Thumbtack

I am throughly convinced that thumbtack is a scam. I posted a review before and a rep from the company contacted me stating they wanted to speak with me and help me get business. I replied and made a suggestion about changing the pay structure to keep business owners from being ripped off. I even paid for the background check which is supposed to let potential customers know you are legit. Then all of a sudden, I got 2 calls from bids submitted. What was weird about the " customers" is that they requested services in cities near by me but the called from several states away. I. e., I'm in GA but they were in Texas, but we're gonna be in GA to get married. Not saying this doesn't happen, but after the initial call, no further contact was achieved. And I bid well below the asking price for the jobs because I signed on as a customer looking for the service I offer and discovered that they don't let the customer name their exact budget. It starts off at a certain amount which is above what most people in my area are willing to pay. I suggested to them that they change that aspect of the pricing and let the customer input their own budget instead of selecting a range so that the business will know if they want to bid for the business or not. If the customer has a $200 budget but the lowest range is 400-500, you'll put in a bid and once they view it, your money is lost and you won't get the business because you are above their budget. Do I wanna do provide my service for $200? No. But I also don't wanna waste money bidding on jobs for people with budgets below the minimum they are allowed to select. I will use only gig salad from now on because you only pay them if you book a gig through their site. But be careful there as well because like all the other sites, they want you to pay to have a "featured spot". I will leave a review of them after I've tried it for a couple of months. I feel better about using them because I personally know someone that used them and got business.

Credits are at $1.67 each. If the bride replies to a wedding quote (30 credits) and you're not hired you get charged $182! That's a scam!

I haven't got one converted referral. No one that uses this site is genuinely interested in obtaining services.

I have been successfully growing my business via Thumbtack. I also use it to find professionals (repair, legal.etc)

I petitioned to have people come remove trees, another for electrical work and another for lawn and flower bed work.

Here is the culmination of what transpired...

1. First contractor was 2x the price of who I hired on the outside to do tree work. I hired my own at 1/2 the price.

2. Second contractor was to come and do an estimate. He sent a sub contractor out who rolled my lawn when I was not home and left a bill in my he mailbox. When I called the contractor I was told that he was to come out and estimate it. He wrecked my lawn to the tune of over $2k. I called thumbtack and was told that their "1 million dollar guarantee did not cover lawns." What a crock of $#*!!
The police were called, a report was filed and the two contractors are not allowed within 1000 feet of my property.

3. Contractor came out to give me an estimate to repair a fence and fix the yard work that the previous contractor $#*!ed up. This contractor asked me for 50% up front to whom I said "not gonna happen, I give you my money and you skip." I signed the contract on March 31st and it's one excuse after another and as of today it's still not completed." In the words of our president..."YOUR FIRED!"

2 police reports are now on file for scams... run away RUN FARRRRR AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY!

Sent a project to five "Pros" and never heard back from a single one. I won't be using this app any longer. It's a joke.

Hired them to do deep cleaning, I wish I could post pictures to show you how terrible they did, I barely heard the water run. Would NEVER use them or refer them to anyone.

Thumbtack sucks I was running a great honest low income DJ business until they suspended my account for my age although everything I handle for my age is proper and legal.

The typicla Thumbtack user is looking for cheap, really cheap, por help. The "pros" are mostly wannabes who are willing to work cheap.
For tighteabs and amateurs who are looking for beer money.

The worst company. They rob contractors. Hope everyone eats $#*! and dies in this company. Heartless pricks.

Kelly did awesome job. She was flexible with our time changes.Her attention to detail was really impressive.

I would like to refer the services of Sharif Stephenson.
He is an awesome instructor, pushing us to reach our goaland very committed.
I´m impressed!

WASTED MONEY- don't screen job posts. I joined pro as an architect- people just wanted free advice
Thunbtack was totally unresponsive and just kept charging me. BS! DO NOT USE THUMBTACK

DO NOT USE! At first I wasn't going to leave a review because I thought it couldn't be that bad... it is THAT BAD. All they do is take all of your money and you probably will get like one job and that one job you get depending on how long you've been on this app probably won't make up for the money you've spent. Then they ask for you to get reviews for your profile I got honest reviews from costumers I've worked with in the past and they've deleted them... every single time! And then they put on there to add more reviews. I can't even. Point being if you like losing money COOL get on this app. If you like making money stay away! You'll end up paying them more than you make :/ side note WHY ISNT THERE A WAY TO LEAVE NO STARS! I'd feel better if I could leave no or negative stars for them #TRASH #RUN #DONOTUSE

We have a cleaning business and decided to use Thumbtack, but it's been the worse experience. We decided to do a search of the customer before going into their homes and boy oh boy was I glad we did. We came across a customer who has an extensive criminal history, who's known to commit robbery and we warned Thumbtack about this customer and their response was very lax and they didn't take it serious. At that moment, we knew to come off the site and use another platform. Thumbtack doesn't care about our needs, they are just focused on the high fees they charge. Note to any business who chooses to use them, DO YOUR RESEARCH ON THE CUSTOMER BEFORE ENTERING THEIR HOME! They won't do it for you. Thank God we are smart enough to do so... b/c we may not have made it out alive yesterday. THUMBTACK IS THE WORSE! RUN FAR AWAY FROM THEM!

