In this FAQ section, you'll find answers to common questions you might have as a trade member of MyBuilder.com. We keep these Frequently Asked Questions up to date, so you should find it a useful resource.
Click on a topic on the left to show all questions. Then click on a relevant question to see the answer. If you can't find the answer to your question, you can contact us through the website and we'll get back to as soon as possible.
Your membership is priced according to how many leads we expect to send you each quarter. When you register, we'll give you a quote, based on where you are and what you do. If you're in a paid price band, your membership will be backed by a lead guarantee.
The trade membership price bands are: Free, £20, £40 and £60 + VAT per quarter (3 months).
We don't offer free trials. If you're unhappy with MyBuilder after the first three months, you can simply cancel your membership. There are no catches or long term commitments and we'll always give you ample warning about when your membership is about to renew.
When you express interest in a job, the job poster can either shortlist you or decline your interest. When a job poster shortlists you, it means that they like the look of your profile and are giving you permission to contact them directly. Contact details are automatically shared with every shortlist. When you’re shortlisted for a job, a fee is charged.
How much will I pay for a shortlist fee?
Shortlist fees range from £1 to £25, with an average value of about £5.50. We approve jobs manually, and do our best to price each shortlist fee according to the expected job value. The shortlist fee for every job will be clearly visible on the lead page, before you decide to express interest. Remember, there is no fee for expressing interest - the fee only applies if you are shortlisted.
We do not credit or refund shortlist fees or membership fees under any circumstances.
We don't refund shortlist fees because it’s impractical and costly for us to accurately verify the outcome of a job after tradesmen have been shortlisted. It would also leave the system open to abuse.
We price our fees extremely competitively. If we were to offer credits or refunds, our fees would increase - something we want to avoid at all costs.
Quality tradesmen should expect to generate a return after a relatively short period of time. If you've tried your best and still feel that MyBuilder has not delivered value for money, we'll be happy to look at your account and discuss ways of improving your success rate.
To register as a tradesman you'll need to provide the following:
Two customer references
You will need to provide details of two previous customers who are willing to recommend you. We ask for customer references to help us to decide if you're suitable for MyBuilder. Reference comments are also added to your profile as positive feedback, which will help you get started on MyBuilder.
We contact people by email and phone so ensure their details are up to date. Always seek your customer's permission for us to contact them first.
We verify references in a number of ways to ensure they are genuine and have been provided by the actual customer.
Proof of public liability insurance
You need to have public liability insurance in order to join MyBuilder. We will ask to see a copy of your insurance schedule which you can upload, fax or post to us. If you don't have public liability insurance, you should first contact a reputable provider who can arrange suitable cover for your business.
Public liability insurance covers any damage or accidental injury to a third party or their property caused by you or your employees or your business. A business that isn't covered by public liability insurance may be exposed to serious financial risk if it was found to be liable to pay for damages or compensation from its own pocket.
Many customers will require proof of valid public liability insurance before allowing work to be undertaken.
Yes - but it'll take longer to process your application. We find that references submitted via our online form are of higher quality than comments taken over the phone. Reference comments are also added to your profile as positive feedback which will ultimately help you win more work.
If you’re unable to obtain an email address for your referee, simply enter ‘noemail@noemail.com’ and contact us to let us know. Your reference will be added to our call list. We aim to contact referees via telephone within 3 working days.
You can submit any previous customer reference for work that was carried out within the last 12 months. You must submit the details through MyBuilder though so we verify their comments.
There are a number of reasons why we decline references:
Your application may be declined If we suspect that your references are anything less than 100% genuine.
The application process normally takes between 5-10 working days unless we have difficulty verifying or collecting certain information.
Your application may be delayed if we haven't been able to verify your references or liability insurance. You can help speed up the application process:
We decline applications for a number of reasons, which do not necessarily reflect on you personally. At MyBuilder, we’re aware that we can’t help all tradesmen find work. If we believe that we’ll be unable to help a tradesman find work, for whatever reason, we decline the application.
Depending on the reason for declining an application, we sometimes invite tradesmen to reapply, offering tips and advice where appropriate.
If you’d like to cancel your application to join MyBuilder, please contact us.
If you’d like to talk to a member of our team about joining MyBuilder, please contact us. We'll be only too happy to call you back.
Yes. Changing your trades or working area may affect your membership price though. If this happens, you’ll be notified of any change in price before you commit.
Your lead guarantee is a bespoke prediction of how many leads you’ll receive in a given subscription period, calculated using a number of variables, including your working area and selected trades, historical and seasonal data.
If you don’t hit your lead guarantee by the time your membership is due for renewal, providing you have a valid lead guarantee, we'll give you extra time for free until we do.
