I find the task of hiring tradesmen (e.g. plumbers, builders, electricians, gardeners etc) very much hit and miss. Looking through yellow pages or the Star sometimes makes me even more confused. If you are buying standard items, consumer sites such as Caio are very useful. But they don't help much with local tradesmen's services.

Might it be a good idea then to have a forum where people can tell of their experiences with local companies (good and bad), with the aim of enabling people to make informed choices about who to hire?

There is of course one possibly big objection to this - i.e. the possibility of libel and also injustice (maligned traders may not be in the wrong etc). I remember the problems some time ago (I think it was on this forum) concerning a certain car selling company. Perhaps this objection might rule out this possibility, but at least it may be worth discussing.

What if we say you can only post possitive reviews? If the tradesman was crap he doesn't get a mention.
That way we will build-up a list of good tradesmen only.
It would be quicker too to just run through a list of good tradesmen rather than having to read the comments to find out if they were good or bad.

Good idea Nick. It could be the internet equivalent of 'word of mouth' recommendations.

What's the difference between 'word of mouth recommendation' and advertising/plugging?

Originally posted by Bilge
What's the difference between 'word of mouth recommendation' and advertising/plugging?

With word of mouth recommendations you sacrifice your own reputation as a trustworthy advisory if the plumber you recommended turns out to be a numpty.

The problem to overcome is bad workman writing their own 'good' reviews, or getting all their mates / family to do so.

Originally posted by ncrossland
The problem to overcome is bad workman writing their own 'good' reviews, or getting all their mates / family to do so. #

I agree this could be a potentially serious flaw. To be honest, I don't know how this could be overcome. So we may be stuck with relying on the recommendations of friends, neighbours, relatives or colleagues -or on our evaluations following free estimates etc. I wish i could think of a better way.

Well the answer is to allow negative feedback (ebay style) so that no matter how many 'fake' positive reviews are there, there will always be negative ones to balance them.

Which then opens it up to competitors putting in fake bad reviews...

I think this is a good idea! :thumbsup:

Lets see what Geoff thinks when he reads this!

We've tried this before IIRC as a thread, but it ended up just having lots of faked replies from the actual traders

:(

I think this was a good idea...

I think this was a good idea...

It was yet another one of my good ideas that got nowhere

The Consumers' Association (Which?) already provide this service:

http://www.which-local.co.uk/

You have to be a subscriber before you can join. It's been running for a few months now and is gradually building up a useful list of local tradespeople.

#

I agree this could be a potentially serious flaw. To be honest, I don't know how this could be overcome. So we may be stuck with relying on the recommendations of friends, neighbours, relatives or colleagues -or on our evaluations following free estimates etc. I wish i could think of a better way.

<<< Checking post count tends to work.

You can see people whom shamelessy plug themselves by offering recomendations. By checking their other posts you an be pretty certain that are the same person as the OP.
One poster has done this trick with 3 fake usernames and followed all his thread round which each username, post along the line of ' he did x work at mine - fantastic and also very cheap - all him on .....' :hihi:

I forget if I have suggested it before but a 'bag a bargain' part of the forum would be good for goods.
With sub forums e.g. 1kg sugar - poster post price of sugar in local shops, you can then find out the cheapest place for sugar. Along with all other items people post the prices of.

To ensure that recommendations are genuine, anyone posting should be willing to be contacted by PM to let potential new clients have a look at the work they had done - as you would if you were recommending someone to your friends.

That way, you only post if you are truly pleased with the work, and fakes would be easy to spot.

I'm sure this thread existed in the Sheffield Property section until very recently, but it now seems to have been removed.