Thumbtack

Pros BEWARE. Lots of FAKE LEADS. Thumbtack now providing pros with FAKE LEADS, they raised prices and refusing to refund for BOGUS leads, that are cancelled, no replies, etc. Everything changed since March 2020 and all they do - charge your credit card and NO real work and NO legit inquires! Seems like they are hiring people who creating FAKE accounts and Fake inquiries! Out of 20 leads that I paid for - ZERO work and ZERO replies. Do the math!

I signed up for Thumbtack hoping to generate some leads for my travel agency. Set the lowest weekly budget I could just to test it out. I had read that leads were typically about $6 each, which I was comfortable with as a test. The account goes live, and shortly after I get a lead that cost me $31. Call the number within 10 minutes, get voice mail with no name. I realize this is a scam, so I cancel my account in a panic. Just before I could cancel, I get another lead that cost me $29. The account was closed by then, so I didn't even get to see the lead information. Once you close the account, you have ZERO ability to contact Thumbtack or dispute a lead charge. So I filed chargebacks on the two leads and ultimately lost. I am out $60 for a bogus lead and another one I never even saw. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY, it is a total scam! I wish I had read the review before trying it out, I just never dreamed that leads would be so expensive and come so quickly -- easy to do when they are completely fake.

I am Very irritated with this company as they send as well as charge me for prospective clients that live over 4 hours away when I state I need clients 30 min or less away. After recently charging me for someone 4 hours away (which is impossible for me to train) they deactivated my account without any warning or reason.
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME OR MONEY ON THIS SITE!

This is an updated review. Coco does great work. I thought I was missing some stuff, and she was kind enough to come over and show me where everything was.

The work that was done on our outdoor plumbing was executed with such PROFESSIONALISM and FRIENDLINESS.
The COMPANY WORKERS were there on time and went to work immediately. They quickly discovered and distinguished the problem.
After recognizing what was wrong they met with us a gave us several options in dealing with our problem. They took in consideration all the factors possible. (i. E.) age of home,
Location of the troubled area, alternative routes, future problems if not taken care of immediately and of course the most important our budget.
The company NEIGHBOR ROOTER SERVICE helped us to weigh out the best possible scenario and we went ahead and had the job completed by them.
Vincent worked quickly with his assistant to cleanly finish the work and let us get back to what we needed to do painlessly.
We are proud and assured to HIGHLY give our RECOMENDATIONS to their WORK and to NEIGHBOR ROOTER SERVICE!

H A
Los Angeles

Their high reviews of contractors are deceptive. Most consist of people without the skills they claim to have overcharging for their services. I've tried a few and experienced damages as a result. One gentlemen installing a toilet upstairs in my house forgot to turn off the water outside and flooded my upstairs, causing water damage to my downstairs bedroom that I had to pay multiple companies to fix. That's just one example. Use at YOUR own risk! Other examples are when I hired someone to powerwash my driveway and sidewalks and he took the paint completely off my porch, didn't accomplish anything with his power washing and got mad and left when I complained! Another one is hiring someone to clean a vacant home and they show up and break my built-in microwave... I do check for insurance but these folks definitely are good at wiggling out of whatever they don't want to handle by ghosting you afterward whether they should do something or not. It's always risky to use this service because there's no way to separate the good from the bad contractors due to lots of fake reviews everywhere!

If I could give it this review a negative star I would. This is one of the worst third parties I have ever worked with. Not only is this expensive but it's not supportive. I've spent 200 to 400 dollars on leads but haven't been hired. When ever I finally get a bite they won't either commit or pay. I've been ghosted several times and over worked with very little pay. I even had a client completely deny payment cause their supervisor wanted to change the whole design. I had spent 1 month working on a 16 by 10 ft mural.it was completed realistically. When my clients refuse payment I completely broke down. They cheated me 2000 dollars. The past month I had another client lie about what area she wanted painted she underp- me.

Now I have to take another client to court due to breach of contract and false claims. I was told to refund her money and to finish the work which was finished. My client wants free corrections even though she signed a contract stating that any changes would be charged

To all my new freelancers who uses this platform please be mindful. There are way more third parties that offer better support and cost efficient

Here's a list

Bark
Upwork
Fiver
Hirellio
Dribble
Freelancer
Instagram

We paid over $2000 for a 6ft fence and paid additional for lattice to match a previously put up portion of fence. During some light wind the lattice all fell apart and when asked to come out and stand by their 3 year warranty the owner cussed at both my husband and I and refused to come out. These are her words below.
AS I STATED HE WAS NOT INJURED BUT HE DID GET BIT REGARDLESS ITS THE PRINCIPLE! YOU MAY KNOW NOTHING ABOUT THAT PRINCIPLES
NO ONES CRYING IM SICK OF $#*!ING TALKING TO A BRICK WALL.
THE FENCE WAS PUT UP CORRECTLY
Right Harassing cause I can keep playing along but don't think you want that so it's better you stop while your ahead what the $#*! the point in talking about something that I said NO too.

