Check-a-Trade

[GMES]

Wozz you seem to have a rather large chip on your shoulder, Murdoch simply asked a question.

 

[wozz]

Same old same old on here you disagree with a couple of members and eveyone gets defensive.

No i work more in mechanical maintenance.

So i can assume my original comment that i got jumped all over for, i was correct some people making comments had no idea how check a trade differed from rated people and my hammer????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

night night chaps.

 

[shanky887614]

Hi Yellowvanman.
I've been mulling over sites like checkatrade. Consider this. The government is pushing Trustmark. I was with Tradeline run by AgeUk which got me a bit of business. AgeUk are/have closed Tradeline and passed their clients and traders on to Trustmark.
On the web, I noticed that one council is recommending that people look for their traders on Tradeline (now gone) or Trustmark.
Trustmark costs £66 a year via my lot, NICEIC. Cheaper if you're NAPIT, I think. So if AgeUK and the government are going to tell everybody to go to Trustmark, my money's going there too.
Just got the application form - nothing too onerous. Will let you know in a year's time whether it was worth £66!
Cheers
Pete

if you only get 2-3 a year its worth it for £60.

thats less than 20p a day

 

[wozz]

Wozz you seem to have a rather large chip on your shoulder, Murdoch simply asked a question.

i got jumped all over when i had made what i believe to be a fairly correct statement judging by i have had to do a fair bit of explaining. and then got called a muppet. and then i worked for check a trade.

 

[Octopus]

Same old same old on here you disagree with a couple of members and eveyone gets defensive.

No i work more in mechanical maintenance.

So i can assume my original comment that i got jumped all over for, i was correct some people making comments had no idea how check a trade differed from rated people and my hammer????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

night night chaps.

erm no, it was you that got all shirty and defensive

 

[GMES]

i got jumped all over when i had made what i believe to be a fairly correct statement judging by i have had to do a fair bit of explaining. and then got called a muppet. and then i worked for check a trade.

Wozz to be fair you seem quite defensive yourself, but between me and you do you work for them" it's ok nobody is listening"

 

[wozz]

Wozz, back to my original point. Why do we need these third parties? How do you contact a garage to have work carried out on your vehicle? How do you choose where to do your food shopping?

depends what you meant by third parties, webpage? yellow pages? parish mag? its all advertising works for some not for others no hard and fast rules. Its a form of advertising that worked very well for me, might not for others.

Choosing where i shop would depend on locality, not a huge concern when picking a electrician, not everyone knows a reliable electrician so may have to look around and even if they do they might be too busy, people could be new to area ect ect list goes on.

 

[wozz]

Wozz to be fair you seem quite defensive yourself, but between me and you do you work for them" it's ok nobody is listening"

i wish i did i might not have to get up at 4:30 tomorrow.

 

[Plonker 3]

depends what you meant by third parties, webpage? yellow pages? parish mag? its all advertising works for some not for others no hard and fast rules. Its a form of advertising that worked very well for me, might not for others.

Choosing where i shop would depend on locality, not a huge concern when picking a electrician, not everyone knows a reliable electrician so may have to look around and even if they do they might be too busy, people could be new to area ect ect list goes on.

While £11 per week may not be too bad for advertising, these sites names are very misleading in claiming they vet people registered with them and reviews are there for all to see. Please find me a link to negative reviews on these sites and then I may be a little more convinced that they are a good thing.

 

[Octopus]

While £11 per week may not be too bad for advertising, these sites names are very misleading in claiming they vet people registered with them and reviews are there for all to see. Please find me a link to negative reviews on these sites and then I may be a little more convinced that they are a good thing.

I hope you are not holding your breath!

 

[uksparks]

I now soley rely on my position in google, I'm in the first page in Google for my area and number one for my village, it's taken a while to get there.

 

[Piratepete]

I'd never use any of these money grabbing review type sites that promise loads of leads. One vindictive review and you're screwed! And I don't have time to be looking at websites and replying to criticism. Everyone knows that people are very quick to post bad reviews but it's so difficult to get clients to take the time to post a good one.
The average person looking for a tradesman first asks friends and family. Then they look in the local free rag for someone local. All my work comes by recommendation and local advertising. I do have a website (which costs me pennies) which a few people have looked at to check my qualifications. Virtually no work has come from my listing with NICEIC. Once you get a good reputation the work flows in. Over the last 10 years there have been times when I haven't even needed to advertise. But as I posted previously, I am going to get myself registered with Trustmark.
Cheers
Pete

 

[D Skelton]

Calm down boys!!!

Now firstly, Check-a-trade is simply a service that you pay for that allows you to have a section on their website and to be listed under your trade for local searches. It ranks highly on Google and is heavily promoted on telly. They also send out quarterly directories to local areas, from memory Brighton (where I live) is made up of 20 or so smaller districts (hangleton, portslade, moulscoombe, kemp town, center, hanover etc...) the directories are taylored to those districs so you are often only one of five or six in there.

