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  Lawncare-4u.co.uk October 19, 2010 at 7:12pm

  not for me
  
  people can have 3 plus quotes .
  
  you pay for leads ....... waste of time imo
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  Andrew W October 19, 2010 at 7:14pm

  my friend who runs building & decorating business uses them. he says he gots around 40% jobs from them. you basically pay i think membership fee and than you get ifo of possible jobs, depending on the budget set by client you have to pay them for contact info which is calculated as percentage from set budget. then is up to you to call the client and make the business or not... the client is also obliged to rate you at the end.... it seems work well for my friend but am not sure how this might apply to gardening...
  I think it could be good in hardlandscaping but for garden maint i think people use diffrent ways....
  your decision and risk though...
• PRO

  Gary RK October 19, 2010 at 7:18pm

  Customers on these sites typically select on price only - ie it's price sensitive work, lowest quote often takes the work. So if that's the sort wof work you are after, after paying for the lead then it may work for you...
  
  Often used by people 'window shopping' to see how much it costs to do a job (and then do it themselves).
  
  For us ? Nope. Don't touch them now.
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  Peter Christopher October 19, 2010 at 8:05pm

  it just sounds like a scam to me, this is why I am asking, about this time of year companies like these think you have money to burn. Anymore comments by all would be much appreciated. I am going off the idea the more I think of it
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  Geoffrey King October 19, 2010 at 8:54pm

  Just think if you haven't heard of it, how likely are your potential customers going to use it.
  
  Peter Christopher said:

  it just sounds like a scam to me, this is why I am asking, about this time of year companies like these think you have money to burn. Anymore comments by all would be much appreciated. I am going off the idea the more I think of it
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  Graeme @ BGS October 19, 2010 at 10:10pm

  Rated People had it's place a few years back - all depends on how you view it and if you work it to your advantage. As Stuart has pointed out, Rated People has been discussed at lenght on here already.
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  David Cox October 20, 2010 at 9:58pm

  Further to previous discussions - Our quarterly membership just ended - and they were most shocked, and then took another £47 dd before suspending our account ---
  Simple output for us was that they were asking for £10-£14 per lead for what are often clearly 30-50 jobs, and again of those we tried 8 out of the 9 were people looking for a garden tidy for £50 or a patio for under £200 - total time wasters living in cloud-cuckoo land, beliving the nonsense in the adds about cheap labour and jobs.
  To quote one customer "its supposed to be 40% cheaper isn't it?" They simply demanded 40% off what they thought maint work was worth, which was already low.
  Not worth it at all given the pricing structure and nature of our trade.
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  Peter Christopher October 21, 2010 at 7:18am

  I have decided not to go ahead with them, they rang yesterday to dicuss it and I simply said no.
  
  Thanks guys you confirmed my thoughts.
  
  Peter
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  Dermot Rowland April 14, 2011 at 9:40pm

  I joined rated people 3 weeks ago, i have bought 7 leads and quoted on 6 jobs, of which i got 5 of them, will hopefully be 6, although the one i quoted for this week is unlikely to come off as he seemed to think the price i quoted him was too much, even though it was £500 lower then his budget...Of those 5, two are now regular customers.

  I have been doing gardening for many years but decided to set up as a buisness a month ago, and obviously it is difficult to get buisness initially, as i gave it up for a while due to full time work commitments so lost most of my customers, so i joined rated people, and i have had more jobs in the 3 weeks since i joined then i have through advertising.

  I had to report one advertiser as they didn't let me quote, and i was happy to accept a free lead, as the next lead i used it on gave me the job and has paid me for the job. So effectively i got 2 leads for the price of one and got a job out of it and it earned me a reasonable amount. Until i get known i am happy to use rated people as it gets me real work which gets my name known and earns me money.

  There are a lot of forums saying people have had bad experiences with tradesmen they got from the site, but you can get a cowboy from the yellow pages or the local paper, and whilst i think there should be some sort of checking trades peoples experience etc, it is easy to make up false documents and difficult to police.

  For me, rated people works.
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  Boxelder Landscapes April 15, 2011 at 6:06pm

  i use it when times are a bit quiet. Secret is to cherry pick the leads if it comes through that someone wants 40sqm of paving and puts a budget of under 1k then don't go for it. they do sell the leads to 3 companies but very rarely do I go for jobs when potential clients have found me when they don't also have other people giving them quotes, I don't have a problem with that. I reckon that if I get 1 out of every 3 leads turning into work then it's money well spent. I have recently completed a 5k job that I paid £20 for. A scam, i don't think so, just takes a bit of common sense and getting used to.