Angies List Deceptive Business Model Internet

i LIKE WHAT IS SAID about Angies List. I think you are right on the money. It does sound like Angies list is charging a fee to premier vendors and then they receive special treatment. If what you say is correct about allowing any company in to where they let anyone in then angies list is no longer any different then anyone else. Good job for pointing that out.

When I initally became a Angies List Service provider the only way you got on the list was if one of their members reccomended you. About 2005 Angies List began offering advertising to service providers in our area. Back then, to take advatage of the program service providers were required to have a minimum of 10 current reviews, You had to have a 'A' average and you had to have been on the list for a minimum of 12 months.

Along the way around 2009 as I recall Angies List began lowering the standards, they continued lowering the standards to the point any company can get on Angies List and any company can advertise. So initially the bad seeds were weeded out prior to entering the system, but as time went on it kind of went in reverse to where they get in and they weed themselves out.

It is also during that same time span that some top Angies List service providers saw their call and review volume plummet 50%, while new and unknown service providers jumped by the same percentage. Prior to 2009 top service providers in our area probably averaged 10-15 reviews per year, and a few of us had 150+ reviews that had taken 4-6 years to accomplish.. After 2009 the new and unknowns some how passed those review numbers in a single year.

Me personally, prior to 2009 I would get at minimum 10 calls a day from Angies List members, since 2009 we might average 5 per week and of those 5 most are useless leads.

Angies List is all about money. And many of the things they did like advertising were done to beef up revenue to make them more profitable for investors and their IPO.

One of my clients recently told me; "Consumer fraud through creative writing is the reason Angie's List national advertising says one thing and Angie's List Inc. does something else!" We talked about what he was "required to pay Angie's List as a contractor, in order to stay on the list!" I think his comment says it all!

Would you please explain to me why Angies List charges an incredible amount of money to companies for advertizing? $25,000 or more a year to be exact! I thought Angies List was free for companies to be on Angies List, the premise being that Angies List is not paid for by the companies, giving the impression that you are not influenced by those companies, only by members looking for services. If AL doesn’t get that money (they say it’s in the contract the company signed on for), AL steals it from the companies bank account and then trashes the company, claiming that they didn't adhere to Angies List terms of service and people should avoid that company; all because they didn't want or couldn’t pay your exorbitant ad fees. Angies List did this to a small family owned business, wiped out their bank account and the company had to lay off all their employees and sub contractors and is now facing bankruptcy. Angies List is a scam and a fraudulent web company, and I will and have told every client, business associate, or anyone whom I think would benefit from this information, NOT to join or pay any attention, to Angies List. FYI, I never trusted AL, but now I have ample reasons for staying away from Angies List. If I encounter an ethically challenged company, I will call them out; Angies List is on my sh&#t list.

I agree that Angie's List is pointless.  When I tried to submit a negative review concerning a contractor in the Los Angeles who had failed to pay me for services -- I was a door-to-door canvasser for the company -- Angie wouldn't permit my review to stand.  In fact, the contractor has something like 14 poor ratings on Yelp! which is free for users.

Angie's reputation is based on making contributions to public radio from some of their own ill-gotten profits.  But it simply is not an objective source in the sense of Consumer's Report.  

I have to second what already has been stated. Angie's list is not only not helpful, it lures customers into a false sense of security. Here are the reasons:

-if you have a bad experience with a company (I am referring here to a REAL bad experience, one you can prove) and post a negative review, the following will most likely happen (it happened to me several times): the company will contact you at home and offer you some kind of reimbursement, apology, etc., so that you may change or delete your review. I didn't post the negative review because I wanted a freebee, but because I wanted to make sure others on Angie's list are warned. Therefore, I didn't react to their messages. I received SEVERAL phone messages and was annoyed by the calls. If you don't react, they will then post a "rebuttal", which presents you, the customer, as somebody with a "problem" and all the (recorded) apologies for bad service are never mentioned. However, I assume many will indeed delete their negative review to get their money back (as they should).

-you and many others can post negative reviews for a company, yet that company can maintain an A in "recent" grades. Why? Because "recent" is not recent. It means 2 years. So, if a company had good reviews in, let's say, 2012, your negative review in 2013 (and those of others) will have 0 impact. This makes no sense, because I want to know about the present performance of a company, because this is when I plan on hiring them.

-In one particular case, I made the effort and calculated the overall grades. It came out to a C, yet the company maintains an A. I then wrote to Angie's list to ask how that was possible and first received a condescending answer (it works just like in High School - mhhh, no it doesn't, unless your teacher is a moron), and upon a second inquiry, I was emailed a prewritten answer about the impartiality of their reviews without directly answering my question.

-I also noticed that my negative review completely disappeared when accessing a company through the "Big Deal". The image of the evaluations is the same, but it only shows A reviews. When I asked them about that, there "explanation" was that providers can advertise on Angie's list. What?????

I strongly, strongly advise not to use Angie's list. I just cancelled my subscription.

I checked out Angie's list and got the top 7 Urgent care centers in Carson city, Nv. 4 were in Reno, 1 in Truckee, 1 in Dayton and 1 in Pa.

I read the rebuttal to the original complaint and the company response, which stated in no unequivocal terms that companies cannot pay to be on Angies list, nor can they have reports removed. 
 
This is an out and out lie.  My brother who owns a construction firm in the bay area had a problem with a customer posting negative information about the service they received, and they posted a poor review. 
 
I at the time worked for his company and issued a rebuttal to the complaint. My rebuttal, and those of 5 others she had complained about had their negative comments removed from the site. 
 
It was found that this woman was a serial instigator and wanted to insure discounts that she was not entitled to.  She negotiated and signed contracts and was simply using Angies list to blackmail contractors into discounts even though the work was done to satisfaction and signed off on. 
 
