@PlasteringMan - So, its possible to be the only person bidding? I just assumed the leads were sold to a minimum of 3 - assuming 3 people are interested of course!
@FatHands No it's 3 max. But when people see someone has bided they don't bother. I have just seen 1 job that 2 people have bided on! It's very rare on the plastering section. I think customers are placing adds on rated people while checking elsewhere!!! I paid £54 recently to buy a lead. It was to re-plaster house and the client had already 4 quotes from elsewhere.
Ah, i see, so i guess the quicker you can contact the customer the better i guess. Yes, i suspect that goes on a lot mate. That's (or one of) a problem with it. It makes no odds, or costs to the customer whether they get people from a site like that, or word of mouth and some people will ask for quite a few quotes - especially big jobs. I see mate. So, were you the only person from the site to quote them in that particular instance? I guess if you did win that job £54 wouldn't be a bad exchange?! Out of curiosity, how much would the job have been worth to you mate - assuming you don't mind me asking?!
To all Rated People members here is a bit of information i managed to prize out of them which will come in useful if you have the same problem: support@ratedpeople.com 21 Jul (3 days ago) to me Dear Mr.Toocleverforus, Thank you for your email.I'm sorry our previous email did not accurately respond to all of your points, in regards to Rated People accepting responsibility for a homeowner's actions after their initial job listing; The Goods and Services act stipulates that returns must be offered for the sale of faulty goods. As the price paid for a lead purchase results in an exchange of contact details, our digital goods would only be considered faulty should those contact details be invalid. However, in the event that customer contact details are found to be invalid, we do issue account credits. Therefore, Rated People is only responsible if the contact details are invalid, not if the homeowner does not respond to your attempts to contact.
It is quite ironic really, RR are there to stop the sort of practices that they employ, ie: ripping off the customers/ client.
This all sounds like corporate greed to me. Leads don't need to be that expensive. I look at this way, if Google Adwords is charging a cost-per-click of say £5 for the keyword "boiler replacement", then for me a lead for a boiler replacement job on sites like RP should be £10 maximum. Why? Because, for one, just like with every Google Adwords click, you're not guaranteed that every lead you bid on is going to convert into a job. But at least Google Adwords has some smart mechanisms in place to weed out illegitimate clicks.
I have now left ratedpeople.com after 18months.. the tradesperson does not have any protection. I do not recommend ratedpeople.con
Just wondering who else has had a email off rated people regarding giving tradesman £50 free credit but u have to purchase £50 first n quote a code I've been quite lucky las few months and got long term work but I still won't be tempted by it unless other terms have changed regarding refunds for can't be trusted customers who post a job n then give the job to somebody they know
It's a just a sign-up credit - I got it when I joined. I wouldn't personally consider RP if you have long term work anyway?!
Agreed! - £ for £ I have done much better using google (as using decent search terms & paying just enough more than other local companies I know of.
Yes.. I totally agree! RP act very poorly / sneakily I have gone beyond furious about them (previously commented about!) The resolution has been simple though.. I have cancelled all membership with RP (& I am obviously not buying any more leads!)
You should join 3Local.com its free to join no monthly charges and the leads are a set price. They also give you access to a free webpage builder in your area so if you build pages with your own company info on and it links back to your site for SEO. Great firm and if you don't buy the leads you don't pay a penny ever.
I got the signup credit and I've spent quite a bit with rated people but would never go back to them. Few leads ever converted, I don't understand why I have to pay the monthly fee and the crazy asking price for jobs, either charge the subscription and reduce your lead price or get rid of the subscription fee's.. I really don't think its fair to have to pay out before even getting any leads... Greedy money grabbing ******* IMHO. Sounds promising, Will give it a try..
What can i add that a lot of people here havn't already said about Rated People........... We have been members with RP for quite a few years, over those years things have ALWAYS headed downwards in regards to looking after their bread & butter, i mean us of course. Without tradesman there would be no RP, we have the privilage of paying membership fees & on top of that lead fees as well. I recently visited a client in Paddock Wood RE (this is his archived description on RP) 'Hi,we have planing for double story extension,planing has been approve would like to have quote please?' He clearly states he HAS planning already, after visiting i did a quote for the whole job, met with him again then had to split the quote into two parts which i did & sent to him, what a waste of time, turns out he does not have planning or building regs. So Rated People clearly DO NOT VET & CHECK THE INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THEIR CLIENTS. I looked back through the so called prospective clients & found the last five jobs we clicked on & four did not have planning as they described that they had !!!! stunned. Emailed Rated People & we got this reply :- ' Thank you for your email. We do not hold any editorial control over the user generated content posted on to our website. We understand that this can be frustrating, however we do find that, whereas we cannot guarantee how a homeowner acts after posting a job, nor can we guarantee success on that particular job posting, we do find that a homeowner will be obliged to contact tradesmen that have quoted should they require their services at a later date. Furthermore, as a tradesman you have expanded your current customer database. If you need further assistance, you can reply directly to this email (please leave the subject line and case number intact). Kind regards, Josh' So it's a win win situation for RP as per usual, RP supply the final information to us TRADESMAN, they also explained to me on the telephone that they DO check each & every advert placed with them, Horse****. We have had a couple of 'job leads' from RP which were either blank or actually had the job description as 'blah de blah de blah', we have also placed jobs on there to see if they did indeed go through, such a ridiculous description though so no one would click on it. How much does a sim card & email cost to manafacture job leads i wonder !!! They are a disgrace to all tradesman who have joined up with them, yes we have had contracts through them but if a client does not answer, advert is not correct & misleading, then RP should reimburse the funds, NOT a credit as not all leads cost the same, i paid on my card i want it back on my goddam card. I also intend to write to Watchdog, go on twitter & anything else i can do to make people aware of this unscrupulous company. Do yourself a favour & DO NOT join up with them.
Hi Ewan, This is the clever part (from their perspective of making a massive amount of money from the workers) about sites like RP: They are looking for Joe Public to sign up. Once people have done that (for free of course) that information is valuable because people will always want to buy information that may give them the opportunity to make money. As you have already said, it makes no difference to Joe Public if its something they really want done, or just curious to know how much a job costs because their neighbour has recently had such work completed. These companies spend a load of money on advertising, sponsoring tv programs and very complicated website to entice Joe Public to sign up and post the jobs they *want* done. The way they get this money back (and a lot more) is by selling the information collected (regardless of whether it turns in to a sale) to (correct me if i am wrong) several tradesman. My views on these types of sites is to not use them and do your own lead generation but they provide a gamble a lot of people are prepared to take.