You will invalidate your lead guarantee if:
If your lead guarantee is invalidated, we will renew your membership at the date specified on your My Membership page, regardless of whether we have met your lead guarantee or not.
You'll need to visit your membership page and set up a new agreement before your current membership expires. We'll then send you an email with your membership quote and lead guarantee 7 days before your Pro Trade membership expires. Please note that we're not able to give you a lead guarantee before this time.
Editing your list of trades and/or working area may affect your membership quote and lead guarantee.
No - but you can view a breakdown of the leads you’ve received by trade using your Dashboard Analytics. Always place your main trades at the top of your list to ensure that we send you the most relevant leads.
There is no limit to the number of leads you might received in a membership period. If you exceed your lead guarantee, you’ll continue to receive leads until your membership is due for renewal - at no extra cost. This doesn’t necessarily mean that your membership price will change for the next quarter.
Updating your trades and/or working area may affect your lead guarantee and membership price. Once we have set your lead guarantee and issued an invoice, you can move to a higher or lower price band within the current subscription period.
If you move to a higher membership price band, we will issue an invoice for the new amount. If you move to a lower membership price band, we will issue a credit note to your account.
To cancel your membership, visit your membership page and select Close Account. You will be given the option of switching your account off immediately or when your membership is next due to renew.
If your account is switched off before your membership agreement is due for renewal, it will invalidate your lead guarantee. If you pay for your membership with WorldPay, we will terminate your agreement. You will not receive any more leads.
If you're having second thoughts about your membership, get in touch. We'll be happy to chat about your account.
At the bottom of your membership page, you'll find a link to pause your membership.
You can pause your membership as often as you want, but only up to 14 days at a time. Your membership will be reactivated automatically on the date you select, so you don't need to remember to turn it back on. If you have a lead guarantee, it will not be affected - you'll just go into free extra time to hit your guarantee. If you don't have a lead guarantee or have already hit your lead guarantee, your membership will still be renewed on the scheduled date.
If you pause your membership, we'll stop sending you leads, but you'll still appear on the search results and may get invitations from job posters.
Each job has a pool of tradesmen who are allowed to quote. The pool is created by our system using each tradesman's distance from the job and their ranked skills as criteria for selection.
An expanding search finds the most relevant tradesmen to put in the pool instead of using pre-defined distances and ranked skills. If a job has not received sufficient interest in the first day, the lead is sent to more tradesmen.
Job posters can search the MyBuilder trade directory and invite individual tradesmen to quote, regardless of whether they have been pooled for the job. You will be charged a shortlist fee if you accept an invitation. Invitations are warm leads because the job poster has specifically chosen you but should be accepted quickly to avoid disappointment.
Job posters prefer to use local, specialist tradesmen so our system searches for tradesmen whose combined skills and location most closely match the job.
You may still receive a lead if a job has not received sufficient interest a day or two after being posted. Customers may also search the entire list of tradesmen and invite you to quote.
This depends on the type of work that you do, the number of jobs posted in your area and the number of other tradesmen who do the same work in your area.
Paid memberships come with a guaranteed number of leads for that period. If we don't hit that number, we'll give you extra time for free, until we do.
We send out alerts via email as jobs are posted on MyBuilder. You will receive a job alert if new jobs have been posted in your working area matching your skills and trades or if a customer requests a quote from you. If a customer invites you, we will also send you an SMS.
When we can't find enough relevant tradesmen for a job or insufficient tradesmen express interest in a job, we widen the search in 24 hour intervals until enough tradesmen express interest. You will usually find that these jobs are either further away than usual or are less relevant to your main trades.
Once you express interest in a job, the job poster can either shortlist you or decline your interest. When a job poster shortlists you, it means that they like the look of your profile and are giving you permission to contact them directly. Contact details are automatically shared with every shortlist. When you’re shortlisted for a job, a fee is charged.
A maximum of 5 tradesmen can be shortlisted for each job. On average, between 1 and 2 tradesmen are shortlisted for each job. You can see how many tradesmen have expressed interest and shortlisted at the bottom of every job description. You can also see a list of up to date shortlist averages here.
When a job poster shortlists you, contact details are exchanged - after which you are free to share any and all other contact details with the job poster
We don't allow introduction messages that could, knowingly or otherwise, undermine the shortlist fee. This includes but is not limited to:
We reserve the right to charge the appropriate shortlist fee if a message is in breach of this policy.
It is not possible to request more information about a job without being shortlisted. If you express interest in a job, the job poster may shortlist you at which point you will be charged the shortlist fee quoted for that job.
