RatedPeople.com - great service with affiliate opportunities
So, my toilet broke the other day (this post is affiliate related, honest) and given that I’m hopeless at DIY I decided to get the Yellow Pages out and look for a plumber to come and give me a quote to fix. Problem was, all the ads in the Yellow Pages wanted between £50 and £100 just to send somebody out. Pirates.
It was then that I had my lightbulb moment and remembered that a friend had recommended using RatedPeople.com which is kind of like a directory of local tradesmen but with a twist. All you do is sign up - which takes 30 seconds and is free - then simply post details of the job. I.e. “My toilet won’t stop flushing!” and then literally within the space of 10 minutes I had 3 calls from local tradesmen asking if they could come round and quote for the job. Best of all, it’s free to use as a customer (they make money from the tradesmen) and none of the tradesmen who rang wanted to charge me for coming out to quote.
So, at the end of the day I got the job done for something like £40 which included the guy making a trip to plumb centre for parts and he was done within an hour. Fantastic. BTW I’m not being paid to say this but the site was very, very easy to use and actually delivered a fantastic service. I hope more people use it and it extends it’s reach. Interestingly, the plumber who I gave the job too said that the site was by far his biggest source of new clients.
Anyway…I then noticed that they had an affiliate programme on Affiliate Window. The CPA isn’t too bad either, it’s £3 per FREE JOB submitted. If you ask me this is ripe for some local search PPC. “Cheap plumbers in Sunderland” or “Find a plumber in east herrington, sunderland” anyone? Go PPC people go!
What I’m listening to right now: Robots!
Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009 at 1:16 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing, Affiliate Networks. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I am the founder of ShareMyPlaylists.com, ContentNow.co.uk and some other businesses. I thought it would be fun to blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
It would be if it didn’t have a restricted PPC policy…
“No PPC activity, all brand and generic keywords restricted”. Will use them myself though - always have problems finding good tradespeople.
I used the site last year to get my house re-roofed. Found it very good actually, better than MyHammer, however, once the job was complete and I’d left positive feedback for the contractor, I had a knock on the door a month later… it was the scaffolder wanting to know where the roofer lived because he hadn’t been paid.
I used the site quite a lot when I moved into the house from hell which needed pretty much everything doing to it. Out of the four contractors I used from the site only one wasn’t top notch on reliability, however all were great value for money and quality of work.
There’s also http://www.mybuilder.com/, by the ppl that brought you mydeco.
There are quite a few of these popping up now. I vaguely remember welovelocal, which I think was set-up by a fellow affiliate. Thanks for the tip though.
Sophie Griffiths sent over an article asking for a blog review to promote it before I went to Barbados, but didn’t get a chance to
But seeing as I’m trying to get Laura to approve me spending some cash on getting the hallway re-plastered, I’ll wait to post something until then.
They do look mighty good though!
That was a abit of a bummer about ur toilet but amazing that u found this company to share with us.
I will bookmark in case i get caught short,
I actually need someone to look at some leaky taps I will give this site a try
Thanks for that - I’d never seem any of those sites before, and I never know who to get in to do jobs around the house.
A personal recommendation is usually best, but it’s not always possible to get one so I like the idea of a site like that where the tradesmen are also rated by the users.
I can see it being great during the credit crunch, as people will give competitive prices to get the work.
Very True.. A personal recommendation is usually the best one, but it’s not always possible to get one so I like the idea of a site like that where the tradesmen are also rated by the users.
I think these sites will increase with time, as everyone needs quick hassel free services and business from local communities.
These sites will definetly going to stay and become profitable.
Out of tens of millions of sites the Telegraph counts Rated People amongst a select handful of sites you will ever need
RatedPeople is kinda ok but I really expected the full toilet story. Complete with you breaking the pipe or some other hilarious antics that’d make my day
Don’t believe all the hype about rated people. Although there are success stories there’s an equal or overwhelming number of horror stories.
The way Rated People make their money is by ripping off tradesmen / women by charging them a recurring subscription fee to join their site. For this the tradesperson will be sent brief text leads as to the nature of a job i.e “Toilet broke, needs replacing”. Should the tradesman be interested he then has to commit to clicking a button to quote and it’s at this time his/her card is debited with an amount of money and can range from £4 to £40. For this you get the customers contact details and that’s all.