We've used Thumbtack since about 2015. We only agreed to pay for leads we actually answered to. All of a sudden starting 2019 they automatically signed us up for some sort of a program for Tile Installation and charged close to $700 without our permission or acknowledgement. And we DON'T even do Tile Installation. By the time we've noticed these sneaky upcharges here and there its been over 3 months. When we called customer service, they ADDMITED it was their wrong doing but only reimbursed us for less then half the charges dating only 30 days back NOT what they actually STOLE from us. FRAUD, DISHONEST, SCAM is the only words we can use to describe this company! BE AWARE!

I have used thumbtack as a pro for two different home improvement companies i manage.

I have a good reputation and get plenty of jobs on other jobs websites but thumbtack is run by people who dont know how to generate leads. In fact they suck at it. Much of their revenue is made from reselling leads. No joke. Thumbtack buys a lead on facebook, then presents that lead on their news feed showing that the lead has contacted multiple contractors, often 3 or 4 at once which seems hard to believe. Multiple contractors will pay just to have a conversation with that one lead and try to win their business. I suspect many of the leads are fake, as I have offered them insanely cheap rates and not even got responses.

They allow you to take down your profile and remove it from the internet which is fair and why I respect Thumbtack.

It seems these days tech companies have low morals. What happened to the moral high ground we used to walk in the 80s and 90s. Nowhere to be seen these days as tech companies are blindly data driven and practice "get away with whatever you can" at all times.

That said, I will continue to use their service while hoping they fire the employee in charge of buying facebook ads and get a new guy or gal who can generate more leads for contractors and stop re-selling leads as their main stream of revenue.

I am a licensed contractor. And I was with TT for over a year. I have had many customers tell me their horror stories about other contractors recommended by TT who were not licensed and did a horrible job. I submitted suggestions after suggestions recommending they clean up their list of non licensed contractors with no results. One week I decided to take a vacation. I put our account on hold for a week. When I got back TT turned off our account and told us it was due to not getting our back ground checked. We have been with TT over a year and did or back ground check when we first signed up, not to mentin I am a California licensed contractor already back ground checked by the state and Feds. I did the back ground check again and they still have my account closed. Try to reach them by phone and they got rid of the numbers to talk with them. You can only send in emails. What a joke. A year of paying their high fees and this is were you end up. Lots of children who think they are god. Thank goodness there are other companies out there.

I have my own company and my consultants on Thumbtack as Pros
One thing I have learned Thumbtack DOES NOT PROTECT THE PROS
In a few short months this is what happened to us on Thumbtack
1.6 Bad Checks
2. One person wanted to print checks
3.2 men tried to get us in a wire fraud in the amount of $150,000.00
Which we are working with the FBI on that one

Thumbtack protect the clients but does nothing to protect the Pros after they background check me, my girls and my company
Why dont they conduct this on their clients?

I have been on their site for years, with a grit your teeth success rate. Now, I get a "client" who has never done business with us give us a 1 star review because we hadn't got his bid done yet. Thumbtack not only allowed it, but WILL NOT PICK UP THE PHONE AND THERE IS NO EMAIL COMMUNICATION AND THE ONSITE MESSAGES GOES NOWHERE. This should be criminal. Absolutely criminal. Save yourself the grief and stay away. Plus, a 2 star average? Another red flag. Thumbtack is a scam. I am suing the "client" who wasn't for defamation and I am adding Thumbtack for letting it happen. I know, good luck, but I will waste their time like they wasted mine.

I used to work with Thumbtack frequently until I discovered there was a lot of fraudulent request from pretend customers. The problem is Thumbtack has no way to determine at this point if a customer is real or fake so as business owners we keep the site going because we pay and in turn we often pay for fake customers. Thumbtack also changes everything all of the time on its business owners and doesnt notify us outright but their very sneaky so you will keep spending your money. Their latest thing is allowing fifteen businesses to bid on one customer. They used to only let five on any given bid. One week I spent $200.00 on bidding and while I would usually get at least four customers out of this I got None. I kept callling them to see what was going on with their system. It was only after I discovered by seeing something about being eight out of fifteen. I was livid! There a greedy company. Then on top of that on my recent bidding which i dont really do but out. The eight bids I did five cancelled their project supposedly. Do you think Thumbtack gave me my money back. No, they keep your money even when the project you bid on has been cancelled by the customer which is wrong.

Did you know that Thumbtack refuses to help someone who has had a fake account opened under their email address? I have been trying to get help through phone (spoiler - you can't call them even though the site give you a phone number, since you call and it makes you contact them by text or not at all, AND THEN THEY DON'T TEXT YOU BACK), chat (must have an account to log into, which you can't if someone opened a fake one under your email), or messaging (same problem). When you finally find a support email they don't publicize, and someone from support emails you back, they tell you to fix this problem BY LOGGING ONTO AN ACCOUNT THAT ISN'T YOURS ON AN APP YOU DON'T HAVE, to deactivate someone else's account that they opened using your email address. Nice job helping scammers and harassers, Thumbtack!