You’ve probably seen the adverts where Phil Spencer, the man whose remarkable negotiating skills can sometimes get £5,000 knocked off a £500,000 house purchase, tells us about this remarkable website which can connect us punters with local tradesmen. To me this seems like a good idea for a website and I have some work that needs doing, so thought I’d give it a spin.
So I filled in my details, entered the job details and waited for a response. And then, nothing. OK, not entirely true, I received a couple of text messages and emails. A couple of days passed and I received an email telling me that I hadn’t had a response and maybe I should expand on my job description to get a response. So off I went and updated the description and hit submit and then I was presented with a 404 error (for the non technical, this means the website is broken). So I tried again and got the same result (definition of insanity - doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results). And I gave up at that point.
OK, slightly annoying, but no worries, I’ll drop them an email and let them know and I’ll update the description later when it’s fixed. So I go to their contact page. I can ring them, but not at this time or I can send them a tweet or write on their Facebook page or add a comment to their blog. No feedback form, no email address. I didn’t particularly want to berate them on a public forum, maybe the problem is something specific to me, so none of those options appealed. Yes, yes, I see the irony, I am now berating them quite publically (hello my many reader), but I’m annoyed now.
So, so far, Rated People is something of a failure for me. I think if you’re going to be spending a bunch of money on TV advertising, quite a bit of effort should also be spent on the product…
Update – A funny thing happened today, I got a call from Rated People, specifically due to this blog post. I’ve ranted about a few companies on here and never got any response from the company involved, so it was a pleasant surprise to get some feedback. I should also say that I did eventually manage to update my job description and also got a response from an interested builder, who is repairing my pointing as I type. So it would appear my initial review of Rated People may have been overly negative. And what’s more, Phil Spencer is no longer doing the voice over on their ads…
23 comments:
Rated people are just in it to make the maximum profit by charging tradesmen/women fees.
The send you texts which offer you a chance to quote for a job but the same text has been sent to lots of other tradesmen when only three people/companies should be quoting for any one job. Also many jobs you receive text alerts about are fake jobs or have already been done months ago.
Average fees per month run around £75-£150 per month.
Save your money and use standard adverts to obtain work.
Which need to investigate RATED PEOPLE ,,,,,
I think the basic idea is sound. I've had poor experiences in the past with builders and plumbers, so having a website that provides ratings of tradesmen from their customers has the potential to be a very good thing. But it does depend on reaching a critical mass where every job gets a decent response and every tradesman has a good number of ratings. And to be fair, they do need to make some money to finance the site, so charging the tradesmen seems reasonable, although I'd have thought that should be based on actually getting work out of it.
We have just joined Rated People and are very surprised by the cost of some of their leads, £30 - £50! Note, this is just for customer details not the job.
So we get a lead for £40, contact the customer, visit the customer, quote the customer and don't get the job. If we take into account the cost of "Lead" + our diesel and time, we will be looking at about £50/£55. I can fully understand why not many people are contacted by tradesmen ( & women) on the larger jobs.
If we are going to end up £150 per month, then Google / Facebook Advert will be the way to go.
The concept of rated people is good, but they are getting to big for their sit in an office boots.
I recently bought a lead, but when I spoke to the customer it was not possible to do what they wanted. Requested a credit as I was unable to quote, which was denied as in their opinion I had opportunity to quote. Twenty quid down the toilet.
I have also had job leads that do not exist, were credited but in the meantime its still my hard-earned money floating around in their bank account.
I would highly recommend mybuilder.com. At least they verify their job posters and their fees are more sensible. £3-£10!
the latest scam for rated people is they no longer offer credit refund on paid for leads if the customer does not allow you to quote. if you spend the money and get no response rated people keep your lead cost. as said above at upto £50 a time this can become very expensive that is why I will no longer use them. I have money in my account with them but having asked to close this they are even refusing to refund this back to my bank. it would now seem they are all about making money for themselves at everyone elses cost.
rated people have now changed policy so if you spend money on a lead but the customer doesn't give you the chance to quote or ignores your calls they still keep the lead cost and at upto £50 a time that becomes an expensive gamble, but rated people cant lose money no matter what the outcome. that's why I wont chance buying leads any more. I have £94 in my account with them and after closing it they are refusing to refund that money back to my bank. it seems they are just about making money for themselves no matter what happens.
OOOHH dear Rated People... all is coming home to roost ... Slowly But surely... GOOD LUCK ...NOT !!
Rated People are over priced, unfair and unclear con artists that are costing tradespeople their jobs.
Most customers on their dont take you seriously because they dont pay for putting an advert on the website.
I did however come up with a sneaky plan that whenever i bought a lead i would contact the customer and explain to them that if they didnt end up using me for the job then i would have to charge them the lead price so it was in their interest to do so. This works and they take you more seriously too lolololol. So they should bloody pay wasting our hard earned money and quality time.
If we tradespeople all did this then Ratedpeople wouldnt be in buisness for much longer believe me :)
I'm on rated peolple and seemed to be doing well when I was getting credits for customers wasing my time and not even bothering to pick up the phone or respond to emails! It happend 70% of the time! Seemed great no lead no pay! But now I'm forking out a fortune, I'm from north wales and travel to London to look at these jobs as they don't provide enough leads in wales for it to work, I have to stay in hotels pay fuel and hope that the customer will respond, where as before I would bid to look at about 8 jobs knowing a percentage would be a no go but would be happy as I knew I would get a credit on the time wasters! Now I'm not working and scared to death of it running in to thousands before I get a job that pays and be lucky to get my money back! Anyone would think rated people win these jobs for you the fees they charge, I'm seriously thinking about spending my money on other ways of advertising. I spent £900 in November and December purchasing leads, it would have been nearly £4000 if I did not get any credits back. And why do they charge painters more for the leads, we're the lowest paid in the industry! Shame on you rated people without us tradesmen you wouldn't exist
rated people are thieves do not use them. nuff said
Another disgruntled tradesperson. Very expensive leads and now no referral credits when the job is non-existant.
