Rated People website

thechippy

This site is a total nonsense. Money making excercise full stop. I don't think they care about the customer or the tradesmen.
I tried them for a while and had the same problem as others - pay for a lead and job already gone, contact number not answered etc.
Everytime I complained, they ignore you. They only got back to me when I threatened to cancell the membership (surprise) and still failed to answer my questions properly or resolve the issues.
Take my advice people and go by recommendation / word of mouth everytime.....;)

pasc

I would stress that despite the annoyance of sometimes not getting hold of customers after I have paid my fee to get their details - on the whole Rated People has worked out well for me. I don't rely entirely on it but I've had months where they have provided 1 out of 4 jobs, so it fills those gaps.

It's not uncommon for quotees to tell me they've had other tradesmen from 30 or 40 miles away. By setting my distance to 10 miles it means I always present myself as a local tradesman; a clear advantage due to the reassurance this gives the customer that I at least live in the same county..!

Of course I have to be all over these jobs the nanosecond they hit my inbox...

I probably waste around £40 a month on gone-jobs and uncontactable customers, but I've learned to be fast - fast - FAST to contact and quote. The SMS service takes half an hour or so to reach my phone, so theres no way to beat the guy who's sitting at home in front of the computer looking for work, but the ones I do get offset these and make it worth it. Especially as I sometimes get follow up work from these customers and references outside Rated People etc...

bj-sailaway

My husband uses Rated Trades, and has a similar point of view to the post above. One thing I will say, if you don't get the opportunity to quote on a job, re-contact rated trades and they will give you a credit on your account to use for the next job. So you shouldn't be paying for leads you don't get the opportunity to quote on.

As a plasterer, times are getting a bit tough, and this has been a good gap filler for us, and yes, we've had client referrals as a result, and returned to do more work that hasn't gone through rated trades. So not all bad.

Gers

denthetiler wrote: »

I am sorry to read that some people may have had trouble with 'tradesmen' from the Rated People webiste. May i clear up some issues. I use this website regulaly to source work for my business and it is one of the most expensive to advertise with. I pay yearly fees, i get charged for txt messages and i pay a lot to quote for jobs that i may or may not get. I doubt people are using friends and family as it would cost a fortune to place bids for ficticous jobs. This month alone i have spent almost £120 bidding for jobs. Can i also add that there are a lot of good, very skilled tradesmen around and you have to be prepared to pay for them.

I used this website at the back end of last year and was very satisfied with the decorating company. Had 3 replies and chose one quote from a company over 100 miles away but they did a fantastic job and I would definitely use them again. Perhaps I struck lucky but it worked for me.

nemo25uk

We used "Rated People" for our small family run electrical business and what a con......We had to pay for the SMS text messages £10 for 100 messages. Which we did recieve. Many of them, however many were the same message 3 or 4 times repeated.
We then had to pay just to quote which were £12 each and with a majority of the jobs after you pay the £12 quote fee, plus the SMS message, then the petrol and materials it was a complete waste of time and you would end up working for free! We never got 1 job out of it as many of them never answered and the rest already found someone even though we replied as soon as the SMS came through.....strange!
It also makes me wonder what kind of company gets a so called representative to come on this site to defend them???????? Do you see Asda coming on here to defend themselves if there is a complaint??? Do you see BT??? no and why not? Because they don't need to as they are ligitimate and care about there customers and clients.
Also what stops this so called comapany putting leads on there themselves to make more money that month to meet there targets huh? A TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

And we did not get vetted in any way even though we are a good reliable company who care about our cutomers. With the way things are at the moment in the contruction and trade business you would think everyone will try to help but instead they just want to rip you off and take the little money you have left. The only reason we went to them was to try and get a little work in these hard times! THEY ARE A DISGRACE!!!

roggi

Rex_Mundi wrote: »

Feedback on a website of trades people can be easily manipulated (like I said in my previous post). It's the same as putting a question on these boards and receiving half a dozen different answers. Untill you check the answers out for yourself, you can never be too sure who is correct. Unfortunately, finding out a builder is no good after finding him/her off a website could cost you many 1000s (or tens of 1000s) At least Martin is honest and has a disclaimer for the info posted on the forums (and tries to make us aware of this), quote............Remember, this is an open forum! Anyone can post so always exercise caution when acting on info.

