ProreferralReviews of proreferral.com

From my perspective, ProReferral is useless. Every single so-called "Pro" was a waste of my time and emotions, exc. one, who actually showed up, but even he did one small project OK, but he turned out to be sloppy and expensive for my next tiny project. Every other "Pro" either never called back or never showed up as scheduled, and another poorly designed feature was their reviews and rating: you can only review the "Pros" if you hire them, but you cannot rate/review those who never called as promised or never showed up as scheduled, and once you post a review, you are done, no way to add/edit your review. It feels like mostly "Pros" with low quality and weak reputation get in this program, because they had a problem building the clientele and good reputation.

I hired a contractor through Home Depot to assemble an outdoor chair that was too heavy for me to handle. I got a couple interested companies, one....Quality Assemblers called me almost immediately. I texted him and he quoted me a price of $100, which seemed fine. After I explained that this would take 2 men, it's very heavy and in 2 pieces (and I sent him a picture), we then agreed on $150, which I thought fair, gave him my address. He said he could do it and would come out Wednesday at 3:00. He never came that day, never called. So, I again tried to reach out to Home Depot, he apparently saw that and apologized, said he messed up and could he reschedule? I told him I'd give him one more chance so we rescheduled for yesterday from 9-11:00. He did not call to say he was coming or was going to be late so I gave up and went to lunch.....at 11:30. He finally showed up at 1:00 (2 hours late with no phone call). I told him he should have called and had I done that in my career, I would have been fired. I can understand having to reschedule or a previous job taking longer or traffic but everyone has a cell phone and SHOULD CALL. Professional, reliable companies do. He did have a helper and they did seem to do the job OK and they put it on my back porch like I asked but if I can't trust people to come when they say, I never do business with them again. When I reached out to Home Depot, they said all they do is refer them, they are independent contractors and they don't stand behind them. I said....why would you put them on your website then? So, they promptly disconnected my "chat" with them. I have done business with Home Advisor, which I think is Angie's now and THEY DID STAND BEHIND THE CONTRACTORS AND WOULD MAKE THEM FIX SOMETHING IF IT WASN'T DONE RIGHT. But, when I called them, now apparently they want your credit card upfront and I don't like that. Also, he said he'd give me a discount for the screw-up, but I told him I'd pay him what we agreed on because I knew it was a difficult assembly. I told him he just should have called, so I was irritated. Every reliable business calls you. So, even though the chair turned out fine, I'd never hire him again. Oh, also yesterday early in the morning he asked me again for my address, which he should have had, I took that as a good sign that he was actually going to show. It wasn't a big job or big deal and I hadn't paid upfront so I wasn't real worried, not like I was having a kitchen remodeled, but too much aggravation. And Home Depot doesn't care. Sadly, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception with companies these days. It's difficult to find a good one. I've dealt with a lot of contractors in my time and can almost immediately tell if they know what they are doing when they show up to talk to you, and I have little patience for nonsense. AGAIN, Home Depot knows nothing about the contractors they have on their website. Sometimes you finally find a good company, then when you need them again, they don't get back to you or are out of business or someone else has bought the business name.