Thanks bud. We'd already pressed on with the new (more expensive/realistic quoting) joiner, who will be finished up tomorrow and job completed, so it's lessened the sting considerably.
You know what, it may be that that £80 saved you a lot more money in the long run. God knows what the other guys work would have been like or how long it would have taken.
Same thing happended to us about a few months ago. Materials up front, out 1,100. Guy was recommended by a big local firm as one of their previous sub contractors, so we didn't look too hard. Entirely our fault. Had ccjs against him and was on probation. At least the cps kept us up to date the whole time and we have the solace that he's now back in prison (not from our tiny fraud, he got quite a few people for a whole lot more). Nobody will get any cash back though.
I had a quick look searching CCJ registers. Honestly can't really expect people to search CCJ for every trades person they hire? Recommended should be good enough!
If only those trade registers (Checkatrade et al) that keep advertising themselves did such due diligence.
Well, that's the common misconception with those sites. They're free to use for the customers.. and also free to use for the tradies - particularly MyBuilder.com. They seem to generate revenue from ads alone and therefore aren't going to have the resources or staff to check out any of the tradies, let alone all of them. Now, I'm only using ones with longer review histories and in good status, followed up with a check on Companies House to see if everything tallies. Learned my lesson. Sorry it happened to you too, Minimal... the world is full of see you next Tuesdays...