When we 5 contracting firms threatened a class action lawsuit the complaints mysteriously disappeared. 
 
So sheepeople please dont believe everything you hear from Angies list.  There are people who live to scam as consumers as well as businesses.  And I believe both were covered in this posting today. 
 
Angies list is no different than 1800 de**ist  or the million of others who offer services for a fee.  Whether it is paid by companies or in this case the consumer.
 
Take everything these services claim with a grain of salt. 

I agree with the general consensus about Angie's List.  Based on its advertising, it sounds like a great idea.  Let social marketing help you find contractors with a good reputation.  The problem is that they have so little data that it is useless. 

I joined for 1 year and never found a review on any of the contractors that I was considering.  I was able to find contractors based on searching categories, but most of them had very few reviews too.  Angie's List has an interesting concept in that they charge individuals to join the site and then create something that will be more valuable to Angie's List.  Without the customer feedback, Angie's List doesn't exist and they don't have enough data to be worth anything now.

They also seem to be making money by letting contractors offer you coupons.  I was getting several emails a week with marketing offers.  They also come up earlier in the searches unless you ask to sort it differently.

I was auto-renewed after 1 year and I complained about it.  They offered to take me off of auto-renewal and give me a 50% discount.  I offered to stay if the price was reduced to $15.  Since I was going to add several new businesses to their list, they should be eager to have someone make their database more valuable.  They refused and sent me a full refund with any further discussion.  I wound up adding nothing to the site and should get a refund for the first year too.

Ultimately, they want businesses to buy coupon offers from them more than they want consumers to have negative feedback on contractors.  This site is a waste of time and just exposes you to a stream of marketing offers.

As president of a masonry company, I suggest that the president & its employees go out & inspect & report on each & every job they recommend.  The hands-on inspections will be more reliable that 'he said/she said' from the comments that I have read so far especially if you have to pay for this service.

My friend decided to try Angies list out.   The site is useless and I am planning to get my money back some way or another.  Angies list is like the yellow pages and that's it.

I was wondering why they were advertising on the big markets on tv. 

The question is this.  What are people actually getting for $5.00 and more when we already have advertisement mechanism to getting clients.


Why can't I update my listing and why is the company not opened until two days after Christmas?

I agree that Angies List is highly unfair. I own a business and angies list is not very popular here where I live, although it is "there" for consumers to report on. I never used it to advertise, and yes a company can pay to be a member with advertising rights. I was emailed by angies list taht a report had been put on their site about me. I knew immediately who it was, a woman who wanted top notch service and expected to pay nada for it.

This was my only review. I rebutted and actually made this woman look silly, but that negative review is still there.

I have read the Angies list forums and other businesses have expressed the exact same thing. People use it as a tool to imtimidate and pretty much extort companies into doing what the consumer wants in order not to get a negative review. Thats extortion in my book. In my case the woman blatantly lied, but we had done work for her so that review stands. There is nothing I can do about it except to rebutt, as I did, however it was so distasteful for me to have to do that.

Angies list is supposed to be there to protect the consumer, NOT let them extort businesses, I dont care what Paul has to say about it.

First of all, I have a company that was placed on Angies List 10 years ago.  At the time it was a wonderful thing.  To clarify something, companies can not pay to be on Angies List, and it seems we can not get off Angies List.  Angies List refuses to remove the company names.  
I have a huge problem with customers being able to post a report on work that has not been done.  We as owners have the right to refuse to work for a customer, Angies List or not.  1 out of 10 Angies List members use the Angies List member thing as a threat to us.  9 our of ten Angies List members, even given an Angies List discount, do not post a report, good or bad.  But you let something go wrong and a bad post and Angies List will not remove the bad report.  It is the customer of Angies List that is given the upper hand, and they call and "inform" you that it must be taken care of and you are to drop all your doing to take satisfy Angies List member.  Just really unfair to the company on Angies List that people are paying them to see our names.  There needs to be a little more help and faith  in the companies that Angies List is making money on, all we can do is try and protect our names after it has been trashed by an unreasonable person that thinks because they are Angies List they own us.

I agree with the complaint Anita filed against Angie's List.  Angie's List is just like the Better Business Bureau where they and their "members" scratch each other backs.  The BBB will generally not list negative comments about their "members".  I see the same thing happening with Angie's List.
 
Just like companies that pay the Better Business Bureau to become a "member", the same is true with contractors who sign up with Angie's List.  The contractors are putting money into Angie's List's pockets so obviously Angie's List is going to do whatever means possible to keep these contractors (aka their customers) happy.

To be perfectly above board, Angie's List should not charge contractors a fee to be listed with them.  Angie's List needs to pattern themselves after Consumer Reports magazine. Consumer Reports does not accept any advertsing in their magazine, knowing that it would be a conflict of interest to do this and then report on the same companies that are paying them.

Thanks for expressing your concerns; however, we at Angie's List would like to clarify our policies and a couple of misstatements made by the poster: Service providers do not have any influence at Angie's List on the grades they receive. The grades are completely member driven and current grades are based on reports dating back two years. All reports filed within the past two years remain accessible by members on the Angie's List web site (www.angieslist.com).

In addition, Angie's List does not remove any member reports that contain negative information simply at the behest of a service provider. A service provider who receives a negative review on Angie's List does, however, have the option of asking for a report reconfirmation. The reconfirmation process helps verify the accuracy of a report, if the service provider contends that there are inaccuracies or the provider does not have a record of the member as a client.

If the negative report is found to be valid regardless the service provider's rating that information remains accessible to all Angie's List members in that area. If the information cannot be verified, the report is pulled until/unless it can be verified.

Lastly, service providers cannot represent themselves as members of Angie's List, nor can they self-report. We have a real person read and review each report and have a checks and balances system in place to help ensure report accuracy.