We verify the job poster's telephone number before they are allowed to shortlist. We use a PIN based system, similar to what banks use. If you are unable to reach the job poster on the phone number provided, you should keep trying, and make sure you also send a message through the site. You will not be able to quote for every job you're shortlisted for, but you should have success with a vast majority of leads.
Sometimes a viewing might not be necessary. For instance, if a job description contains all the information you require. In many cases however, a viewing is essential in order to provide the customer with an accurate quote.
Request a viewing by using the built-in messaging facility. Customers may ask for an indicative quote ahead of a viewing to help shortlist potential tradespeople. Again, if you aren't able to provide a quote based on the information provided, use the messaging facility to communicate with customers and explain why you feel a viewing is the best way forward.
There is a good chance that if you don't have the information you need to provide a quote, other tradespeople will feel the same way. If you have an informative profile and good feedback, you'll have a great chance of viewing the site and winning the job!
You can pay for your invoices online via MyBuilder. Online payments offer the following benefits:
Invoice payments can be set to Automatic or Manual from your Billing Settings page. Both methods will use the credit or debit card you registered with WorldPay
Manual payment requires you to log in and click a button to pay. Automatic payments will be taken from your card on the due date of your invoice.
If you don't remember your WorldPay username and password, or are unable to retrieve your details, you can change your registered card by creating a new agreement.
Once you have created a new agreement, we will automatically cancel your old agreement.
If you let an invoice become very overdue:
It is important that you pay any very overdue invoices as soon as possible. If you are having trouble paying or have any queries about your invoice, you should contact us as soon as possible.
Depending on the type of payment method you used, there may be a delay in the restriction being lifted on your account. If your payment was submitted online, try logging out of your account and logging back in.
You should normally allow up to seven working days if you posted a cheque to us.
If your membership payments are set to automatic, we send a notification email approximately one week prior to payment is taken. Payments are taken automatically four days later using the payment method specified when you created an agreement.
If your WorldPay subscription failed for any reason, you will need to create a new agreement.
We automatically allocate credit notes against any new or outstanding invoices.
Feedback is at the heart of the MyBuilder community. Quite simply, feedback is an evaluation of work carried out. Job posters can read previous feedback comments on each tradesperson's profile, before they hire.
More importantly, Job posters can add to a tradesperson's reputation and bring accountability to their project by posting feedback when the job is done.
Genuine feedback has two important elements: the past and the future. Before customers decide who to hire, they look at your past feedback. After they hire you and the work is finished, they will add to that feedback, in either a positive or negative way. This future feedback rewards excellent service and punishes bad work.
You have a strong incentive to do your best in order to get feedback, which in turn increases your chances of getting more work (and being able to charge more for it), and more good feedback. You can get this virtuous circle started remarkably quickly through MyBuilder. Growing your business just got a lot easier!
We verify everyone who posts a feedback comment to ensure that the feedback is genuine.
If you don't have feedback, this could hinder your chances of winning work. That's why we ask all new applicants to provide details of two previous customers who are happy to give a recommendation. Comments are then posted to the site as positive feedback.
The first two references are on us. You are allowed a further two references at a cost of £7.50 + VAT each. Simply log in to your account and go to References to provide us with details.
Your feedback score is expressed as the total number of positive and negative feedback comments posted on your profile. Client references taken by MyBuilder count as positive feedback.
You have the right to reply to negative feedback and tell your side of the story. Your response will be posted directly underneath the original feedback comment.
Unfortunately MyBuilder cannot get involved directly with disputes.
All feedback comments undergo stringent technical and manual checks to ensure that they are genuine. Suspicious feedback is flagged and investigated thoroughly and we remove any feedback that fails our checks.
We will inform you by email if feedback has been removed from your account and the options available to you.
We reserve the right, in accordance with our terms and conditions, to remove any user from the site at our discretion and without notice who we believe to have breached our policies.
If you want to change your trading name, please contact us. We may need to ask for more information about the changes you want to make.
MyBuilder is not a trade directory. We will remove any contact details found on your profile, including images. Such behaviour undermines other tradespeople on the site who are using our service in good faith. Please contact us should you notice anyone displaying their contact details.
We only allow tradespeople to hold multiple accounts in exceptional circumstances. If you need to open multiple accounts please contact us.
Ask a tradesman is a feature that lets tradesmen show off their knowledge by answering questions posted by our users. Questions will be shown on your dashboard that match your areas of expertise.
Questions you answer will appear on your profile, demonstrating your expertise to potential clients. The most helpful answers - based on votes - will get special recognition.
No - questions are not attached or linked to jobs posted to the website.
Not at the moment. Geographical data can be used in several ways to good effect, so it's something we're looking in to.
