to see if they have complaints against them. bbb.org

Contractors I did not even want kept bugging me. I guess they pay extra to get at the head of the line. Sad to say A-list is now just a lead generator for a subscription price.
Other than that I hear FBook has a section called "I got a guy". I don't do FB/twit/instaGm so I don't really know how good they are..
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In fact, I went next to HomeAdvisor.com and the interface was virtually identical. I thought I'd somehow clicked around back to Angie.

Had a bad experience recently when they sent me a contractor who obviously didn't know what he was doing. We asked him to leave before he got started. I called Home Advisor and raised hell. They apologized and rescinded the usual cancellation fee.

Then they asked if I wanted a new contractor for the project. They asked if I wanted to pick a date and time, like I did with the first guy. I said no way, because I didn't trust them to not send me another washout.

They claim the contractors are thoroughly vetted, but you don't know who the contractors they send you are, what kind of rating they have, or what their reviews say. It's crazy. Never again.

I checked another site called thumbtack, but they want to make you agree to an unbelievably long list of waivers and disclaimers in their terms of service, so forget that.

Have had some luck with NextDoor in the past, but am still waiting for a recommendation for someone to do the project.

I guess the bad reviews from dissatisfied customers churned up just too much blow back for them. First the anonymity went then the whole concept was out the window.

It recommended an electrician to me who had a 5-star rating on there, but when I looked him up on the Better Business Bureau they had a red flag on him because of a lawsuit against him for shoddy work. Great job, Angi!

Home Advisor sucks now, too, and is basically the same thing as Angi, just in a different format. I used Thumbtack to find a pool guy who turned out to be a moron with no idea how to properly clean an older gunite pool. I'm going to have to drain it to repair what he damaged.

Angi also recommended another electrician we sent packing because he refused to wear a mask and was an anti-vaxxer. WTF? How can he stay in a business where he goes into people's homes with an attitude like that?

I've noticed that Yelp at least allows them to list under "amenities" their policies regarding covid safety, like mask-wearing and social distancing, and I appreciate that a lot. There is also just more useful information in general available there.

So, did you ever come up with anything better than Yelp? I'm having a helluva time finding an electrician!