WHY choose Avoiding Cowboys recommended
Avoiding Cowboys is an established company offering a free service designed to help you choose your next trader or service. Over the last 6 years we have built up a list of highly reputable traders whose service is second to none. Of course it is not full proof but a lot safer than randomly picking a workman from an advert or worse still a door knocker.
How do you normally choose a tradesperson? Perhaps you pick up a local advertising booklet and select someone from there, do you pick the best looking advert? The largest? The one which says they are members of a trade governing body? Did you know that anyone of us could call an advertising publication, whether national or local, and place an advert with totally ficticious qualifications, memberships (e.g. GAS SAFE) or professional skills and it will never be checked by them and when they turn up at your door do you ask for a copy of these qualifications or membership...I never used to. If your astute perhaps you ask them if they are fully insured... But do you actually see a copy of their insurance. Again, I never used to, it's far too embarrassing.
I always worked on the principle I was a good judge of character and could tell if they were professional....yeah right, who am I trying to kid. Let's face it I generally, like most of you, have no idea whether they are doing the job properly as I don't have the skills or knowledge.
I suppose if they do a bad job you will just never use them again and vote with your wallet. The problem is that these rogue traders work on the principle that they can make enough money by ripping people off and moving on, so the only real loser is you!
At Avoiding Cowboys we try in conjunction with our local community to eliminate as many of the factors that may result in you being conned so you can feel safer by at least knowing that they have many local customers who felt that there work was so good that they recommended them to us. We can't promise that they are always going to be the cheapest but price is not always the deciding factor, or at least it shouldn't be. The peace of mind in knowing they will do a professional job and if there is a problem will come back and rectify it, to me that's worth its weight in gold...how about you?
So how would we pick a trader or service?
Ask family and friends if they could recommend someone
If they can find out what work they had done and why they thought they were so good, along with their name. (They could have sold the business name to someone else)
Find out how long ago the work was carried out & what guarantees they were given.
Find out if they have ever had to call them back and what the result was.
If you can't get a recommendation then use the Avoiding Cowboys leaflet.
Invite them to quote for the job and see what the timescales are.
Receive a written quote and make sure all details of what they will do is within quote as well as the materials including makes or models that will be used. (this is important as you must be able to compare like with like)
Get a second quote from Avoiding Cowboys and repeat process.
Have the work carried out and leave feedback for others to read on our site.
ALWAYS TELL THE TRADER THAT YOU FOUND THEIR DETAILS IN AVOIDING COWBOYS - all our traders know if they underperform they are removed from all publications.
In the unlikely event that we do not have the trader on our site that can carry out your work, feel free to drop us an email or give us a call and we will see if we can point you in the right direction
