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Where do you go to get tradesman you can trust?


Give it to Ron
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So I am having a mare trying to get quotes for things like kitchen fitter/designer. We had one quote and still recovering from shock.

Plasterer to correct the rubbish ceiling we had done.

 

Why is it you contact them and they never show or come back with quotes.

I used to use Buy with Confidence website but seems no-one gives feedback or ones I see near me never get any!

Checkatrade is rumoured to be a con and the 2 jobs I posted on My Builder were not exactly great either - wanted £40 call out to clear a gutter.

 

Any decent sites to get trades from?

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I tend to use Checkatrade and haven't had any problems using anyone on there yet. I always double check their reputation on their Facebook page, and other internet searches first though, which usually helps weed out any rogue traders that may or may not be on there.

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I just use the good old, tried and tested, word of mouth and/or friends/relatives; over here and back in the UK.

 

Back home (I'm originally from Eastleigh) I have: a nephew who fits kitchens (has his own business and is very good - currently lives in Romsey area); 2 nephews who are plumbers; a brother and a cousin who work in the building trade (not actually builders but have lots of contacts); and a good mate who is an electrician.

 

I know a fair few people who are on Checkatrade and are very reputable. Of course, I am sure there are a few cowboys too.

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I just use the good old, tried and tested, word of mouth and/or friends/relatives; over here and back in the UK.

 

Back home (I'm originally from Eastleigh) I have: a nephew who fits kitchens (has his own business and is very good - currently lives in Romsey area); 2 nephews who are plumbers; a brother and a cousin who work in the building trade (not actually builders but have lots of contacts); and a good mate who is an electrician.

 

I know a fair few people who are on Checkatrade and are very reputable. Of course, I am sure there are a few cowboys too.

 

Good, fair priced tradesmen never advertise as they don't need to, all their work is through word of mouth as Minsk says. Never but Never Ever go to Yellow pages and be very wary of Check-a-Trade where it appears most testimonials are written by the people themselves or their mates!

 

The guy moaning about somebody wanting to charge £40 to clear his gutters... grab it as quickly as you can as the poor sod has to drive to his place, do two hours hard graft up a ladder and then drive home - probably the whole morning gone for which he gets £40! Not even minimum wage.

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Good, fair priced tradesmen never advertise as they don't need to, all their work is through word of mouth as Minsk says. Never but Never Ever go to Yellow pages and be very wary of Check-a-Trade where it appears most testimonials are written by the people themselves or their mates!

 

The guy moaning about somebody wanting to charge £40 to clear his gutters... grab it as quickly as you can as the poor sod has to drive to his place, do two hours hard graft up a ladder and then drive home - probably the whole morning gone for which he gets £40! Not even minimum wage.

 

Wrong the job was a 5 minute job clearing a birds nest and twigs from the entry to the down pipe it was done for £25 so £40 just to come and view was rubbish.

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Good, fair priced tradesmen never advertise as they don't need to, all their work is through word of mouth as Minsk says. Never but Never Ever go to Yellow pages and be very wary of Check-a-Trade where it appears most testimonials are written by the people themselves or their mates!

 

The guy moaning about somebody wanting to charge £40 to clear his gutters... grab it as quickly as you can as the poor sod has to drive to his place, do two hours hard graft up a ladder and then drive home - probably the whole morning gone for which he gets £40! Not even minimum wage.

 

You won't be able to go to the yellow pages after next year, it's the last print edition. Not that anyone is going to notice.

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  • 3 months later...
Good, fair priced tradesmen never advertise as they don't need to, all their work is through word of mouth as Minsk says. Never but Never Ever go to Yellow pages and be very wary of Check-a-Trade where it appears most testimonials are written by the people themselves or their mates!

 

The guy moaning about somebody wanting to charge £40 to clear his gutters... grab it as quickly as you can as the poor sod has to drive to his place, do two hours hard graft up a ladder and then drive home - probably the whole morning gone for which he gets £40! Not even minimum wage.

 

I know this is an old post but just wanted to say that checkatrade is NOT a con site. It is impossible for tradesmen to write their own reviews!! All reviews are checked and monitored by the vigilant staff at checkatrade.com

I am a member and proud to be one with extremely high reviews and reputation. All reviews are 100% legit.

Sometimes you have to trust that people do nice things because they are happy with a service they were provided with !

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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Good, fair priced tradesmen never advertise as they don't need to, all their work is through word of mouth as Minsk says. Never but Never Ever go to Yellow pages and be very wary of Check-a-Trade where it appears most testimonials are written by the people themselves or their mates!

 

I know this is an old post but just wanted to say that checkatrade is NOT a con site. It is impossible for tradesmen to write their own reviews!! All reviews are checked and monitored by the vigilant staff at checkatrade.com

I am a member and proud to be one with extremely high reviews and reputation. All reviews are 100% legit.

 

How do they check to see if it isn't written by a friend or family member of the tradesman? Or the tradesman themselves under an alias whilst using different email accounts or IP addresses?

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How do they check to see if it isn't written by a friend or family member of the tradesman? Or the tradesman themselves under an alias whilst using different email accounts or IP addresses?

 

It's not v.difficult to leave a review. You have to give ur name, address and telephone number tho. Your review goes straight up, but it does say they will verify within 3 days, so will be interest to see it Les gets a call. If he does I imagine it might come back down!

 

trustatrader_zpskavpbbfs.png

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How do they check to see if it isn't written by a friend or family member of the tradesman? Or the tradesman themselves under an alias whilst using different email accounts or IP addresses?

 

If the feedback is left online then a link is sent to the customers email, you then have to click the link to verify the feedback. If you don’t it won’t go up.

I understand maybe when a tradesman starts off it’s possible to FAKE it a couple of times by using different emails but, when a member has over 600 reviews it’s a bit tricky to keep coming up with different emails to verify with !!

They also do random phone calls to people who left feedback to check them out !

Anybody caught cheating is kicked out immediately with no argument.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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It's not v.difficult to leave a review. You have to give ur name, address and telephone number tho. Your review goes straight up, but it does say they will verify within 3 days, so will be interest to see it Les gets a call. If he does I imagine it might come back down!

 

trustatrader_zpskavpbbfs.png

 

:lol:

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If the feedback is left online then a link is sent to the customers email, you then have to click the link to verify the feedback. If you don’t it won’t go up.

I understand maybe when a tradesman starts off it’s possible to FAKE it a couple of times by using different emails but, when a member has over 600 reviews it’s a bit tricky to keep coming up with different emails to verify with !!

They also do random phone calls to people who left feedback to check them out !

Anybody caught cheating is kicked out immediately with no argument.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

 

I used a tiler from Check-A-Trade, gave him a glowing review, and received a phone call from them to clarify.

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I used a heating engineer with a 9.79 rating (out of 10) on checktrade and has so far failed to fix the problem - including replacing an expansion vessel in boiler. He now insists the problem is the pump - despite the water being pumped efficiently round the radiators and the boilers own fault code showing something totally different.

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