You go on Checkatrade. You find a highly rated plumber — 4.8 stars, 200 reviews, Gas Safe registered. You book the job. On Thursday afternoon, someone knocks on your door. They're wearing a polo shirt with a logo. They say they're from the company. You let them in.
Here is what the platform knows about this moment: nothing.
Checkatrade verified the business. They confirmed the company is registered, that it holds relevant certifications, that past customers left reviews. But when that person knocked on your door, the platform had no idea if they were the business owner, a vetted employee, a subcontractor brought in that morning, or someone else entirely.
This is the blind spot at the centre of every trade platform operating today.
The Lead-to-Door Gap
Trade platforms operate a specific model: they connect a customer who needs a job done with a business that can do it. The platform's role ends — practically speaking — once the lead is generated and the booking is confirmed.
What happens next is invisible to the platform:
- The customer submits a job request. The platform passes details to relevant businesses.
- A business accepts the job. Communication moves to phone, text, or WhatsApp — off-platform.
- Someone shows up. The platform has no data on who arrived, when, or whether they were the person the customer expected.
- The job is completed (or isn't). The platform only learns about the outcome if the customer leaves a review.
Between the lead and the front door, the platform is blind. It doesn't know if the business owner came personally, sent an employee, subcontracted to a mate, or passed the job to someone with no connection to the verified business at all.
This gap is not a minor inconvenience. It is the space where doorstep crime, cowboy builders, and zero accountability thrive.
The Substitution Problem
The most common version of this blind spot is substitution: the person you booked is not the person who arrives.
This happens constantly and for a range of reasons — some benign, some not:
- The business owner sends an employee. The employee may be competent and trustworthy, but they weren't vetted by the platform. The reviews, the certifications, the Gas Safe registration — those belong to the business, not the individual standing in your hallway.
- The business subcontracts the job. Especially for lower-value or overflow work, businesses routinely pass jobs to other tradespeople. The subcontractor has no profile on the platform. No reviews. No verification. They're a stranger with someone else's booking reference.
- The business doesn't exist anymore. In some cases, the verified listing is out of date. The original owner has moved on, and someone else is using the name, the phone number, or the relationship with the platform.
The customer has no way to know. They see a van with a logo and a person who knows their name and address. That's enough for most people to open the door.
The Cost of the Blind Spot
Doorstep crime costs UK victims an estimated 57 million pounds annually. The average victim is over 75 years old. The conviction rate is below 5%.
But the cost goes well beyond criminal fraud. It includes:
- Cowboy builders who take deposits, do substandard work, and disappear — leaving the customer with no recourse because they can't identify who actually did the work
- Insurance claims that fail because the homeowner can't prove who was on the premises when the damage occurred
- Liability gaps when something goes wrong — an injury, property damage, a safety issue — and nobody can establish who was responsible
- Platform reputation damage when customers blame the platform for an experience the platform had no visibility into
The platforms themselves recognise this limitation. Checkatrade, Trustatrader, MyBuilder — they all invest heavily in business verification, background checks, and review systems. But none of them can solve the fundamental problem: they verify the entity that receives the lead, not the human who arrives at the door.
Why Reviews Don't Fix It
The standard platform response is reviews: let customers rate their experience after the job is done. Over time, bad actors accumulate bad reviews and fall out of the system.
This works — partially and slowly. But it has critical limitations:
- Reviews are retrospective. They tell the next customer about the last customer's experience. They do nothing for the person who's already had a bad experience.
- Reviews are about the business, not the person. A five-star business can send a one-star subcontractor. The review doesn't distinguish between them.
- Reviews are gameable. Fake reviews, review manipulation, and selective review solicitation are persistent problems across every platform.
- Victims often don't leave reviews. Elderly victims of doorstep crime rarely go back to the platform to leave a one-star rating. The data is systematically biased toward positive outcomes.
Reviews are a useful signal. They are not verification. They cannot tell you who is standing at your door right now.
Closing the Loop with Two-Way Verification
The fix for the lead-to-door gap is verification at the point of service — the moment the tradesperson arrives. Not a review after the fact. Not a badge that could belong to anyone. Real-time, identity-level confirmation that the person at the door is the person you booked.
Here's how this works with Certifyd:
- The tradesperson arrives and presents a dynamic QR code — generated in real time, refreshing every 30 seconds, linked to their verified identity
- The customer scans it — instantly confirming the person's name, their association with the verified business, and any relevant certifications
- A timestamped, geolocated record is created — proof that this specific, verified individual was at this address at this time
- The platform gets data on the full journey — from lead to door to completion, closing the visibility gap for the first time
For the customer, this means peace of mind. You know who is in your home.
For the tradesperson, this means proof. You were there, on time, and verified. If a dispute arises, you have an auditable record.
For the platform, this means visibility into the part of the journey that has always been invisible. Who actually showed up. Whether it was the verified business or a substitution. Whether the customer was satisfied in real time, not just in retrospect.
The Platform Opportunity
The trade platform that solves the lead-to-door gap doesn't just reduce fraud. It creates a fundamentally better product. Full journey visibility means better data, better matching, better trust, and — ultimately — a platform that can charge a premium because it verifies the entire experience, not just the introduction.
The technology exists. Two-way verification at the doorstep takes 30 seconds. No app download for the customer. No specialist hardware. Just a QR code scan that closes the blind spot the industry has lived with since the first trade platform launched.
The question for platforms is not whether point-of-service verification will become standard. It's whether they'll lead the change or be disrupted by someone who does. For more on the risk homeowners face, read Who's Really at Your Door?
See how Certifyd closes the lead-to-door gap for trade platforms.