Now this is where the fun begins. You often find that the customer cannot be contacted because he / she has already had the work done or that the lead was in fact an old lead from previous weeks. So you’ve just paid up to £40 for nothing. If you contact Rated People to inform them of this they say that they won’t refund any money to the tradesperson and this is just an anomaly which doesn’t really happen.
I have actually paid for ten prospective leads/quotes in succession all of varying amounts but totalling £240 +VAT without any return. It was always the same story customers could not be contacted or if they could the work had already been completed previously. Rated People are adamant that they will not refund cash under any circumstances and only offer a referral credit i.e. free lead as a goodwill gesture which, going on previous attempts at gaining customers is just another hit and miss attempt.
It’s almost like saying “Here’s a box which might have something spectacular in it. Pay us £50 and you can have the box but you can’t look in it until you’ve paid us”. “Oh was there nothing in it, don’t worry try another one…..nothing in that either well here’s a free one which will have nothing in as well”
The way it works is Rated People tout via sources for work which has to be undertaken ie via personal customer contact and then distribute them to tradespeople. By supposedly having an abundance of customers it gives the impression of lots of work available. The customer is happy as they don’t have to pay a penny, just used Rated People as opposed to someone else and all the money charged will be to the tradesperson by way of paying for quotes and the initial recurring signing on fee.
Also, none of the tradespeople are vetted in any way at all. I consider myself to be a conscientious professional in my line of work and have the experience and qualifications to confirm this but I was not asked for any form of verification of the skills and experience commensurate with my trade with the only qualification being my cash. As a result the customer / householder does not even know who they are letting into their homes. It’s all very well having a ratings system in place to comment on a particular tradesperson but they in themselves can be quite subjective depending on how you want to look at it as it could quite easily be the case that a customer could be offered an inducement to falsify a testimony.
This all comes as the site not being properly regulated or administered and proves to be just yet another one of these sites scamming customers and tradespeople alike.
As a further discredit to Rated People and proof of their flagrant disregard to professionalism they also carry endorsements in the top right hand side of their site by reputable organisations such as : BBC, The Guardian, The Time, The Telegraph and others who supposedly support Rated People.
I contacted the BBC to ask why, in the light of having consumer affairs programmes such as Watchdog and Rogue Traders would they allow an obviously devious and disreputable organisations use the credibility of the BBC to enhance and sell their products and services. To this I received a reply back from the BBC Trusts, brand enforcement stating that they had no knowledge of this and that it was a clear and illegal breach of the BBC itself.
Again, this illustrates the underhand manner in which Rated People carry out their business activities by taking chances with other peoples reputations, livelihoods and general welfare if you’ve just had your house wired by a cowboy electrician.
In Short, Customers and Tradespeople steer clear of Rated People as for every success there is catalogue of hardship endured by others.
Regards,
Dan
I agree with Dan wholeheartedly. I too have been conned by rated people. How do I know? because I got a rating off a customer that I didn’t even work for. I have purchased 20 leads and only got responses from 6. I got to quote for three of these the others didn’t get back with an address. So out of 20 leads I reckon only three were genuine. I will not use this site again because when customers want jobs doing they will contact me.
Regards
Mike
I was a member of rated people i joined in the hope that i could build my bathroom installation business but found that i kept payind for leads which did not materialise as the customer had already had the work done or could not be contacted when i contacted rated people they told me that they did not have apolicy to return my money and all they were supplying to me was the contact details of customers
I have cancelled my membership and will be taking up the matter witrh the office of fair trading
This RatedPeople.com must be very helpful place. Taking 50-100 pounds just to come and take a look? Piracy indeed. I would never pay so much money for… For nothing I guess. Because for repair they would ask.. How much? 200?
Hi, I have to agree with Dan. I have paid loads of money to rated people to little avail, work wise. I have also found that customers put their jobs on several of these sites at once and on one occasion I nearly paid to quote for the same job twice.Also I now want to cancel my subscription and am having great difficulty finding an adress to write to. The only way to cancel is by telephoning an 0870 number which costs a lot of money. If it was an honest company you would be able to cancel by e-mail. They have my credit card details and I am worried that they may just keep charging me £160.00 subscription per year for nothing. For an honest site use mybuilder.com. This is a brilliant site, it gives excellent customer contact and you only pay once your quote has been accepted and you have time to start the job before you pay your invoice. The annual subs are good value too. best regards Tim
I used myhammer.co.uk a few months ago and posted a job but never got any offers. I personally think that the best way to find a quality tradesman at a fair price is to ask friends and family for recommendation. Also, my local radio station encourages people to recommend tradesmen who have done a good job and they will advise you of local tradesmen who have got the most recommendations
I’ve spent around £2000 buying leads from rated tradespeople and yes, there are some bum buys. Conversely though, I’ve secured about £280,000 of work so the payback is great.
