RateItAll: The Opinion Network

There are many things suspicious about this list. 1. No reason for high membership fee. 2. Customer service reps force you to join the membership if you call them for any questions. 3. Only selected vendors (?) get to advertise on their website. 4. There are many free review websites available (For ex. diamond certified in the SF Bay area.

Don't waste your money. Any site that relies on customers to rate companies, and charges them for it is noting more than a scam! If your are good business with a AAA rating with BBB they don't care. They let anybody post information without verifing facts. Don't believe a word on this site.

They have poor service and rude CSRs. If you have a dispute you have to fill out gobs of paperwork! The business has to be a MEMBER to rate you. Most I do biz with cannot afford this membership!
Warning: they can revoke your membership, not tell you and keep your fee! You have no way of advertising your own business on this site legitimately.

I wrote a negative review of a business on Angie's List, and later the business owner called and yelled at me about it. I was flabbergasted that he had my name and address, and I asked him how he got the review. As it turns out, ANGIE'S LIST SENT IT TO HIM!! I later noticed in the fine print on their web site that they say they mail your name and address to all businesses that you review. And there's no way to opt out of this. What a crock! Tell all of your friends who are on Angie's List to use yelp.com instead!!

I've used Angie's List for about five years now in the Indianapolis area and have found it to be terrific. They send monthly magazines that contain coupons for discounts from vendors, but I think they only let vendors with high ratings advertise. I've saved tons of money, and when you tell a contract you used Angie's List to find them, they really respond to that. I'm not from Indy so I didn't know anyone in the service provider field when I moved here. Before I joined Angie's List, I had a hard time finding good people, and my biggest job - remodeling my home -- was a nightmare at the end when the contractor seemed to get tired of being at my house and pretty much just stopped coming. I love Angie's List.

I was going to hire a company from Angie's List called Phil's service in the Detroit area. They were rated very high. Before I hired them I checked the BBB. They had 11 bad reports in the past 6 months. How can they get all A's and B's if the BBB has 11 bad reports against them? What a scam. Don't waste your money. I told Angie's List about this. They wouldn't do a thing about it! They should screen the companies that are listed on the list. Why should the members do the research and try to find out more on the companies on the list. We pay to get a list of good honest contractors. Not a list that you can find in your Yellow Pages. Don't get ripped off. Don't subscribe to Angie's List.

Of course some will use this and have good experiences, others will use it and get burned. The "idea" of the site it good, but the implementation is obviously flawed since anyone can join with just a PO box and stuff like that. Maybe use it as a starter, then post on a local newsgroup/discussion boards to see if you can get more info. Also use the better business site (bbb.org) and ask the person/business for references.

We had a terrible experience. We picked a contractor based on glowing Angies List Reviews (straight A's, "Angie's List Award" winner.) Well, they were terrible. It took them 5 months to complete a small fencing job. We ended up using the Angie's List resolution process to finally goad them into completing the contracted work. BECAUSE OF USING THE ANGIE'S LIST RESOLUTION PROCESS, OUT BAD REPORT ON THE COMPANY WAS REMOVED FROM ANGIE'S LIST(!!!!) IN RESPONSE TO MY INQUIRES, I WAS TOLD THAT BECAUSE i HAD "RESOLVED" THE ISSUE, i COULD ONLY PUT UP AN A OR B GRADE REPORT ON THE COMPANY(!!!!!!!!) THIS IS S SYSTEMATIC BIAS FOR "GOOD" GRADES ON ANGIE'S LIST. BEWARE! WE WILL NOT RENEW.

I would rather use http://www.MetroHorse.com
The website just launched and already had an overwhelming response.

At a local home and garden show, my partner and I met a vendor who gave referrals for contract work, for free. We talked with him and drafted a list of all the work we wanted to get done on our house.

A few days later, he called us with some people to contact to get the work done. We decided to look them up on Angie's list. I'm so glad we did.

The contractors he referred had terrible grades, D's and F's and there were horror stories to go with them. We could also see that the kind of work these contractors did was NOT in line with the work we needed done.

So, we called the referral service (the guy from the home and garden show) and asked him to stop sending referrals.

Angie's list saved us time and money. Possibly thousands of dollars.

Any site that relies on customers to rate companies, and charges them for it is noting more than a scam! The internet is for the FREE flow of information, not a funding mechanisum for rich fat cat's vacation funds.

I've been a member of Angie's List for almost 3 years now and I think it's great! Their service is for people who want to be able to hire companies that are going to do good work. If you're a member, you can go to their website and look up any category of work like roofers or carpet cleaners and read what other members said after they hired them. Members will tell you what they liked or didn't like about the company. They also tell whether they would hire them again. I've never had a problem with anyone I've hired off of the list. I always read the reports that the members wrote so that I know what I'm getting myself into. Companies can't pay to get their company put on the list, and they can't enter fake reports on their own company or their competitors, so I trust the information and I trust what the other members are writing. The people on Angie's List pay a fee each year to be a part of the list, so the people that write the reports actually care about what they're writing because they use the list too. They have every possible home-type service but they also have tons of different categories, things that I would have never thought they would have like wedding planners, drycleaners and even unusual stuff like companies that buff antiques. Angie's List has been around for a long time too, so I think if they weren't doing a good job, they wouldn't have lasted this long. They're putting Angie's Lists in a ton of cities too so more and more people are joining because they like the idea of knowing what they're getting before they hire someone.

I love Angie's List, and I don't agree with anything the person below says. Reviews are from people like me and you, the members. Angie's list doesn't control the reviews and ratings. And the website also says that any company that advertises has to have good ratings. If a company comes out to my home and does an eastimate, and then in the end I don't hire him, I can still put in a review on them, because they did come out and do an estimate. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. So many companies don't even show up for estimates, I want to let other Angie's List members know which ones do and don't. It's a great way to find a company. I used to have to go to the yellow pages, but never again!! I am so glad to have Angie's List. It is well worth the fee.

Contractors are encouraged by Angies employees to get their good customers to sign up and pad thier ratings. Contractors pay for their own award plaques and pay to use Angie's logo in their advertising, which causes Angie to skew the online opinions in favor of contractors who pay for the advertising. This advertising is not visible on Angies's website, so the users don't know which contractors are actually paying Angie. Very dishonest, in my opinion. People who post opinions don't even have to use the contractors services! So a dishonest competitor can actually skew the results against an honest contractor. The posters are not anonymous supposedly, but any unscrupulous contractor can sign up using a PO box, hotmail address and fake name. Angie's list refuses to verify posted information, so anything goes. They won't delete fake information even when it's brought to their attention. Angie's website disclaimer says they are NOT responsible for the information on their own site and do not guarantee the contractors that are highly rated. It would be better to ask your neighbors and friends than to trust this site. Look on the internet...lots of people have been burned by Angies' List.

Angie's list is a really neat service. Basically what they do is compile contractor reports - consumer written report cards of how how building contractors did on their projects on that consumer's house. Angie's List aggregates this info and helps other homeowners decide what contracters to use. There's a subscription fee to join.

S&P Construction BEWARE!! Steve More and Pat DuPass in Chicago area. Rip Off and incompitant.

Angie's List is fantastic! It allowed me to locate three different types of contractors to help me when I had a sewer back-up recently and had fix it, tear out walls and clean up. I would suggest that you only use the computer version, which links you to Better Busines Bureau reports for the companies, and only request services from businesses with an A rating--no sense going for anything but the best!