Rated People

As a signed up tradesman to rated people I have to say that my view of this web service is becoming more dim by the day.

The service that rated people offer to the customer is non verified or validated. Any tradesman can get his or her friend to post a job and then get the friend to rate them.
Rated people have never asked to see evidence of my insurances or qualifications. Unlike the German web service "My Hammer"

I pay £40 per quarter for the rated people service and pay between £4 and £14+ vat per lead. The concern is that you have absolutely no guarantee of getting the work (understandably) but more worryingly, verifying if the lead is genuine. I still have to pay for the lead up front.

This has lead to a number of costs to my business either because the contact number left by the customer is not correct or they have filled in the enquiry without really committing to getting the work done. This leaves the bona fide contractor with additional costs that can only be reclaimed from the Rated people if they deem it an acceptable claim (unlikely in my experience).

The other element that concerns me is that when they charge the tradesman £14 for a lead that , for example, requires fitting of a new outlet point; there is no way that the tradesman can make profit out of this without over charging for what should be a simple job. This is not what we are wanting to do but if the costs are this high how else do the tradesmen make a profit. Given that this lead is sold to up to 3 tradesmen it appears that Rated People are potentially making more profit out of this type of work than the tradesman and the customer has not got good value.

Of all the jobs I have completed for the customer I have received excellent reviews. However, when it comes to the finacial decision as to whether to pay for a lead or not I have a real problem and the best I can say is that it is a risk.

I think that as a reputable company, trying to bring my service to a wider audience I do not belive that the rated people web site presently have either the tradesman's or the customer's best interests at heart.

It is for this reason that I will be cancelling my rated people subscription and will be relying on good old fashioned advertising in the Local directory. It is cheaper, more reliable as you are in more control of validating the enquiry. OK the customer has to pick up the phone but they may get the solution to their enquiry over the phone for the cost of a call.

By the way the rated people customer service phone number looks like a high tariff number. I presume therefore that they are also making money out of complaints.