Bark

The concept of Bark is fantastic, but the experience is poorly executed to say the least.

As a business trying to gain leads you're paying a seemingly random credit value (8-14 from what I've seen) to respond to a customer that's only looking for a quote. These are cold leads, there's no two ways about it. It costs just under 100 for 4 replies, 5 if you're lucky with the randomly assigned credit vale on each response. This credit value is based on the average spend of each customer and the level of work they're looking for. Prices fluctuate far too much for this to be a viable system.
Elite Pro is a monthly subscription that's only function is to put your profile and contact details in front of the lead, so they can contact you, however the Bark website is actually setup to direct the lead to use Barks own internal messaging system which Bark have said allows them to track messages and issue credit refunds easier. This means you will have to pay a premium of 12-14 credits to reply to these leads yourself, as the lead isn't directed to your contact details at all unless they click through to your profile and then click to view your details. In summary, you're paying a monthly fee to make your lead responses more expensive.

I was happy with Bark and I think the concept is fantastic. But after arranging for their Elite Pro team to call me, which they never did, I had to then contact customer support to ask why I didn't receive my call. When they rang me I explained the credit system and Elite Pro cons for my industry and the tone of the customer service agent changed entirely. I was trying to give healthy feedback and constructive advice, but I was quickly spoken over and informed Bark deal with over 2000 industries and the system is setup to do that. I'd advise keeping this "2000 industries" stance from Bark in mind. The customer service agent, instead of accepting I was giving feedback to try and help Bark instantly offered to cancel my Elite Pro membership and then reverted to one word responses to end the phone call. What I was hoping would be a positive experience about my Elite Pro membership turned into a really embarrassing experience at the hands of one of the customer service representatives.

Their Elite Pro offering is shown to customers as "professionals that have shown their commitment to Bark" but the actually professionals paying for this service are told they're no more important to Bark than any of their other 2000 industries are.

TL; DR: Credits are overpriced, credit values are randomly assigned based on 1 of 2000 industries making them overpriced for may industries, Elite Pro is a farce that increases the credits required to respond to leads and you do not matter to Bark as their customer service team made abundantly clear on the phone.

Stay away from working with Daniel of Morden grass.We advanced him R5500 on a job of R8000.He absconded with materials bought with our hard earned money. His condition for coming back to complete the job and lay the grass,(he had only prepared the area), is to pay him the remaining R2500! So we advance him 100 percent before completion of the job so he can abscond with 100 percent of our money.He has zero integrity and business ethics.We have laid a charge of theft at the Diep river police station.Do not work with Daniel.He talks too much and does not want the customer to have an opinion.Hr first pretended to have forgotten that his job summary, which he drew up included buying of cobbles.We had shown him the colour and he brought a wrong colour (probably the cheapest). When it was pointed out to him.He promised to rectify the error.We went to fetch our daughter from a play date and Daniel had absconded with all the materials including the grass which he had bought with our hard earned money. His condition of coming back is for us to advance and trust him with a further R2500.In other words we must pay Daniel in full for a job not done! He is clearly a law into himself.Do not do business with Daniel.He is bad news. I have the proof of payment as I did it by EFT. When he was phoned by a police sergeant he had no option but to admit that he was paid. Then he promised to come and finish the job. When we got home, Daniel sent a message that his condition of coming back was us paying him the balance! Fat chance of us doing that.We have told him numerous times, we do. Pay him on completion of the job as it is stated on his job invoice. That is normal business practice.We advanced him R5500 to buy materials needed to execute the job. R2500 would be paid on completion. That is what any vendor would expect to do business, except Daniel of Morden grass!

I've been with this company for 7 months, and out of 300+ leads that I purchased, I got 8 that were real. And majority of leads don't even reply back and ghost you. Most change their minds, or make a mistake, or end up giving the jobs you're bidding for to their family and friends. Based on Bark.com's policy, if someone posts a request for a service and then 5 people from Bark bid on it and that person decides to give his bid to his best friend or family friend. Bark does not return you the credits that you used to purchase that lead.

And that is the scam. People who post for Jobs on Bark do it free. So they could care less if they don't get back to you. Bark makes money 100% from people like myself, and their tone with us especially from their support people over the phone is outright rude... That is why 3 months ago I stopped paying them, and had 400 credits left on my Bark account left, and now I am down to 160... and I got zero leads that I hired. Dozens of them have ghosted, as I daily sent a follow up message on a update from them. Or if they could let me know if they changed their mind? And here's the frustrating part, even if they changed their mind, Bark won't give you credits back.

I have dozens of review on my Bark Profile, all 5 Stars... so there are no issues with my service to my clients that I did hire. Something else happening at Bark is not adding up or making sense.

They only give you credits back, if the number of the person posting is not valid or not in service. I'm from Canada, and another issue is companies that farm out services from Canada to India; such as Web Design, or Social Media Marketing, Logos, etc. A logo design for example would cost $60 to $200 depending on what's needed. We get price cut from a person in India for $10. The cost to acquire the lead for Logo Design is $7. For a $3 profit, it's not worth the efforts.

I'm not planning to give Bark.com any of my money, because it's failed to establish a business that rewards its Sellers, like myself. I don't have any issues losing a lead to someone else on Bark, it's ok, that happens. But to lose a lead in the way I mentioned above... no I'm not ok with that, because there was no reason for any person to post a request on Bark then anyway, cause all that did was waste our time and money, and Bark gets to profit. That is the SCAM and Bark knows it.

I can't prove it yet, but I wonder if Bark hires people to just post random stuff "requests for services" and get us sellers to bid on them, it keep their profits soaring.

I can't imagine how much abuse Bark's support team gets, I feel for them, and it's a toxic system or energy. Every time I get off the phone with support, it's like having an uncomfortable conversation with your ex, who cheated on you! Lol...

So my review it, stay away from BARK... don't use them, find another method. Hopefully I can get my money's worth and ROI on my investment.