so to give a reasonably current impression of how the company is doing. Any older than 12 months is removed).

What works about this for the public, is that there is no hassle doing this, and the Trading Standards organization has an impeccable reputation..

Thought I'd post this for information, for anyone looking for a safe way to obtain information about companies they might want to employ..

brightonman123

angryandy wrote: »

This is a website that puts you in touch with tradespeople. the idea is that you put a review of the work done so that other people can gauge the competence of the tradesperson. The only problem is once you have put a rating for someone they wont change it for any reason. This causes problems when you put a good rating for a job done and then a month later it all starts to fall apart, as has just happened to me. I have spoken to them and they will not do anything about it. If you do use it make sure it is for very simple jobs that can't go wrong a few weeks later. I've just had a tiled floor laid and the tradesmen wont relay it after it has gone wrong and there is no way i can let other customers know.:mad:

can you add a new comment, with an update? (use a diff email address?)

Imnoexpert_2

I am using the site to source a tradesman for a small job. For me so far it has been great. I have had 3 people call me. Without even trying to negotiate the price down (yet) I have three people who are keen to do the job because they have paid for the lead. So far £320, £ 290 and £ 140. So different from the old days where you had to phone 6 or 7 tradesmen to get one call back.

Of course I treat these tradesmen as I would anyone else - with caution! I will also reserve the right to talk to other people who might recommend someone and with little effort I now know the going rate for the job and have some feedback as a guide about three companies.

Each tradesman is a businessman and must decide if the money they spend on rp is worthwhile - do they do this with yellow pages, trade bodies etc? They are big grown up people! My job which could only cost me £140 has earned rp £45 so they are definitely onto a good thing. I may very well go elsewhere to get the job done so for me and for rp it's win win. The risk is with the tradesman!

I guess for some tradesman this sight is no good. one guy contacted me from a different area - I'm unlikely to use him. One guy said this was his job and he'd bought it- I'm not going to be pressured like that and as others say it probably pays to be the first to ring a customer.