Unreliable builders

[thaimoon]

Need some work done and it's quite a specialist job so took us a while to find someone who could come and give us a quote.

He agreed on thursday and said he could visit the following day, never turned up and messaged late evening to reschedule.

Also never turned up at rescheduled appointment.

Have messaged to say thank you but we will be looking elsewhere. Now apologising and asking to come another day.

DH says I am unreasonable to not give him another chance as all builders are like this.
I admit I don't have that much experience so ... AIBU to look for someone else?

I knocked on a sort of knew them but not really neighbours door

If not I’d suggest putting a note through a not neighbours door that had similar work done and ask if they would get in touch

I did use one of these believe it not!

I actually meant trustatrader.com not mybuilder - I got them confused.

@Puzzledandpissedoff is right - the people who quote for business online are generally crap.

With checkatrade and trustatrader you can check their reviews/feedback which are genuine. (I've just done a review for checkatrade despite not getting the technician via the site).

Personal recommendations aren't always any use - I've just tried a handyman who was strongly recommended by 2 good friends and he was rubbish. I mean he turned up and did the job but the standard wasn't high enough.

I can totally believe this. I recently listed an electrician job on MyBuilder, I was really clear about the job so that only people who were interested would respond. Got three very quickly, one didn't show up to quote. Of the other two, one came out and then after I gently chased them a week later said it was too hard to put a number on so they'd just charge a daily rate (but wouldn't tell me what this was or how many days they thought it would take so was utterly useless). The last one gave us a figure and out of desperation we accepted the quote, then radio silence ensued when I tried to arrange a date and when they finally got back to me it was to say they've had an offer of a larger job come in since I accepted the quote so they now won't be able to help. All from a service that's meant to avoid this scenario! We had a similar (but marginally better) experience with plumbers using check a trade a few months ago, I'm now sworn off all such sites.

In the end OP I searched our local Facebook group for people looking for recommendations for reliable electricians and very easily got a quote and booking from that. I think you said yours is a specialist job but maybe try this approach? It's all such a ballache.