Sharing bad contractor experiences?

[Erin Church]

I'm curious what other folks do when they have terrible contractor experiences. I've been rehabbing properties for more than 3 minutes, so I've had both good and bad experiences with contractors. :) I want to add as a disclaimer that I feel bad contractor experiences fall on both parties. I've been too lenient on contractors - trying to show compassion, listening to their BS reasons that they're behind or that the work isn't properly done "yet", and so on. I don't think that having bad contractor experiences is 100% on a contractor as someone had to give them the opportunity to do the bad work/continue to be employed.)

When bad contractors happen, what's the best way to handle it? It feels like if a person stands on a soapbox and shares their experience with everyone, then they could be viewed as a "risk" to other contractors and seen as "unprofessional" and someone to be avoided by investors/community members. Also, it opens up the "he said, she said" dynamic. I've had contractors explain to me how certain clients were unreasonable, didn't understand the scope of work, didn't understand construction. It seems this is done in an attempt to discount any possible negative reviews from the person or to help guide the expected behavior of their future clients.

When someone does have a bad contractor experience and doesn't share it, it's like helping the contractor continue to dupe people. 

I feel like the "correct" answer is to leave a review on Google, Facebook, really everywhere you can about the facts, share your story with other investors that may cross your path, accept that some will view you a person who overreacts, and move on, but what do people really do? 

I'm currently having contractors redo work from a contractor that was within the local investor community. The "amount of bad" is higher than I realized as we are fixing some parts of the project. The guys I chat with about "daily investor things" know who the original contractor is, but I don't know if I'm enabling unethical contractor behaviors by not leaving written reviews. 

So, again I ask, when bad contractors happen, what's the best way to handle it? :)