Checkatrade, Mybuilder, Myhammer ratedpeople etc etc.. Your views?

[PEG]

Imagine someone promises you a fiver.
They show you the fiver,and plunge it in to your pocket.
Their hand comes out empty...

You later check your pocket,and there is no fiver.
The twenty that was in there,has also gone.

.....and that's cheekatrader

 

[Wilko]

PFC is 2k? what am I doing wrong?

I'm going for extra popcorn

 

[Pete999]

I'm going for extra popcorn

Have a word with camerabloke, he has plenty.

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

A friend who is a heating engineer who i sometimes work with on larger jobs where the customer wants central heating as part of the refurb has just had his new price to stay on checkatrade and his annual fee has gone up from £750 or thereabouts and been told its now £1650! to be part of a online directory... thats before any fees for leads i assume...
It appears that homeserve the reactive maintenance firm has bought the company and is trying to recoup its costs...
I know people have mixed feelings about these sites but my mate has got a lot of high paying work from it and has paid for itself many times over, but the new fees were too much and hes left the site out of principle.. so much for loyalty and customer retention...
Would be interested to know if any other people on here use checkatrade and how much they are now paying at the annual renewal??
If you are on checkatrade and havent had the renewal yet then be prepared!

 

[Spoon]

So a rip-off merchant has been taken over by a bigger rip-off merchant. Sounds about right.

 

[Pete999]

A friend who is a heating engineer who i sometimes work with on larger jobs where the customer wants central heating as part of the refurb has just had his new price to stay on checkatrade and his annual fee has gone up from £750 or thereabouts and been told its now £1650! to be part of a online directory... thats before any fees for leads i assume...
It appears that homeserve the reactive maintenance firm has bought the company and is trying to recoup its costs...
I know people have mixed feelings about these sites but my mate has got a lot of high paying work from it and has paid for itself many times over, but the new fees were too much and hes left the site out of principle.. so much for loyalty and customer retention...
Would be interested to know if any other people on here use checkatrade and how much they are now paying at the annual renewal??
If you are on checkatrade and havent had the renewal yet then be prepared!

Had some dealings with Homeserve, what a buch of Animals wouldn't let them cross my door step ever again.

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

I almost took some work on from homeserve once upon a time, but the amount of paperwork and admin involved for simple jobs and having to ask permission to buy parts for the job no matter how small put me right off. i only avoided it due to some advice from other tradespeople..

 

[Dillb]

You say fleecing folk, weren’t they all ready doing that before?

 

[Pete999]

I almost took some work on from homeserve once upon a time, but the amount of paperwork and admin involved for simple jobs and having to ask permission to buy parts for the job no matter how small put me right off. i only avoided it due to some advice from other tradespeople..

Think I may have mentioned this before, my Mrs had a contract with Homeserve when I was away working, anyway arrived home one weekend and she said she had called the plumber for a leaking tap, not the basin sort, a posh jobbywith 1 spout and two knobs, honestly when he turned up I thought it was Bob a Job week, looked no older than 16, told him the job, now these taps were expensive, he's there with a pair of 14inch Stiltsons tyring to get the tap cover off, stopped him just in time and showed him the door, cancelled the contract. A lesser known fact maybe, is that should they bust something whilst carrying out a repair their insurance doesn't cover it, talk about a rip off, can you just imagine a little Old Lady relying on these Muppets?

 

[Andy78]

I have heard of this on other sparky sites. It's much like the despicable insurance renewal trap ... hiking the prices and hoping not to many leave. Apparently some have kicked up a fuss and they dropped the price increase.
I still think that £750 is about £749 too much anyway...

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

You say fleecing folk, weren’t they all ready doing that before?

Well yeah, but if you got sufficient high paying jobs then it was palatable..just...where as now it leaves a nasty after taste and they are taking the proverbial

 

[telectrix]

should rename themselves as "cheatatrade"

 

[peterhyper]

I mentioned a while ago how someone I spoke to said that his membership with Checkatrade went up by £500 and they just would just budge on it. They apparently start you off at around £750 and let you spend a year getting good reviews and then shaft you with a 65% increase the next year (scamming baskets).

As for homeserve, I have also mentioned them on here before, and my experience is that they send out cowboys who are clueless.

 

[Pete999]

I mentioned a while ago how someone I spoke to said that his membership with Checkatrade went up by £500 and they just would just budge on it. They apparently start you off at around £750 and let you spend a year getting good reviews and then shaft you with a 65% increase the next year (scamming baskets).

As for homeserve, I have also mentioned them on here before, and my experience is that they send out cowboys who are clueless.

Delete please Admin seems to go to reply when all I wanted to do was agree with the post

 

[peterhyper]

I mentioned a while ago how someone I spoke to said that his membership with Checkatrade went up by £500 and they just would just budge on it. They apparently start you off at around £750 and let you spend a year getting good reviews and then shaft you with a 65% increase the next year (scamming baskets).

As for homeserve, I have also mentioned them on here before, and my experience is that they send out cowboys who are clueless.

I don't appear to have an edit button to correct my typing errors?

 

[Spoon]

Test...

 

[Spoon]

I still have mine. Before the Report & Bookmark buttons.
It does have a limited time, think its about 20 mins, and then it disappears.

 

[JK-Electrical]

 

[newbie1980]

no idea whats happening but more of these companies seem to be merged/brought out. Telford and wrekin had a handy man service which was very reasonable now they have the customer base the wrekin housing trust has taken it over and added all the trades to it and now charges about 3 times as much. I feel sorry for the older customers who used to get a reasonable service not being ripped off

 

[ipf]

should rename themselves as "cheatatrade"

......and the others as 'Homeswerve'.

