Community Chat

[rolen]

We were in the market for a contractor for some kitchen work plus my husband was thinking of changing dentists. The ads for Angie's List are on TV constantly. They looked so honest and sincere about being able to research and get opinions for contractors and medical help. It seemed the right site to do some checking for a contractor and dentist. The ads say that all the reviews are true and there is no way for a company to pay for a good review. Sounded great.

Well, silly me - seriously I don't know what I was thinking, but never occurred to me that there was a charge for checking things on Angie's List. It makes sense I guess in that it is a business and that they would charge for the info, but I think since there is never any mention of a fee on the TV ads, I wasn't thinking about it. You enter your zip code on the site as the charges vary according to your location. I was also surprised that there are different categories and they all have separate charges. There is one category for contractors and home repairs and another one for medical services - doctors and dentists, etc. I think there was a third category also but I am not sure what it was for. There is no free trial of any kind, so I was reluctant to pay up front when I didn't know exactly what I would be getting for my money. I exited the site without signing up.

We interviewed several contractors in person. One (who we didn't choose) mentioned that he was listed on Angie's List. I said I was thinking about using that service, but did not want to pay up front for it. This contractor said he was thinking about "pulling his ads" from Angie's List as he did not feel he was getting enough response for the money it was costing him. I said, wait a minute, as I didn't think it was possible for someone to pay money for a listing on Angie's List. He said a company could not pay to get a good review, but they could pay and get their company listed as an advertiser on the List. I believe he said it cost about $500 a year for his ad.

I went back to the Angie's List web site and sure enough it talks about how companies can buy ads on the site. I don't know exactly what that means - if they get preferential listings or what, but it just did not jibe with what they seemed to be saying in the TV ads.

Are any of you members of Angie's List? What do you think of the site? It just seemed to me that the TV ads were making it sound different than what it actually is.