Thumbtack

I signed on with thumbtack in 2013 or 14. I worked hard at building a 5 star top pro status. I had a customer back out of a contract in which I took a $600 deposit.
I purchased hardware that took some time to arrive. After time the client said they did not want to follow through with the project. They wanted their deposit back. Contract states not responsible for special orders not arriving on time and deposits will not be refunded after 72 hours.
The client went to Thumbtack and they try to act as Judge and Jury. I sent copies of all paperwork and called it a day. Well they kindly suspended my account.
After all that time and money I spent, they stuck their noses in a matter that was for a local judge to decide not a Thumbtack employee. The client had no chance in court so they pleaded with Thumbtack. Well my reputation as usual still stands strong and I warn any contractor to stay away from Thumbtack because you will get stuck!
Also what are the chances of everyone requesting kitchens in one day then decks the next, basements the following day? I would guess 75-90 percent of the leads are bogus. Your time is worth much more!
Thank you,
Select Home Improvements

I talked with Zach and asked all my personal information, my credit card, all kind of question and told me that with one review that your own customer gives, we are going to open the account, ALL LIES because in couple days Zach or other people from thumbtack they put false review in order to open the account and start to charge my card, over $1,000 and when I realized in few days my card declined and they stop. If I would have one million dollars they will take all my
money with false leads and lies- now thumbtack don't want to return my money nor credit, nothing... now they block my number and don't answer. And the bank ignore also because my money it's already in thumbtack possession. And I never got no leads from thumbtack, I never did no money from this scam company.
Its not fair because I have my family and almost they throw me out of my apartment for non payment. Thumbtack and mr. Zach do not understand this my situation and now they don't want to give my money back. That it's called a robbery.

They need to review all of the "data mining" some of their pros are doing. That is my biggest issue with it but overall it was a bad experience. There were some positives but it's not worth it.
Sorry gotta start with the Bad:
1. I had my project listed with photos attached and explained in detail but I got constant requests for way too much data before they would even get a quote. There were several others that response was automated and directed you to a site to fill in all of your information and then some.
2. A lot of these pros must be on this site as a last minute resort because their follow up is awful.
3. A lot are not insured
4. They know how to get around being rated for response time because they will respond saying they will call or meet and then just don't show up.
Good
1. They try to let you rate for responsiveness, etc. unfortunately, pros seem to know how to get around these, they may automatically respond just so it shows they replied but they don't show up or call or they claim they did.
2. If they could get it running smoothly and find a better way to monitor "true response time" and "accountability" and prevent their pros from "data mining" or automatically just sending you to "yet another site", it would be huge.

I'm a small business owner and Thumbtack charges between $10 and $50 for a 'lead' but most of the time when you get a lead the 'customer' never responds and then thumbtack hides behind a horrible horrible 'refund policy disclaimer" to basically say "sucks to be you we have your money".

AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE. I'm serious. I saw the bad reviews and thought "oh those other people are just bad at converting leads" but most of the stuff you pay for at thumbtack couldn't be called a 'lead' by anyone on earth.

I have spent so much trying to get customers from here with no success. The customers do not tell you WHY they chose someone else... perhaps I could be in better competition if I knew why. ALSO AND MAYBE FOREMOST, after I get a request maybe 10 minutes later I respond but get a notice that the requestor already got their maximum responses and I am told I can't respond after 5 competitors got in.

I RECENTLY HAD GREEN FOR LIFE LANDSCAPERS MY YARD WAS REALLY IN NEED FOR HELP. THEY CAME TO THE RESCUE. THEY TRIMMED TREES, MOVED PLANTS REMOVED OVERGROWN SHRUBS,REMOVED ALL TRIMMINGS I WAS SO HAPPY WITH THE JOB. I COULD NOT THANK THEM ENOUGH.

They will sign you up acting like you have a budget of 120$. Then charge you hundreds of dollars without your consent. It takes a hour plus to get on the line with customer service.

I do not recommend using thumbtack.
As a pro or if you are looking for services.
Anyone who has thumbtack should delete it! You been warned. Don't get robbed because you use thumbtack. Stay away

We use several lead generation services and decided to give Thumbtack a try. We received tons of leads for services we didn't even provide. We checked to make sure we hadn't accidentally clicked on something we shouldn't have, but that was not the case. One of the categories we did select resulted in leads we couldn't bid on because the category consisted of 2 services. The problem was, in our state, a company cannot provide both the testing and the remediation. We contacted Thumbtack support and they weren't aware of this and said they would escalate our concern and see if they could separate out those 2 services. We just finally got tired of leads that still had absolutely nothing to do with the services we actually provide and deactivated our account. If you are looking for lead generation services go with Home Advisor. We receive plenty of good leads from them. Don't use Angie's List either. They are terrible. They promise leads and we received zero leads from them.

My experience with Thumbtack was as a business owner.
A couple years ago, when we started working with them, they would send acceptable leads with good conversion rates.
Over the past 8 to 12 months, things have been changing, negatively.
We now receive what they call "qualified leads" who whin't read messages, answer calls or even have a mailbox set to leave a message)
Despite these qualify leads, I'm still being charged. Thumbtack's policy towards professionals makes sense whatsoever.
They used to have an acceptable customer service operation where you were able to talk to a real person who would at least try to get a solution or explain to you why they couldn't accept a refund request.
Now, it is impossible to talk to a person on the phone and can make you wait for hours on hold, and nobody would answer or get back to you.
The way they assign prices to the leads lack of any reasonable logic, as there is no possible way to know how much each one would cost or the chances of someone acquiring a service or how much they have to pay for it.

I am a Cleaning company. The 1st 10 site points were free. I got. A job or two, they took my credits. I was encouraged, so I bought credits to bod jobs. Everything changes as soon as they got actual $ from me for bidding credits. I would bid a "lead " and get NO response, and they would take my $, contrary to thier contract " rules" They just take money and post phony leads.
THE LEADS ARE FAKE! PHONY LEADS. I had a friend post on there as a customer and her ad was never posted TOTAL SCAM, PHONY LEADS! See u in Hell, Thumbtack!

I wish i could give them a half of star Thumbtack is a made up company by 4 individuals they wanna be like home advisors they sell you leads and as a past contractor they i had a bad experience with them "CONTRACTORS BEWARE" this company gets into your personal business if you have a issue with one of there lead customers and if you don't resolve the issue there way they will suspend your account they make up rules as they go along and now there threatening to charge your credit card if you don't finish a job stay away you been warned