Not only that, I requested my money back for this particular lead and they said they found nothing wrong with the lead so I wouldn't be able to get a refund. I'm telling you all... please do your research before hiring a business or taking on a customer. The fact that this guy was able to sign up and hire people is insane. Thumbtack just doesn't care. I guess they will when (god forbid) something happens to someone. Thumbtack sucks!

We love JaniKnights! They do excellent work, are on time, have a multitude of options. Damon and his crew are top notch!

Preston and his crew showed up everyday him or his workers very pleased with outcome definitely recommend to anyone thanks Jonathan vadala

Friendly and thorough. Cant wait for them to clean again. Would defiantly recomenned! They know how to deal with dog hair.

Star Catering provides an opportunity for a beautiful, tasty and elegant dining experience. They are reasonable and ameniable to all requests.

Thumbtack steals small amounts of money by sending worthless leads that they call "exact matches" even though they are anything but (a request for $150 wedding photography disguised as a request for nature photography) and by creating a system that groups vastly differently priced services together. The later resulting in you paying for worthless leads with no budget seeking your most expensive service because it's lumped in with inexpensive services in order for Thumbtack to take as much money from you as possible.

Because they only charge you small amounts of money and refuse to refund you most business owners will feel duped but not be able to do anything. These amounts are too small to spend time in small claims court for when you're busy running your business. This, in my opinion, is part of their plan to defraud and steal from as many small businesses as possible. That's just not right and I want to put an end to it.

I'm looking for others who have been defrauded by Thumbtack and who would like to initial a class action lawsuit. The goals of this would be for all of us who've been victims of Thumbtack.com to be paid back the money they stole from us and to see that they are either shut down or drastically change their business model. If you're interested please reach out to me through my website. Also please call the district attorney's office in San Francisco and report Thumbtack as thieves.

My name is Don Orkoskey, I'm the owner of WDO Photography located in Pittsburgh, PA. I signed up for Thumbtack as I assume many of you did, to increase my business and because they dominate search results. While clients I've talked to say they find thumbtack sleazy and deceptive and avoid using them being listed on their site does improve your SEO. What I found is that the amount of money they will steal from you does not make it in any way worth it.

Thumbtack is a fairly big scam for contractors, for the simple reason that "clients" aren't required to make any financial commitment in order to post, so most requests are from people who never had any serious intention of hiring in the first place. They're "playing the field."

Yes, I have gained a couple of clients. Was it worth the money? Probably not, unless they really do remain very long-term clients. Here's what happens with Thumbtack:

1. You see a request and quote on it, which costs you.
2. Nothing happens. The client views your request, so you are out the cost. But they never act on it.
3. You are contacted by a scammer who claims all the other contractors are offering half the price (why don't you just take that offer, you think to yourself). When you contact Thumbtack, they claim you don't really know it's a scam.
4. If you're in the massage business, you get lots of explicit requests for sex. Thumbtack refuses to handle this one, and doesn't allow you to report them for what they are unless to you pay Thumbtack to send a quote, then report it as a scam.

How do I know the vast majority of clients never hire? Thumbtack sends a report on how you compare to other pros each week. If I actually got hired, which is very rare, I always, without any exception, have a better hire rate than every other pro. Meaning, getting hired once is the exception, not the rule. Oddly, after I posted this review I never got another one.

If Thumbtack starts charging clients to post a request, then it might be worth the money. Until then, I'd say don't waste your money. The only real reason for using the site is their SEO - I had one client who searched for my service, and the Thumbtack site actually came up as one of the top pages. So she placed a request and is now a consistent client. But this was kind of a one-off.

I have been with Thumbtack for a while now and I am finally giving up. They made it worse with showing us now how much each quote cost that we are sending in and yes they claim to only charge your card if the customer responds and that is not true. They still will charge you. To be honest spending over $15 to send a quote and not guaranteed of the customer will contact you or not is very frustrating. I wish Thumbtack would be shut down at times or they change their practices. We should not be paying to send quotes and then get no response at all. Just a email when they look at it and sometimes that is wrong. They will also say someone looked at your quote and they really didn't. I have caught this at least ten times already with customers who have told me they never looked at our quote. They just did a search on Google and found us anyways without the help of Thumbtack.

I wish people would see they are scamming a nation and taking from those who want to be private contractors. They need Jesus in their lives. That's how bad this company is. They never resolve any issues so you will get screwed whether you are a customer or a pro because I needed to hire someone to do some work for us and let me tell you if you get screwed call them to get your money back then that's it. You were flat out ROBBED in your own home. It is very frightening and scary that there is a system like this to steal from innocent people who have families to support. Oh and any updates they make they never tell you in their terms and conditions. They state they are required to tell us in email but for the past two years I have never seen a email with updated changes.

People stop being cheap and use Google instead of Thumbtack. You will be screwed both pros and customers. Look at all these reviews. They are clearly true and warning America of this scam Thumbtack has run and claiming they help change lives but they really don't. If you read this then that means you should take this warning seriously. I didn't and still decided to do business with them and look where it got us. On here leaving a review about the hell we went through and how it really took a toll on my family and our finances. Robbing us constantly and providing us with false hope.

Chris is very repectful and honest on jobs he did for us... could not of asked for a better person to work with. Hope and best wishes john