A cautionary tale picking a handyman from the forum

[Administrator]

I've apologised for my tone. She did not send me a PM despite insisting that she had and saying that I didn't care, therefore I was annoyed and I'm sorry about that. I was not to know that she was mistaken between sending an email and sending a PM (she's sent PMs to me before so I assumed she knew the difference).

The key learnings here are that I'm quite hard to get hold of but if a message is illegal e.g. racist then press the report message link and a few of us will get the message.

[red devil]

http://sd.keepcalm-o-matic.co.uk/i/keep-calm-and-love-admin.png

[StraferJack]

Ban request!!!

[Sue]

What is the point of having an "email the Forum" link if nobody is actually reading the emails because there are too many to sift through? Isn't that just likely to make people aggravated because they receive no response to their email/s?

Would it not be better to remove that link altogether and just stick to the PM system? (But then of course you'd have to know there was an "admin" in order to PM them).

The "Report This Message" link is presumably - as it says - for the reporting of specific messages, so would presumably not have been useful in Fuchsia's case where she had a query involving a potential police trace?

[Dame Dulwich]

Dear Fuscia,

So sorry to hear of this, your original message and the problems you have had. I am always wary of the recommendations on here. Luckily I have found an experienced builder, plumber and electrition of great quality so I always return to this person for works!

Something to also bring up is 'Trust a trader.com'. Be aware all that the traders on here join as they pay a subsctiption the website. So, those on it have not intially been elected by a customer, but pay to join as an advertising system. So many builders I know provide a wonderful service and great value but are never signed up to these types of services. Approach with caution!!

Good luck in the future.

[sicawa]

Hello,

I hope you don't mind me pm-ing you like this. I'm lookign for a plasterer but am a bit wary of recommendations on EDF now - given this poor person's experience. (I have had a similar back experience with a builder. Luckily, he was not physically threatening - but possibly because I was too scared to report him).

In the aftermath of my rogue builder experience, I need to do lots of remedial work, including some plastering. A bunch of people seem to have recommended Aaron, including yourself. Is he someone I could trust to do a good job, do you think?

Thanks

Jessica