When you do a job you get your customer to write a comment there and then on a card and you then freepost it off to checkatrade who vet it to see it is genuine and then write it up. The reason there are no negative reviews is two fold:

1. because if your customer writes a negative review in front of you on the card that YOU are then supposed to post, it ain't gonna go anywhere near a post box is it, it'll just get torn up for roaches!

2. if a customer goes online to write a bad review, you will be contacted before the review is posted to see what your side of the story is. Again, when Check-a-trade rely on YOU for their custom, they aren't going to allow bad reviews to affect YOUR business on THEIR site, in turn making you leave and stop paying THEM money.

It is not a lead generation service and it costs as near as makes no difference £700 per year to join.

From what I hear and see it does work!

I have a few pals who are on it (a plumber, a chippy and a plasterer) and they get a large amount of work from check-a-trade, so they do swear by it. That being said, it is almost exclusively aimed towards the domestic market so it is the 5WWs paradise!

I don't use it for two reasons:

1. I don't do much domestic work no more

2. I loathe the very idea of paying some pi$$ ant obscene amounts of money for doing what I can essentially do myself with my own website and with my local trading standards directory. The very term 'middle man' gets my blood boiling and the sole purpose of business' like check-a-trade (regardless of how well they are marketed, run and how well they perform for themselves and their customers) is to rip off the hard working tradesman at the expense of providing genuine quality work for the public. Scumbags!!!

There, that wasn't too hard was it?!

Correct facts presented. My opinion based upon those facts also presented. No argument to be had

 

[davesparks]

My mate the plumber is on checkatrade and he does get a fair amount of work through it.

But what I have noticed is that there seem to be lots of people on there and if you don't get perfect scores in their ratings you drop down the list of search results very quickly.
My mate disappeared onto the second page of search results when his average scored dropped to 9.8 out of 10!
And that was caused by 1 customer who was the kind of person who is never happy and would find fault in even the most spotless job so gave him 9/10 in all categories.

You only have to get stuck in traffic to get a low score for punctuality and get relegated down the search list.

My mate ends up doing a lot of 'whilst you're here' and 'can you just have a look at' jobs for free just to try and keep good ratings coming in.

It annoys me that the members information includes extras which were quoted and agreed as it looks to me as if this is presented as being a negative thing and I think is encouraging the less caring sparks to ignore faults etched rather than telling the customer just to avoid it appearing on their checkatrade review.
And if they are caring sparks they can end up fixing faults for free for the same reason.

 

[dingledong]

D Skelton you don't go into electrical wholesalers then they are just middlemen sticking on 20~30% on to their prices ! !

 

[telectrix]

D Skelton you don't go into electrical wholesalers then they are just middlemen sticking on 20~30% on to their prices ! !

,

no, he flies over to china whenever he needs a socket or 2, direct from manufacturer.

 

[Octopus]

Call me suspicious but when rating are given "clean sweeps" of 10 out 10 make me dubuious about the quality of the feedback!

 

[D Skelton]

D Skelton you don't go into electrical wholesalers then they are just middlemen sticking on 20~30% on to their prices ! !

Don't be silly dong, I wouldn't go anywhere near a wholesaler that sticks 20-30% on their prices!

Mine works on a 5% target and are very open and transparent about their costs. They are not middlemen as such, they provide a service that is needed. It would cost me a great deal of time to deal directly with manufactureres, but in check-a-trade's case, it doesn't take a great deal of time to get my website to the number one slot and get my name out there in directories, and it's certainly a tenth of the cost of their membership!!

 

[Octopus]

D Skelton you don't go into electrical wholesalers then they are just middlemen sticking on 20~30% on to their prices ! !

Really?

Most wholesalers buy in bulk that we wouldn't dream of and I for one will remain loyal to the 3 local ones I use!

Sure I could probably save a few pounds a month buying off the internet, but the last thing I want is missed deliveries, trips to the post office to return kit and phone calls to make.

 

[Redvanman]

While £11 per week may not be too bad for advertising, these sites names are very misleading in claiming they vet people registered with them and reviews are there for all to see. Please find me a link to negative reviews on these sites and then I may be a little more convinced that they are a good thing.

This from the plasterer section on checkatrade
I havnt mention his name for obvious reason but it does show they show bad reviews


Plaster lounge and hallway.
“I would not recommend, bad attitude, bad workmanship. Very little consideration for our home, with complaints of mess from neighbours.”
– Customer in Woking, 28 June 2011
3.3
4135
Response from
Due to the rooms not being ready as promised by the customer, our schedule was out leading to a slight overrun by ( 2 days ). Any issues raised were dealt with promptly, the customer was given time to inspect all of the work before he made full payment without complaint. I am very confused by the customer’s feedback. Please refer to my other references past and present.