CheckATrade

[WalksWithTurkeys]

I have had serious problems with a CheckATrade member, leaving me £3,000 down. I was reading a thread here and found this:

//www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=235212&start=15#

Scroll down to the post by CheckATrade and you will read:

"Finally I have to defend my members,
The vast majority of them are outstanding and I'm proud to head up Checkatrade with such fantastic honest and accountable trades on board."


It is that quote that pushed me to start this thread. I have hired two companies from CheckATrade.

The first did okay work, but the project manager is the most difficult person I have ever dealt with. He routinely promised to do something tomorrow (such as quote for coving) and I was lucky if he did it 4 weeks later. After a while it got offensive to be told "I'll do it tomorrow" when it was obviously a lie. That is not honest. As for the work, he promised to prepare a kitchen ready for a refit, but I had a bad feeling and was able to delay the refit 2 weeks. Fortunately really because it would not have been ready. And there were lots of issues such as paint scraped off radiators, a damaged window frame (they paid for the repair), chipped architraves, jet black water from radiators thrown out of windows, and onto paths, and so on. A general lack of care and attention, which is a shame as much of the work was good.

The second company were out and out cowboys who lied about what they had done. A bathroom refit from hell. All the wall tiles had to be removed as they were loose (walls not primed, wrong adhesive, tiling less than two days after plastering). A bath with shower and taps at opposite ends so you could not stand under the shower head. Had I not got advice from professionals, I would have beleived the BS they told me. I had two independent surveys and a short assessment, all agreed it was shoddy. They have prevaricated for 10 weeks. CheckATrades response has been to 'be impartial' which means taking weeks to publish my review, and then pulling it, supposedly for two weeks, because the trader claims to have had a death in his family. I doubt they asked for any proof. Even if he is not blagging, which I assume if the case, I do not see why that should delay a review. I suffered depression, loss of appetite, inability to sleep for weeks when I found out what these creeps had done. When I sent the third assessment to CAT, it did not even merit an acknowledgement. I sent a complaint, and that was ignored.


I quote again: "The vast majority of them are outstanding"

Sorry, but I do not for one minute believe that. If they were outstanding, they would be have more offers of work than they could do. That is the case with good trades. I've used other trades, recommended by acquaintances, and they have been very good. One characteristic of both companies from CAT is that they went out of the way to be sycophantic with phrases such as "Hi, it was really great to meet with you last week". The good trades I've used are more interested in doing the work and earning respect by that means.

 

[WalksWithTurkeys]

See the post by getrealwillyou here:

www.diynot.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1835873

I quote:

"And as for someone else saying that its a site where you pay and your on, HAVE YOU TRIED TO REGISTER WITH CHECKTRADE???? thought not!
First, They take copies of your driving licences, utility bills, accontants details, they credit check you, they check you out with trading standards, they verify your insurance, they have systems in place to prevent members rating themselves and if you can not meet all the criteria you DONT get on, and for good traders that have got on but "go bad" Checkatrade allow a small number of negative feedbacks and then that TRADER is kicked off the site and given their membership fee back and told to get going."

Unfortunately that does no more than confirm that the person is running a legitimate business, with insurance, and a valid driving licence. There are plenty of people running legitimate businesses who do poor work, including cutting corners. The cowboys I employed were on the Trading Standards approved list, had vans with their logo on etc. But they were bull**** merchants. After agreeing the quote, they wanted £300 extra to fit a towel radiator. And £500 extra to reroute the soil pipe. I said no. And what they did was a bodge. They told me lies to persuade me to choose the finish that suited them e.g. they said that white plastic tile edging goes yellow, and it is much better to grout the edges. The fitters who redid the bathroom quoted roughly the same price, but they chased all pipes into the walls, removed the coving, overboarded the ceiling, fitted a towel radiator at no extra cost (apart from the radiator which I bought), moved the soil pipe back, and did all tiling and bath installation correctly. There is no comparison between the nasty unprofessional bodge done by the cowboys, and the professional work done by the builder recommended to me by a colleague.

I checked out CheckATrade's user info on this forum. I note that his occupation is given as "Consumer Protection". Having lost £3,000 to a rogue trader obtained via his forum, I find that laughable. The reason I parted with a large deposit was because I believed the claims made by the CheckATrade company.

And I quote from one of CheckATrade's posts:

"99.5% of them are normal honest and accountable trades that strive to be the best at what they do."


So, let's assume that is true. The probability of one doing a bad job is 5 in 1000 i.e. less than 1%. So the probability of two in a row doing a bad job is 25 in 1,000,000. Sorry, but I do not believe that. My own experience and that of others reported in threads on this forum shows that to be completely false.

