Find a Tradesman With DIY Doctor and Checkatrade - YouTube

Hi

I'm Mike Edwards

and we are at the National home improvements show at Olympia

we've chosen this particular show to launch

an initiative with our new partners CheckaTrade

and and the initiative constantrates and focuses

our attention on the removal of cowboy builders and rogue traders from our

Industry something we we've been very keen on

since the inception of DIY Doctor fifteen years ago

I'm here with the Checkatrade founder, Kevin Byrne, but before we have a chat about

wwhy Checkatrade are difference to every other organization

let's have a quick look around the show and see what's going on

My name's Mike Edwards

together with my partner we rund DIY Doctor and have done for 15 years

as well as giving you lots of free advice on how to build and look after your

home

we're also running a campaign, as Ive said

about ridding the UK of cowboy builders

I'd just like to do a very quick poll to find out how many of you here have

already suffered at the hands

of what we'll call cowboy builders or rogue tradesmen. So how many of you have already

suffered under those

circumstances

that's great, so a couple there already suffered, so

how many here purely because they want to stop that kind of thing

Thats great, thats what we need. To talk to the

people that

want to prevent this happening.

Ok, so you've seen us on stage doing the cowboy builder presentation

how to stop cowboy builders; how to stop rogue traders

and you saw people putting their hand up when we said, you know, how nervous are

you about getting a tradesman

We're working with CheckaTrade, I've come round to see how many of those people

came to Checkatrade try to do something about the problem that they

think they have about employing tradesmen. So how was it for you?

Great, fantastic

the amount of customers that have come up to us

and said Ive been a victim

of a rogue trader, and how they want our help.

We've shown them the website, we shown the directories,

tell them what we do

It's been really good and walked away really happy

Thats the name of the game. Same at your end of the stand? Yep, it's been really good.

Thats what we are here for, thats what the initiative is about. We stop people getting ripped off

we don't like it, we don't want it, we are going to do something about it so the partnership

between DIY Doctor and Checkatrade is

is going places, if you're interested in finding out more

just email us at info at diydoctor dot org dot UK

we'll put you in touch with Checkatrade and tell you how to avoid those rogue

traders

Kevin

nice to see you again. Thanks Mike, nice to be here

I introduced the idea that checkatrade is completely different

to other organizations of their kind. I'll touch on that

and then just let us and the audience know what Checkatrade stand for

well we are very different and theres basically

different types of models out there consumers can go to to find a tradesman

you know the old classic ones like yellow pages

or Thomson's, really have had their day

they do no checks at all, but then you have

local government you know some local government schemes are very good

consumers can go to those in and I'll endorse those

and then there are

others, but we are the biggest of our type

in our sector and we will go and interview, we will

thoroughly vet thetradesmen and then we will ask the consumer to give us

reports on those tradesmen

so we for sure are the biggest in the UK that

do that. There is another type as well which I would not endorse

and that is, if you go to a website and you're trying to find a tradesman but

you can't

what these web sites are doing is they're asking you if your personal

details

how much money you've got all and a description of the job, they're actually

selling your personal details to the tradesmen

yeah so I wouldn't endorse that. I would endorse the Checkatrade model and

I would endorse the the local county councils

so lets get one thing straight. Tradesmen themselves

pay to be a member of your organization?

They do. And consumers comes to find those trades completely free?

They do. Then they choose the tradesmen they want to work with,

Instead of the other organisations that

actually rate their tradesmen, or they get

the home owners to rate the tradesmen

you've actually been to interview the tradesmen and had personal interaction with every one of them

which is unique. Yes it is unique and we

wont go to visit them on site,

we want to see them in their homes or their

offices or where they operate from. Yep, so you know where they go

yet so we see them face to face

if the guys that work for me, the guy that interviews them feels I

wouldn't want this tradesman in my house. they'll walk away.

but we've got various things in place. These tradesmen must have a fixed abode

These tradesmen must have qualifications

in particular if they doing something like gas or electrical, even

using a chainsaw or something like that, they've got to have the government

required regulatory qualifications

they must have public liability insurance they cannot join unless they've got that

We want to see utility bills we want to see

driver's license or passport so we know that -

Is that your face? Is that you ? Yes it is.

Then we will do a credit check. Then we asked them to sign a form

which will allow us to go to trading standards and see if trading standards

have got any issues. We ask for referees

from up to six to ten of their previous customers. We won't

write to them, we physically get on the phone and phone

your customers up and ask them how well did you do.

Once all that has been completed

theyre now members of Checkatrade but from that point

on, every time one of our tradesmen undertakes a job for consumer

they have to tell the consumer before all the job starts

I'm a member of Checkatrade. At the end of a job, please

send this back to Checkatrade, score me out of 10 on four different questions

and theres another couple of questions in there as well

good or bad, those comments will be made live

One other thing

as well, that's obviously all in the consumers interests

as are all of the things that Checkatrade do but one of the things that attracted me to the

the ethos of Checkatade is that you work on behalf of the tradesmen as well

which most other organizations don't do you're you're working for then

to promote them so you're coming at the cowboy builder anglel from both

ends. your educating the consumer and finding the good guys more work

which starves out the bad guys

absolutely. We want to isolate the rogue trader

but you know, we've got - you don't be a victim of a rogue trader

no-one wants to be the victim of a rogue trader

but we have recently done a survey, just before the show, September 2013

and we asked two thousand homeowners

who havent used Checkatrade

or dont know much about Checkatrade

in the whole of the UK. Half of then - Half! said they'd been the victim of a rogue trader so this is a massive problem

Two or three years ago local government bought some statistics out saying

one in four will be unhappy with their tradesman

one in 5 will need part or all of the work

redone if you choose a tradesman at random. Our figures are something like

(they fluctuate each month) but we would have one complaint

in about every 100 sorry one complaint never 215

jobs our tradesmen complete so do we still get complaints? of

course we do, but the chances of having a problem with a Checkatrade member

are probably the best odds there is in the UK

Well, that's quite impressive we

thoroughly did our research as Ive said to you before, you know that

we we had a good look around the market we needed somebody

that we could be absolutely confident to share our brand

and the same with you, you know we're in this together

we need to trust each other and look into exactly what we do and I think hopefully

thats explained to you, what we do and what Checkatrade do

we're happy to be working together and ow own research shows exactly the same

thing that

one in 3 or 1 in 4 people at the minimum have

had a problem with the rogue trader of some kind and if you speak to a lot of traders they

will tell you that

they've had a problem with the rogue home-owner as well

so we're coming at this from both angles and pleased to

be working with each other each other and will continue to fight the good fight so

click into DIY Doctor and Checkatrade to get

your good tradesman

Thank you from DIY Doctor and Checkatrade