Angie's List

[fleetiebelle]

The yellow jacket exterminator guy I found on AL actually asked me if I'd found him on Angie's List, and said that he usually bumps AL customers to the top of his list, mostly because he knows there's a built-in accountability that he has with Angie's List users. If he does a poor job, it's going to be on the internet in black and white, and that can hurt his business.

[onwardandupward]

I've found contractors both with and without Angie's List, and I would definitely recommend spending the $60 on it. I had some really bad experiences with using friend and acquaintance recommendations, and since I've moved to using Angie's List I've not had any bad experiences, so to me it's money well spent.

[Velvet Jones]

Originally Posted by Bong477

I am about to be in the market to do a variety of rennovations/improvements/fixes on a home we are going under contract on. Anyone have experience with Angie's List for Pittsburgh? Seems like that information should be free, but seems that contractor reviews and recommendations are pretty hard to come by.

I would highly recommend it, especially if you're looking to have a big job done. My wife subscribed only after we ran in to problems with our incompetent/crooked concrete contractor. There were about a dozen extremely negative reviews of the his company on Angie's List. Had we known that we never would have hired him. If you know the contractors name also check the PA courts website. Turns out the guy we hired had arrests and convictions for bouncing checks, kidnapping, computer fraud, and drugs. A really classy type of guy.


Magisterial District Judge Docket Sheet

[Caladium]

I can't speak for the Pittsburgh lists, but down here in VA I've been very happy with Angie's list. We've used it so far when buying windows, shopping for a podiatrist, and for getting our roof replaced. The comments seem pretty accurate.

[jimmyev]

Here are the problems with Angie's List:

1. Most contractors have absolutely no reviews.

2. Angie's List doesn't inform you prior to subscription that you are limited to a specific geographical area. Nor do they tell you exactly what that geographical area encompasses. If it ends up not encompassing the area you needed in the first place, you're S.O.L. and being ripped off.

3. The subscription automatically renews month-to-month, and you can only cancel one specific way. This was exactly the rip-off technique that got AOL into trouble with several state attorney generals a few years back.

4. They push an endless stream of groupon-like spam into your e-mail box, i.e. "$400 for $200 worth of roofing work!" Yeah, right.

5. Most of their above business practices seem shady, which leads me to believe that their reviews are too.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by jimmyev

4. They push an endless stream of groupon-like spam into your e-mail box, i.e. "$400 for $200 worth of roofing work!" Yeah, right.

FWIW we tried one of these deals and were happy with it. We got all our gutters cleaned for $75. We have a 3 story house with lots of gutters, so that's about half the price we usually pay. Not all the e-mails seem like good deals (for us) but there are some good ones.

[DomerJen]

I joined. I got 40% off using a coupon code on retailmenot.com.

Here in Atlanta, there are plenty of reviews on free sites like kudzu.com, but we had trouble finding reviews in the 'burgh and thought it'd be worth it. I even posted hear and basically got a tongue in cheek response that people get rec's by "word a mahth" in Pgh. I guess since there aren't a lot of transplants everyone just uses who their parents/family/friends used.

Since I'd like to branch out from getting ALL of my recs from my in laws, we spend $24. We're planning to spend $30-60k in renovations this year, so it's just a drop in the bucket.

So far we're set to get 5 quotes for HVAC and 5 for electrical. Since we know nothing about either thing, we really want to make sure we're getting good service. Some companies have been really responsive and nice. Others are difficult to get a hold of and haven't gotten back to me w/ quotes after going to the house... I'm sure that's just the nature of contractors in general. No real reviews yet from me, though.