How long is a salesman on the phone getting leads that are then to no avail?
Way to go
Hi everyone, Im registered to rated people which i found ok but some of you are right ive brought alot of job leads from them in the last few months but about 80% of them either dont answer the phone or have an unrealistic budgets and cant have the work done. Im also registered with my builder ‘what a joke’ how can any good tradesman be expected to give a realistic quote for a job with out seing itand the fee they charge is massive ‘5% of the winning price’ this can go into the hundreds no thanks. Theres anoth site called Quotesfromall.com i keep coming across it , they also have seperate sites for each trade type eg: Quotesfromplasterers.com etc i havnt joined it yet as im waiting for some feed back from people that have they say that they verifiy every job lead and have fixed rate prices for the leads. Emmm does anyone have feed back on this site
Ive had a repair up for 7 days repairing a dishwasher - no-one has responded, called Rated People - nothing they can do - what a load of rubbish and a complete waste of time - fast service, I dont think so. Ive just removed the job, will not be recommending them to anyone - furious.
i have also looked at these sites but with tradesmen having to pay high lead fees and commission i thought i would set up one called allquotesdone.co.uk where tradesmen can use and bid for free, they can also buy leads if they wish to contact people capped at £4, and users can also be vetted, hopefully not only will this help users find quality tradesmen but will also help these tradesmen save money generating work.
Hi paddy and everyone else.I agree with paddy about the tradesmen and allquotesdone.co.uk.I am a tradesman (paiter and decorator,do tilling as well) and used Ratedpeople services.Very disppoiting.It is free for the customer when they are looking for a tradesperson but…I had to pay membership 10 +VAT for the first 3 months and 40+VAT from then on ,but that’s not all…I also had to pay for leads between 4 and 16+VAT AND THERE WAS NO GARANTEE I WILL GET THE JOB.What happened is that I paid 30 pound for 2 jobs and the people proceeded with another trader (in 1 of the cases not even from rated people) without giving me the chance even to quote the job.That’s not fair.RatedPeople make us pay for a product(information) but they can not control that product(information) So basicly they are saling what????I cancelled my membership with them and am looking for some alternative web sites like allquotesdone.co.uk and mybuilder.com.RatedPeople promissed to investigate my case and eventually give me a free credit for two jobs but when I decided not to renew my membership they said that I won’t get any credit.So if I knew how I would tell this story to other tradesmen. In my oppinion Ratedpeople should have to make sure Jobposters know that tradesmen pay for their contacts and then I believe people will give us the chance at least to quote for them .The rest is competition.Thanks Angel
Hi All. What do you guys think of WorkBidder.co.uk? The site has been aroudn since 2006 and the costs for tradesman seem quite low in comparison.
Given the problems with all the sites what would be good alternatives business models for such sites? I’m wondering if the marketing costs of a good site can somehow be paid by the tradesmen successfully securing the jobs on a co-operative way?
Thanks
Johan
Thanks
Johan
I used Rated People a couple of weeks for a plumbing job. I typed my problem one Sunday night into the internet and hey presto you get a text, email and phone call chasing it up. That’s the efficient bit! A phone call and I was hooked because the guy sounded very genuine. When the guy came round, he said that my pipes were too high and I was always going to get a problem until that was sorted. (basically covering himself) However, he guaranteed he would fixed the problem and if he didn’t I wouldn’t have to pay. He fixed the problem in about 10 minutes by using a plunger (one of which I had) blowing down the pipe and putting some stuff down the sink. Admittedly the water ran away but he really didn’t clear the blockage. I gave him £80 cash but it really was still blocked. About 10 days later when | put my washing machine on the sink practically overflowed - I called him and he covered himself by saying its because of the way my pipes were and until I got the pipes changes I would always have this problem. I have since called the Council and someone came round this morning for £45 and used an industrial unblocker. The pipe was totally blocked and the guy who I used did absolutely nothing. A word of advice…. USE COUNCIL’S REIGISTERED WEBSITES OR CALL YOUR LOCAL COUNCIL. Do not use people who are not recommended. Especially if you are a single woman living on your own!!