On the contrary - the feature will reduce the number time-wasters as customers can now ask a question rather than having to post a job to get advice. A customer who receives a selection of good answers is also more likely to return to the site and post a job in the future.
Yes - we manually approve all questions and answers to ensure they're relevant and in keeping with our policies.
The most helpful answers - based on 'liked' votes - will get special recognition.
Absolutely - tradesmen can post questions if they wish.
Your answers will appear next to the feedback tab on your profile.
Unfortunately not. We'll remove any contact details found within your anwsers. Please contact us if you notice anyone displaying their contact details. We're fairly relaxed about you including links to manufacturer's websites if you want to mention a product in your answer.
In order to get the most from MyBuilder, it's important that you're able to receive our email updates. Unfortunately, some email providers occasionally block our messages.
If you're not receiving our messages, your email provider may be blocking our mail. To help fix this problem, you should add do-not-reply@mybuilder and info@mybuilder.com to your safe senders list.
If you're not sure how to do this, please check your email provider's help and advice section. This will only take a few minutes and helps us to deliver a better service to our community.
Official Hotmail, MSN, Live support or watch a quick video
Official Yahoo, BT Internet support or watch a quick video
Official Google/Gmail, Virgin Media support or watch a quick video
Simply click here and enter your email address. We will automatically send you an email containing instructions about how to reset your password.
In the unfortunate event that a customer refuses to pay for work carried out, it’s best practice to discuss any problems directly to work out a solution that suits you both. Try to avoid involving third parties.
Upon speaking to your customer make sure they appreciate your circumstances. If necessary show a detailed breakdown of the work carried out. Of course - you’d rather receive payment directly and avoid the hassle of obtaining court proceedings or the services of debt collection agencies. Bear in mind that both these avenues cost time and money.
If you you've done everything you can to acquire payment and the customer is still unresponsive, you should seek help and advice from a professional trade body. They should be able to provide you with advice on what to do next.
The FMB have an article on this very topic
You can also find help and advice on the Governments Business link website
We support our Community primarily via email and the help section of our site. We currently don't offer full telephone support. If you need to talk us however, please contact us including the following information:
We will endeavour to call at your preferred time, otherwise we will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible.
MyBuilder is a community site that promotes mutual respect and friendly conduct amongst all users. We work hard to ensure that all content posted to the site is appropriate and in keeping with our policies.
Despite our best efforts, MyBuilder cannot guarantee that the site is entirely free from offensive or inappropriate content. If you happen to be subjected to or encounter such conduct or content, please do not hesitate to contact us. We will do our best to investigate reports of this nature and take appropriate action as necessary.
Absolutely. We're very happy that you've had a good experience using MyBuilder. Send us a message with your comments and we'll post them on the site. Please let us know if you're happy for us to publish your name and/or company details along with the testimonial. Alternatively, if you'd like to tell us about your experience over the phone, include your number and the best time to call and let us contact you.
Certainly. We're constantly updating the site and always looking for new ways to improve our service. Send us a message with your suggestions. If you'd like to talk to us over the phone, send us a message including your number and the best time to call.
Public liability insurance covers any damage or accidental injury to a third party or their property caused by you or your employees or your business. It also covers any related costs and expenses such as legal fees, as well as hospital treatment costs (including ambulance charges) that the NHS may claim from you.
Public liability insurance will cover your employees from claims made by members of the public against you, your employees or your business, but it will not cover you from claims made by your employees against you.
Public liability insurance does not cover claims from your employees for damage or injury; you will need to ensure that you have employer's liability insurance.
Public liability insurance covers any damage or accidental injury to a third party or their property caused by you or your employees or your business. A business that isn't covered by public liability insurance may be exposed to serious financial risk if it was found to be liable to pay for damages or compensation from its own pocket.
Many customers will require proof of valid public liability insurance before allowing work to be undertaken.
Employers' liability insurance is protection from claims from your employees or former employees for injury during their time working for you. This will also cover any illness that they may suffer from as a result of the work they have done for you during their employment.
As an employer, you are responsible for the health and safety of your employees while they are at work. You should ensure that you have at least the minimum level of employers' liability insurance to cover against any claims.
We now have a mobile friendly version of the site, compatible with most smart/android phones.
For a full list of recommended devices and browsers please visit:
http://jquerymobile.com/demos/1.0rc2/docs/about/platforms.html
MyBuilder is best experienced using A or B Grade devices.
Some users have reported problems using MyBuilder mobile on certain older Blackberry devices. MyBuilder mobile is best experienced using supported A and B Grade devices. We are aware of this issue and doing our best to resolve it. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.