Any website that advertises/recommends trades is very much open to abuse from any tradesperson that advertises there, or from the site owners in the chase for a quick buck (feedback or not, this is far too easy to abuse on the Internet). If possible at all, I would always suggest that you get recommendations from friends/family/nieghbours for a builder that they have dealt with personally.

Actually You cant make up references on rated people because you would have to win the job as a contractor. I think Rated People is more for the customer than the tradesman . Customers go on there and take the first quote most of the time. So i guess Rated people are the ones who are in a win win situation .The tradesman never get the money back from bidding for a job which they may not get. There are some real professional tradesman and i guess some that aren't but tradesman get a bad press all the time anyway. I think for tradesmen to survive they need to be more customer friendly .
As a qualified Electrician I provide a professional service with a high standard of work but your only good as your last job.

dacouch

Roggi, actually it is possible to manipulate the references / ratings on rated people, see earlier posts.

the_barretts

Ok here is my 2p worth...

I used Rated People to find a kitchen fitter, advertised on Boxing Day 2007 to have a reply within hours and 3 fitters within 3 days.

I chose one who understood what we needed, had photos of previous jobs, phoneable references, gave clear information and was very friendly - never had my 'spider sense' scream 'cowboy' to me!

He gave a quote and I accepted it online on the site so rated people could see that I had the job (no way of him ever wriggling out of saying he hadn't accepted it).

Job went well, he often suggested better ways of doing things and took on extra work as the project developed. We only paid £500 up front for materials of a £3k build which we only paid for once we were happy. But before I paid him the £500 I Googled his business name and checked out all his contact details.

I waited a month before leaving feedback and a month after that the wiring on one appliance went squiffy but he responded within hours to the problem and a month later (we were both busy and found it hard finding a mutual day) he came out with an electrician to fix it FOC.

Never realised we could amend the feedback although now I might add a comment.

He gave a years warranty on his work which apart from the electrical problem we never had to call him back.

I remember at the time he told us it cost him £12 to quote for the job (to get our contact details) so the site made £36 on the 3 that contacted us.

Now anyone can advertise in the local papers or yellow pages - how many of them also find themselves on programmes like Rogue Traders?

Every system is open to abuse - eBay has feedback buying and shill bidding and yes Rated People could have false feedback and shoddy builders but it is down to people making informed decisions - we all have choices and we are all responsible for the decisions we make.

I think any trader using it must read their terms and conditions carefully as it is not about being the closest to a job it is about being the fastest to reply to a customer. You might not get the work if you dont realise it is a competitative market, if Rated People are not for you then just don't use them.

Rated People is a middleman just the same as local papers, yellow pages and even shop windows - their feedback system can be helpful but YOU have to do your homework.

There you go... rant over... and I would recommend their site but ultimately it's down to everyone to have good judgement and good 'spider sense'!

dacouch

Thats good advice about using a Tradesman from the Rated Site or in fact most Tradesmen.

Don't take everything on face value and ensure you do your own homework so you know who you are dealing with

THEWORLDSGONEMAD_2

Ok so I am a tradesman and I have just started using Rated people hence I have no ratings, which basically means some one is going to have to trust me before I can even get rated - which to me seems to undermine the whole idea.

I consider myself to be a quality tradesman I am registered with all the correct bodies etc etc.

When I first heard about them I thought not another scam! I mean there is another company called Service magic I think their jobs come through 123getaquote??? .

The thing about Rated people is they charge a small fortune to pass customer details on to tradesmen £4 -£35 quid PER job - there was a job on there other day which was likely to cost the customer less than £50 but it was £18 to buy the contact details! Im not sure there is a registered qualified tradesman out there willing to buy that lead!

I understand that their revenue has to come from somewhere but the fees they charge are extortionate.

I have asked them for a explanation of their fees but they are not willing to display a charge sheet apparently its a secret!