When York trading standards officers wanted to call out an electrician, they did the same as most consumers. They looked in local directories and picked a name.

Unlike most consumers, however, they already knew what was wrong with the electrical equipment. The officers had 'broken' the machines themselves in order to test the integrity of the repair men.

It was a test that most failed. Only two correctly diagnosed and fixed the fault, and charged a reasonable fee for the job. The remaining seven gave their "customers" the run around.

All the faults were simple to fix. But by the time it came to explaining the problem to the customer, these simple faults had developed into major malfunctions. One repair man tut-tutted over a fridge's dodgy thermostat. Another mumbled about the video's "serious carriage problem". Then they charged for fitting non-existent parts.

To use an appropriately electrical term, this behaviour is shocking.

Consumers have little choice but to turn to the experts when one of their myriad of high-tech appliances malfunctions. When it comes to electrical equipment, do-it-yourself is too dangerous to consider.

So we have to trust the technicians. But seven out of the nine in the trading standards survey betrayed that trust.

Although this does not reflect well on the trade, it is important to stress that there are many electricians who do their job with integrity and professionalism. The difficulty highlighted by this operation is how to find them and avoid the cowboys.

Simply by mounting such "stings", the trading standards department is putting pressure on the conmen. But the best way to improve consumer confidence is self-regulation.

There are already at least two trade bodies, the National Inspection Council for Electrical Installation Contracting and the Electrical Contractors Association. They must be rigorous about which firms they approve. And then they can promote their members as technicians to trust.

Meanwhile, there are lessons to be learned from the scheme to improve the image of the motor trade. Today the first York car dealers to receive trading standards accreditation were receiving their certificates.

This scheme allows customers to trust authorised dealers which have pledged to treat them fairly. And if something still goes awry, a formal complaints procedure is in place to deal with the problem. This excellent scheme could be extended to other trades - including electricians.

see NEWS 'Rip-off repairmen caught in trading standards sting'

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