Small claims court; you have given these people the chance to set things right. I suggest you claim a full refund.

As an aside, I wouldn't touch CheckaTrade with a barge pole.

What FP said. It is spot on. :)

Make sure you write to the trades by recorded delivery, stating what they did, what you paid them, what they did, why you are unhappy with what they did, and what you would like them to do to rectify the mistakes. If you have given them a chance to make amends, but that was not done in writing, then you cannot prove it, so you are best to give them another 14 days to respond, and rectify the work, and if they do not, then start court proceedings. You will have to prove that the work is substandard, and you will need all receipts, and the quote which proves what they agreed to do. Ideally you need a survey from someone in the trade, but that costs money. Given your description, I'd take photos and if possible include the date in the photos, to show weeds coming up. You might want to examine some of the work, to find out why it failed, and photograph what you find. With luck they will have missed out something important, making proving it easily, and such trades often give in before reaching court.

The costs of taking action through the small claims court system are not a flat fee - it's quite complicated.

Refer to www.gov.uk/make-court-claim-for-money/court-fees

You will see that costs vary from £25 to £685, depending on the amount claimed, as a starting point (using the online claim facility), but if there's an actual court hearing, or if a judgement need to be enforced, there are further fees. These will be added to the amount you are claiming.

Tony's point about deciding whether the defendant in any case will be able to repay you is good common sense. There is no point in starting a claim which has no hope of being repaid, bitter though it may be for you to accept that.

From what you say of the work, the bill you paid could be quite small, or considerably more, depending on the area landscaped. You need to do some homework, possibly based on getting another firm to estimate how much it would cost to put the defective work right. My initial suggestion to go for a full refund may not be realistic.

Edited by FP on 30/07/2013 at 12:17

There appears to be a facility on the CheckaTrade website to register complaints of unsatisfactory work, they claim to follow up with the trader and may remove them from the listing to protect other potential customers.

I know from personal experience that CheckATrade is not what it claims to be.

I had some bathroom fitters destroy a bathroom. Faults included wall tiles overlapping coving, cement based adhesive used on bare plaster, with no primer, and a shower at the opposite end of a bath to the taps. I threw them out before they could complete the bodge, and I got 3 independent surveys including one from a tiler, which showed that the work was incomptent. Several months later I had the bathroom completely refitted, and I recovered a sink, a shower and a WC. The bath had to be thrown away. All of the wall tiles had to be removed because they were barely adhering to the walls, and they would have fallen off anyway due to a chemical reaction between cement and bare plaster.

I complained to CheckATrade, and they ignored my emails. After many months I complained directly to Kevin Byrne, the founder. They 'investigated' and came to the conclusion that having paid £3000 to the bodgers, I owed further money, but out of generosity they would wipe out the additional money owed, which was ~£50. That left me out of pocket by ~£2500 plus the cost of renting a flat for many months.

Trading Standards intervened, and accepted the work was below the legally allowed standard. After almost a year, I received £1800 compensation. I lost between £500 and £1000, plus flat rental, and I had a year of stress. I suspect had I gone to the SCC, it would have been resolved sooner, with more compensation. But because TS intervened, I had to let them mediate. As for CheckATrade, they are paid by the trades, not you. So guess who calls the tune?

Some trades on CAT are very good. My neighbour had his bathroom done by someone from CAT and it is excellent. But a significant number of trades on CAT are poor. And CheckATrade support the trades, not you, as the trades pay their income, not you. I had my boiler serviced, adn I found out he was on CAT. I found out that he had not even taken the cover off the boiler. According to Worcester Bosch he had not done a proper service. I should have known.

I would not trust sites such as GetABodger, BetterBodger and CheckABodger. I am told by several people who say they are members of CAT that it is easy to fake reviews. And the review is written after the job is complete. If subsequently the work falls to pieces, you cannot edit the review. And the trade has a right to reply. I wrote a poor review for CAT. The cowboys had it pulled immediately, by claiming a death in the family. A month later it reappeared with a response, which refuted all of my claims, including a statement that they used acrylic wall tile adhesive, which does not need primer. Despite the fact that I showed CAT a letter from the cowboys stating that they used cement based adhesive, and primed with Bal Primer, CAT allowed the response to stay. In other words, i could prove that the cowboys had lied in the response. But the response made me look dishonest.

The people who run CheckATrade, especially Kevin Byrne, should be ashamed of their behaviour. They have set up a system to allow incompetent trades to get work from members of the public. Not all are like that, most are probably okay, and some are very good, but a significant number are bad.

Edited by Leif on 04/08/2013 at 11:18

There appears to be a facility on the CheckaTrade website to register complaints of unsatisfactory work, they claim to follow up with the trader and may remove them from the listing to protect other potential customers.

That's total BS in my experience, they are happy to put up positive comments and even comments that would appear to be written by the trader or his/her cronies, but try putting anything nehative and you have little chance of ever seeing it published!

In my opiinion, CheckaTradeis just a money-making scam, taking money from traders whatever their work is like, then trouble is, then the good, honest ones have to sign up as the poor, dishonest ones look good through CheckaTrade.

In future stick to traders recommnded via friends/family or through trading standards