 

[Octopus]

^^ but joe public see the glossy slick adverts .......

 

[Pete999]

^^ but joe public see the glossy slick adverts .......

Waste of space should be outed

 

[Santa]

You all agree that these people are "rip off merchants" but how does an ordinary person find a reputable tradesman? You might suggest this site, but there is no guarantee that anyone on here is 'reputable', any more than a Checkatrade member.

I have used them to find someone to replace a fence and he did an excellent job at a reasonable price. Homeserve do my annual boiler maintenance and as far as I know, the guy who has been doing it is pretty competent.

So what do you suggest?

 

[Dillb]

The problem with these s that they dont allow negative reviews, meaning they claim that everything is all good with those registered with them. Where as in reality they provide a expensive trade directory.

 

[Spoon]

The problem with these s that they dont allow negative reviews, meaning they claim that everything is all good with those registered with them. Where as in reality they provide a expensive trade directory.

The thing with that is that the review system will always be abused. The people on there will get friends to do good posts for them, even thought they have had no work done, and also get friends to do bad reviews for competitors.

 

[Dillb]

The thing with that is that the review system will always be abused. The people on there will get friends to do good posts for them, even thought they have had no work done, and also get friends to do bad reviews for competitors.

Which goes to show it as a expensive trade directory.

 

[Pete999]

You all agree that these people are "rip off merchants" but how does an ordinary person find a reputable tradesman? You might suggest this site, but there is no guarantee that anyone on here is 'reputable', any more than a Checkatrade member.

I have used them to find someone to replace a fence and he did an excellent job at a reasonable price. Homeserve do my annual boiler maintenance and as far as I know, the guy who has been doing it is pretty competent.

So what do you suggest?

Does your area publish a local newspaper? they some timeshave a feature about local trademen, mind you they could have got that list fom "check a Trade" I suppose worth a look, or you could try a local electrical wholesaler

 

[peterhyper]

I agree that any site that relies on customer feedbacks runs the risk of the trade person doing their own feedbacks.

I think the point is that check-a-rip-off have loyal trades people paying them to advertise on their website, and they are frankly shafting them with 100% increases in annual fees just to be listed on an online directory. I hope more trades people leave them and advertise elsewhere as I despise companies that try and shaft their loyal customers (the trades people are their customers).

Ironic that check-a-rip-off was apparently started to avoid Joe public being ripped off by dodgey trade people, and now they are instead ripping of the actual trades people!

 

[Spoon]

Ironic that check-a-rip-off was apparently started to avoid Joe public being ripped off by dodgey trade people, and now they are instead ripping of the actual trades people!

It seems that ripping people off is coming the norm.
It's like the holiday companies doubling the price of their holidays when it's school holidays. Do the government help.... No... They join in the rip-off and fine you for taking the kids out of school....
Anyhow, I'm taking things off subject again....

 

[peterhyper]

Apart from 'check a rip off' stitching their customers up (the tradespeople who pay to advertise with them) by increasing their annual fees by up to 100% (as recently mentioned on here), they also used to require a number of customer recommendations before they would have you on their website (I think it was around 8 to 10 customer reviews they required) they now let tradespeople advertise with just 1 customer review.

I really hope the company that bought them out go bust the greedy baskets!

 

[Spoon]

I see that you love and respect this organisation....

 

[Pete999]

I see that you love and respect this organisation....

I love Checkatrade, like a hole in my head, should spend some of that extra cash they will surely get on a name change "Cheatatrade", "Ripoffatrade" something along those lines.

 

[peterhyper]

I love Checkatrade, like a hole in my head, should spend some of that extra cash they will surely get on a name change "Cheatatrade", "Ripoffatrade" something along those lines.

Cheatatrade is perfect and one I will steal for future use.

 

[Spoon]

The problem is, the principle of it was great... It's a pity that it was run by a bunch of people who didn't care about anything except getting lots of money from whoever they can.

 

[Octopus]

Try getting Checkatrade to act on a complaint against one of their members ......

They won't unless a few people complain.

Imho this rather undermines what they stand for .....

 

[Pete999]

Try getting Checkatrade to act on a complaint against one of their members ......

They won't unless a few people complain.

Imho this rather undermines what they stand for .....

Bit like one of the Scams I could mention.

 

[Octopus]

Bit like one of the Scams I could mention.

Hum ... More than one imho

 

[littlespark]

Checkatrade jingle on the morning weather = William Tell Overture = Lone Ranger Theme Song = Cowboy.

'Nuff said

 

[HandySparks]

Apart from 'check a rip off' stitching their customers up (the tradespeople who pay to advertise with them) by increasing their annual fees by up to 100% (as recently mentioned on here), ...

Are you a member of Checkatrade?

 

[Gavin John Hyde]

well the checkatrade lot were taken over by homeserve the house repair insurance outfit. paid a lot of money for it, they paid £54 million for the 60% they didnt already own!!!and have hiked the annual fees, often doubling them in many cases.
A lot of trades have walked away and no doubt the financial team are getting a bit worried with the loss of revenue as at £1k+ per business all it takes is 1000 members to walk and thats a million no longer coming in, that huge outlay for the business suddenly doesnt look so good to the directors... hence why the membership process is now just one review! fully expect to see a load of promos with cheap initial membership fees and trial periods anytime soon.