Trust a trade websites

There are ten's of dozen's of websites that claim that you can trust their vetted builders.

What a great service or is it?

Things were very quiet for us in the early part of 2009, the winter was bad and the world economy was on every front page around the world.

We decided that we should join a couple of these trust a trade organisations, I was shocked that all these company's work fairly the same. They ask for references and trade association but never proof, I could make these up and ask my mum for a reference. How can anybody claim to fully vet somebody without talking to there customers or more importantly having a look at there work?

The thing that made me wonder the most, is that they all earn money from the builder and not the customer, surely this is a conflict of interested as they are more interested in taking on builders than customers.

Kind of gives you doubt don't you think?