I've employed numerous trades based on personal recommendation, and I've always had good work done.

As for CheckATrade, they could not even be bothered to reply to my last two emails, one of which was a complaint about the review being delayed, and an explanation of the hardship that this is creating me: £3,000 lost, moving in delayed by two months while renting a flat (~£800 per month), a period of depression suffered after realising what the cowboys had done, a warning from my company that redundancies are highly likely in January 2012.

And as for advising someone who has been screwed by a CheckATrade member, nope. They have at no time advised me on the correct procedure for dealing with them. I rang Trading Standards, and was told that I had a case under the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982, and they advised me as to how to proceed. CheckATrade have not once made any mention of this act. Instead I have a had a few soothing comments, but not much more. My impression is that the site is little more than an advertising site for members, with minimal control, and no attempt to advise the general public of their rights.

 

[WalksWithTurkeys]

We've only got your side of the story. You don't have a history of making a lot of sense in this forum. So why should we listen?

Thank you for your concern.

 

[cantaloup63]

Ignoring the reference to your previous posts (some things about microfibre rollers and paint strippers (well it seemed rude not to do a little research )), it is true that we do only have your side of the story which is lambasting checkatrade, and which may have a detrimental effect on an awful lot of honest and reputable tradespersons who get work from it.

You have obviously not had a great experience, but one does wonder why you handed over £3K when you weren't happy with the work.

 

[WalksWithTurkeys]

Ignoring the reference to your previous posts (some things about microfibre rollers and paint strippers (well it seemed rude not to do a little research )), it is true that we do only have your side of the story which is lambasting checkatrade, and which may have a detrimental effect on an awful lot of honest and reputable tradespersons who get work from it.

You have obviously not had a great experience, but one does wonder why you handed over £3K when you weren't happy with the work.

The £3,000 was the deposit i.e. approximately half the total. It is normal to pay a deposit to a company, although companies will differ. The ones who redid the bathroom took 1/3 as a deposit. But that did not include any furniture. The reason why I felt comfortable handing over so much money was because they had incredibly good feedback on CheckATrade. Not one negative review, all glowing. I simply cannot understand how that can be after my experience.

As for "lambasting checkatrade", all I am doing is reporting my experience. Other people are free to post their good experiences.

Yes, you are correct about the one side only. That is why I have contacted the owner of CheckATrade who has posted on this forum. He can verify that I employed [name withheld], and if my claims about three independent assessments are untrue, he can inform the moderators. However, I am happy to supply the moderators of this forum with the surveys, albeit with the understanding that they remain confidential, and they do not disclose them to any third parties. I can also prove I employed another CheckATrade member. I did not review these people, as I found it hard to give a fair review in the space allowed. (I did not want to be unduly negative, and I was unable to formulate something that I thought was fair. In the end I decided not to, and I will get people by personal recommendation in the future.)

 

[cantaloup63]

Well, whatever the full picture is, sorry to hear about you bad experiences and I hope you manage to get some sort of appropriate settlement (although you are highly unlikely to be able to claim loss of earnings, obviously ).

Am glad that you have managed to have the job completed up to proper standards.

Could have been better, but it could have been a whole lot worse too.

 

[WalksWithTurkeys]

Thanks. I am lucky in that I had the money to get the refit done, and I am sure others are not so lucky. I admit I really am confused about CheckATrade, I cannot understand why the reviews do not match reality (in my two cases anyway).

 

[joe-90]

It seems to me that you are just trying to slag off the organisation. It would appear the same to a judge too.

 

[bwhomeresponse]

if hes not happy with work carried out by cats recommended tradesmen, whats he supposed to do. rollover and accept it.

 

[joe-90]

Slagging people off in a public forum is a risky business. We only have his side of the story anyway.

 

[joinerjohn]

Slagging people off in a public forum is a risky business..

 

[WalksWithTurkeys]

It seems to me that you are just trying to slag off the organisation. It would appear the same to a judge too.

Thank you for your thoughtful comments. Given that I have notified the owner of CheckATrade about this thread, I am sure he will make it clear if he considers any of the content to be libellous.

 

[cantaloup63]

All this talk and reference to another website.... does it constitute "advertising"?

 

[joe-90]

What does the thread prove?

 

[cantaloup63]

What does the thread prove?

Well, it proves to me that the op can touch-type

It also proves to me that the op is trying to get a result through adverse advertising.

It also proves to me that there are more cowboy bathroom installers other than IronNaz