I am new on Rated People and during one month I spent around £500! some leads were very expensive!! then customers didn't answer the phone or work was done already...I did contact Rated people but they won't pay money back for fault lead- THIEFS!!! another case, I bought lead gave quote and 3 days later customer posted the same job but offering higher price this time, dishonest customer or Rated People try to make money? I do not recommend to use Rated People!!!
Tradesmen should try my service at page1leads.com which I have just launched. I create a website for each tradesman who joins and i get you exclusive leads. I charge less than rated people do for their leads even though my leads are not shared amongst three tradesmen as happens with rated people, but are exclusive to you. I also offer phone leads, which are the best type of lead you can get from a customer and which rated people don't offer.
How do I manage to do all this and still charge less than rated people? Hard work thinking up ways to improve my product and also Rated People are charging way too much for their shared leads in my opinion. How else could I beat their prices with exclusive leads if they weren't charging too much?
I have recently been let down by Rated People and after searching I've noticed that I'm not the first and certainly won't be the last. I paid £950 to get a flat roof replaced and also fix a few slipped tiles to my main roof. Laurence Burgoyne, DL Building Services gave me a quote and I accepted it. The leaks appeared days after the roofer left the job and for the past YEAR my house has had more leaks than it did before he started. Rated People removed his account only to reinstate it within a matter of hours, they say they are 'impartial' but I don't think they know the meaning of the word. Its about time Rated People got rated! www.facebook.com/RateRatedPeople
Rated people is a complete con. If you are a good tradesman you won't need to advertise. Rated people is for cowboys and conmen.
I too have been ripped off by a conman met through Rated People. His kitchen fitting was poor and downright dangerous. He gave a false address so there's been no redress
I have used Rated People for a number of years and can say I have done reasonably well.How ever their new policy on not receiving a credit on a bad lead as they used to is not fair. Their answer to this that on average a trades person will get 1 in 4 of the leads, I would like to see evidence of this.I have had several paid leads some costing £50 from people who do not own the property they require a quotation for their enquiry purely speculative at my cost.I have asked Rated people TO MAKE IT A CONDITION THAT CUSTOMERS DECLAIR IF THEY DO OWN THE PROPERTY. This gives the tradesman a more informed choice before paying the lead fee. I am awaiting their response to my request.
Rated people are on their way downhill fast. I'm a plumber and did use it in the past to get a few jobs. I found it wasnt worth it as a lot of people just wanted a quote to get an idea of cost but were never serious about getting work done. They don't refund bad leads and and now I find they renewed my membership automatically and took money my bank without prior warning! In their T&C's it apparanently says you need to phone them 5 days before 'renewal date' to stop this! As far as I'm concerned its not a renewal date, just the aniversary when I bought a special offer from them. They refuse refund so I disputed payment with bank and waiting to see what happens. Beware of these people, I wouldnt be suprised if liquidation is not far off, bunch of scammer are grabbing money before going bust in my opinion
Im afraid everybodys missing the point here, the bigest scamers here are the sneaky customers who know straight away its a free service to gather info on work needed if the could be bother and guys have some self respect and dont put yourself in the position where your beging them to look at a job because you have paid rp
I'm currently using rated people and must say sincerely that they are ripping people off big time just sat last night looking back over the last two years how much I have laid out to them for job leads, 226 job leads at average. £20 some a little less and some even £35 and quoted a 137 jobs the rest were duff couldn't contact them ie wrong mob no,s and people with no intentions of having work done, but no refund from rated people, managed to get 35 jobs out of it but now is the best part a glazing firm whom used rated people on regular basis have approached trading standards and made a complaint regarding unfair services and non existent leads through rated people and the letter which they received from trading standards and read myself States that they are looking into this matter as a huge number of ex members of rated people have sort there services to resolve this no refunds on no leads so I will monitor this closely, one thing for sure I am withdrawn from there services as of today.
I have been with RP one month . Initially it seemed ok as i got the first job i went for and they had give me £50 for leads so other than my monthly fee things were looking good. Then suspicious things started happening. The long and short is i dont think the jobs really existed or the customers real come to that. I had 4 in a row that i never priced but i had payed for and they all seemed to blame me when i complained that i had payed for there lead and there seemed some poor excuse why i couldnt quote. You always get mobile numbers from customers on rated which is very unusual and it becomes even more odd when they are bad leads and even leads that lie. Excuse me for thinking i was being balatntly conned out of money . Four in a row means i am leaving but imagine how many millions that adds up to in a week nationwide if they do the same to lots and i doubt i am unique. I think either watchdog or which should look into and investigate what i beleive is fraud going on . Imagine gettting £20 30 40 50 or more just for passing on a mobile numebr. Ludicrous idea.
I have just been booted off rated people. Incredible considering l have top ratings and £203 in thrre credit . It appears they carried out an unlawful credit check on me. I can only only compare it to being dumped by an ugly bird.
l have not used them in over a year due to there crap leads and total disregard for tradesmens time and money. It was a new concept but is now becoming flooded with new companies all selling the same leads, l went to price one job unknown to me was posted on three sites.
There day's of robbing hard earned money from people like us looks to be coming to an end.
Paul 07791359431
Same here Paul 7 years I've been with them and spent over £1500 this year alone and they have took me off no explanation and refuse to say why! 100% feedback and ratings were amazing
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