Angie's List

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I thought this was a cool thing I saw in my Money magazine. It's a list you can join to read reviews of contractors in your area. I'm a big fan of customer reviews. I read them for everything from office supplies to hotels. And like I was pleased to learn about Consumer Reports recently, you can join Angie's List for just a month, for $2.60/month plus a one-time $5.00 set up fee. One year is only $20 so even that seems like a bargain if it saves you time and money from dealing with an inferior contractor.

From their website:

Get the real scoop: Angie's List members submit more than 15,000 reports each month about the companies they've hired. View a sample report. They describe their project (including the cost), and grade the company's response time, prices and quality of work - good or bad. In reading the reviews, you'll know if a crew was conscious of children and pets, cleaned up after themselves, or just totally botched the job.

Keeping it honest: Because Angie's List relies on its members' experiences, reviews aren't submitted anonymously. Of course members' information is kept confidential on the List, but reports are made available to the companies who have been reviewed. Since there are always two sides to every story, companies can respond to reviews, helping make sure that members get all the information they need to make a hiring decision. Additionally, members can only report on a specific company once every six months, ensuring no one can "stack the deck" in favor of or against a company. Finally, all reviews submitted by members go through a team of Angie's List staff who look for any irregularities or red flags. Occasionally, we can catch service companies reporting on their own businesses. Those companies are reprimanded and the reports are promptly and permanently removed from the List.

I proceeded as if I was going to join and it automatically asked me if I wanted to join the Rochester, NY group. I don't have a need for this right now but I'll bookmark the site, just in case.

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