Bark

Opened a request for new website and quickly received a number of good responses from multiple companies. The respondents were detailed, attentive and competitive.

I have spent in total £147.84 for getting only one reply from a customer which have not led to any job. So basically I've sponsored bark and received nothing in return. It's true what other person said that they lure potential buyers with a ridiculously low budget estimates, which mean at best you would earn £2-3 per hour. But the thing is I even didn't get to the stage of discussing the budget, as people just simply not replying to any messages, emails or phone calls. If I would've spent this money on platforms where they charge 20% for completed work, offering, for example, some discounts to clients I would earn at least something or even decent money. Here I've just thrown money for nothing. Their sales team calls promising they improved their service to get you accurate leads and ensuring of 30 to 50% conversion rate. In reality, you're lucky if you get 3% and 0% ROI. The reality is I have now £150 less on my bank account. There is plenty of bad opinions of this service on other sites, especially from photographers and videographers so sellers don't repeat mistakes of others and don't waste your money. I've contacted bark asking for a refund they informed me they don't offer any refunds.

Arrived on time and stayed a bit longer to make sure my flat was truly spotless. Very courtesous, polite and easy to have around. 100% satisfied. Would book again without hesitation.

Having been a bark user for a long time, I was persuaded to try an Elite pro account free of charge over the phone. The adviser never mentioned I would be automatically charge £25 per month charged monthly afterwards, unldess I cancelled it. I did not notice until 2 months afterwards they charged my current account, and will not refund. They confirmed its my responsibility to Cancel No notification sent to me by email to say they are taking money in advance, Nothing AVOID AT ALL COSTS the pleasant sales people, who lie and omit important information Yes I should have checked my accounts, but I I wasnt told that they would continue to charge my card at will. Have cancelled them now.

Do not sign up to this service if you are providing bookkeeping services, I have had one lead win and didn't end up charging as the woman was retired and had been ripped off doing her rental return from her last accountant - was unbelievable. She was the only one that replied to a lead, the others did not answer emails, mobile numbers and the like.

I have advised our local bookkeeping association of the lack of professionalism regarding credits., and leads i. E., sorry but we cannot refund your lead purchase as all leads are authentic, if they choose not to answer its not our problem. Plus if you accidentally click contact the lead you are auto charged the lead credits, a hard lesson learnt... To many hidden things within the website. Worst marketing mistake I could have made and I warn all other bookkeepers, do not subscribe! The best one was been given a free trial to the Elite Pro Service then auto charging without confirmation I wanted the service to continue...

Bark.Com for service providers is a scam all the way. They took my money during covid19 and have no transparency... Leads are fraudulent or people just sticking them up there for feelers of pricing. Plus when you explicitly advise you don't use particular software, why would Bark.Com send me an email asking me to contact the lead when this is clearly outlined in my service. They use too many algorithms to pull you in, and simply not a flash company at all.

Waste of money. Spent almost £500 to buy credits and leads and many did not answer, many didn't want a quote, many were just getting an idea of how much it would cost them, out of all £500 spend on leads I secured only one job with profit of £400. Total loss of money.

I don't think they instruct people that are looking for professionals, that the professionals will pay to get the lead and they should not post if they don't definitely need someone.

The 'credits' are there to make you lose track of how much you have spent.

Another con: there is no 'delete card details' option. You simply cannot delete your card from there.

Another con: there is no option to cancel, dezactivate or delete the account. I have searched a lot. I have emailed them and waiting for a response.

Do not use the website or app or whatever. I cannot believe I am working so hard to earn money and secure a normal living, and then there are people like them, earning £500 for nothing. Absolutely doing nothing. There is no customer service.

We booked a caterer called Served Catering through Bark for our grand opening event for our new apartment community. We paid upfront as you would for a caterer, this event was over $7000. The day of the event scheduled for 250+ people, I received an email marked "Urgent" stating that they had to cancel the event because of plumbing issues that contaminated the food. They promised a full refund and a gift certificate in the amount spent, we did not receive either. When we tried to call the number associated with the email the VM was full. No email reply's either.
Obviously, I failed to do my homework, my bad!

Bark says they are not in control and simply put us in touch with companies much like the "yellow pages". Shame on me for not doing my own research-wait what are these companies for then?

Bark response below:
"As we're not party to the eventual contract between you and your chosen professional, unfortunately, we cannot directly assist you in resolving this situation. Any agreement you have is between yourself and the professional concerned. Our role is simply to put you in touch with a professional in much the same way the Yellow Pages, Google or an advert in the paper would do."

11 most sophisticated scams you should watch out for... bark.com is number 3.

I tried and i hate it... i called *******323 asked for money back but no luck i was encouraged to spend all the leftover $70 out of $100 after i told her that its not working for me.

PLEASE SPEND YOUR $100 ON FACEBOOK OR YOUTUBE OR EVEN TIKTOK AND YOU WILL HAVE 100 TIMES BETTER RESULT THEN THIS TRASH.

My mother, now in her 80's, chose a 'professional' roofer using Bark.com- she believed Bark to a trustworthy filter for selecting from a sea of potential cowboy builders, as she had no personal 'safe' direct recommendations.
She is sharp and far from a typical old lady. Her major concern was that she would be overcharged and taken advantage of because she is elderly.
Choosing Bark made her feel safer.
Sadly she has put herself in a very vulnerable situation no thanks to Bark.com
She has now been conned out of £6700 and had signed up to have anther £4000 of work carried out at the roofer's suggestion- for jobs that didn't exist.
She was lied to as the roofing team lied throughout their time at her property and had the audacity to go through her home and into her loft. The work undertaken still isn't finished. These men were criminals and both
Trading standards and the Police are now involved. We have told them about Bark's part in this miserable situation and I hope they close this extremely poor platform down. I also hope no one in their right mind chooses to use them.
Without assessing the professionals they advertise, or the fake reviews- what actually is their purpose. They no value whatsoever.
Disgusted.

Wrote a review for a contractor on Bark.com. It was uploaded but when I checked again after 10 min, it was removed. Now I understand why seeing that contractors pay money to be on the website, ofc the reviews are controlled to reflect the best interest of the contractors. Just warning customers to be careful when using this website to hire for their next project. I lost thousands of dollars because of them

JL evolution LTD did a bathroom remodel. Please see their finished work. They refused to refund me claiming they did the work (regardless of what quality they left it). I consulted with other accredited bathroom renovation groups and all said these guys are not professionals and have no idea what they are doing and probably just followed along a YouTube video. There were over 10 major issues identified including wrong materials used, wall not installed properly. Plus other minor issues. They basically destroyed my bathroom and charged me $1,000 for it.
Yet on Bark, they got a 5 star rating and my review for taken down immediately after uploading.

I got the company Nationwide Paving and Building from the Bark website, They put down a patio for me, I found them to be very reliable, professional, very hard working, lovely guys, very clean job, would highly recommend them to anyone

So expensive per lead, and half of them don't exist or don't ever reply. Waste of time, money and energy. Better to get clients through good old fashioned advertising