It’s almost time to renew my Angie’s List membership (or, more accurately, to decide whether to let them just auto-bill my credit card, which is a source of annoyance, but I’ll get to that in a minute) and I’m wondering whether it’s still really worth it.
We’re homeowners, and need to hire contractors or repairmen or other such companies on a regular basis for various things around here. I’ve found Angie’s List to be a useful reference in the past. However, when we first signed up for Angie’s List, Yelp hadn’t really taken off yet, particularly for my area. Now, though, I’m seeing lots of Yelp reviews for companies and contractors, and I’m wondering if it’s even still worth it to use Angie’s List, particularly because their billing practices piss me off. (The only option is to have them auto-bill your credit card every billing cycle, and they don’t send a notice prior to this happening.)
I’ve also heard stories about companies gaming the system by paying people to post positive Angie’s List review for them, although that could easily happen with Yelp also, so I don’t think that’s really a point for or against.
Feel free to use this as a springboard for bitching about either service, talking about your experiences, pointing me in the direction for some other service I’m not familiar with, or whatever.