Bark

I've been with Bark.com for a few months now as a business seeking clients. I have spent hundreds with them and have answered many potential client requests, I even received some inquiries that said Bark asked for me and my business personally! Sounds great right? I replied by email, phones, texted, and followed up by email, however, I never bothered with a ton of contact, I'd give a day or two between. I never heard back from one! Not even the ones that requested me personally, supposedly.
In fact, upon contacting some of them, they immediately closed their request.
After months of buying credits and contacting these apparent "hot leads", I haven't even received an email back saying "thanks but no thanks" from these "HOT LEADS".
I even asked at this point, Bark, if they were a scam, and were these leads rubbish? They insisted they were not.
Then one day when I was buying a package of points, or whatever they call them. As I hit submit to buy, a box popped up and it appeared to be the typical box, you're about to make a purchase, get 10% off. Sure, that sounds good since this business has given me nothing so far. I had intended this to be my last purchase, if no lead came through this time. As it turns out, it's a bait and switch box. In tiny weenie letters, it might say something, but I wear glasses and I didn't see anything, other than the % off, which I thought was for being such a good customer.
Nope! Instead, I not only bought my $50 of credits but another $45 of credits. SUCH A BAIT AND SWITCH SCAM. THEN THEY REFUSED TO REFUND ME BECAUSE I USED THE CREDITS MAYBE? I don't know how this site can even live itself really. It's a great business model for the customer because trust me, the businesses on here, are desperate to get a close. But for businesses to be on here, it's a bad purchase. You will waste your money and only get looky loos, non motivated buyers, and people that don't even want an email from you as they will close their account as soon as you reach out to them, to see if you can help them.
When I got suspicious, and I started to research on BBB and other independent review sites to see if my suspicions were real. They were, random sites, I am not the first one and I won't be the last.
SCAM, STAY AWAY.

I was initially VERY reluctant about having to buy $211 of credits to communicate with potential "clients." I contacted Bark, explained that and Bark provided me 25 free credits to try, which I did with no business being generated. After those were gone I continued to get "client x" wants you to contact them... I spent the $211, responded to 5 "interested clients" so far and have received no responses... Not one. Not even a "thanks, however, we decided to go with someone else..." message.

What threw me was the Google ads Bark is running... When I search photographers in my area (I am a photographer), a Bark ad is displayed which I know from experience is not cheap to run... Soooo... I figured that Bark MUST be legit if they are paying for ads... They cant be... I've NEVER had so many potential clients not contact me back. The clients I deal with in photography are typically professional and polite. Non responses, particularly AFTER they express interest is VERY unusual.

I use Thumbtack as well and when I get a lead from them, it usually generates a job. I hate the fact that I fell for the Bark scam, however. I am always looking for new business and thought they would help. Unfortunately they are preying on small business owners.

Next stop for me is BBB to file a complaint, this is obviously a scam.

I have been using Bark for well over 12 months. The site and concept is good and easy enough to use and you do get the occasional lead out of it but if your not the first one to buy the lead (and multiple people buy the same lead) you basically lose out to whoever called first, and when you look at how much you spend to get 1 lead it's just not work it. I have spent 1000's but have only converted a couple of clients. I was okay with this until I did the numbers. I spent $10k on geotargeted marketing between June & September 2020 and I got 350 leads and 1 10% conversation from them and made a stack more. In addition to this (and this is my major gripe with this site) is that Bark signed me up t a free trial that I didn't even know about then started debiting my card for $109 per month. Its now been over 5 months since I requested it to stop and be refunded and they can't give me a satisfactory response. The $109 done nothing for the quality of the leads, contact or outcome and it was basically for absolutely nothing whilst on the page I went to it says its a 70% better uptake. Don't waste your time and money. Find a good marketing company and stick what actually works.

As a grief counsellor for pet owners with a newish business I signed up on Bark and PAID for them to give me "leads" when new clients want a counsellor. After ringing, texting, emailing several "leads" and not being able to reach any I got suspicious and signed up as a client. Well, well, well, very interesting!
When a client asks for a service bark immediately send them recommendations. These recommendations are businesses who have been on Bark for ages and have had many clients already.
If you are new you will not get a look in. As my business is quite unique, as a psuedo-client I put in my EXACT location, EXACT criteria, grief counselling for pet owners, and noticed that my business had not even come up at all in the search results!

When I contacted BARK (not worse than their bite) to get a refund due to dishonesty I was told I could not have one and was sent a link offering to show me how to get clients. LOL.

Also, Bark take money off your credit card WITHOUT YOUR PERMISSION for you to become and Elite Pro, meaning nothing. I discovered this luckily and then had to write seven emails for them to refund that amount. I spoke to my Bank and they said to cancel my credit card so they no longer have my details. I did this and would advise you do the same if you've been unfortunate enough to sign on with them.

It also took five or six emails before they took me off their site, even though I was asking for this over and over. They want to keep you on so you buy more fake leads and they can keep charging your credit card. A scam unfortunately.

Oh, also they stalk all message boards and respond as if they are Mother Teresa. Haaa! Say they are have tried to "reach out" when they haven't, unless you count reaching out to take money from your credit card fraudulently reaching out.

Not happy with this tool. Bark requires you to purchase credits as you use these credits to reach out to potential clients (or buyers as Bark calls them). Basically a fee to send your details to a buyer. Each buyer is seeking different types of services for help with. So, based on what services buyers are looking for, bark charges you different number/amount of credits. Each credit is worth more than a $1. It will cost you around $25-$45 to reach out to potential client/buyer. And that buyer may get several different quotes. I reached out to 10 potential buyers. I have not received a single follow up email (or call) from any of them. Wasted $297 on this service for nothing.

Sometimes buyers are interested in you. So you do get a notification from Bark saying a certain buyer is interested in you; however, reaching out to those buyers that are interested you also costs you credits. So as you can see, you can easily spend all of your credits in a matter of days. Bark only offers you credits in bulk. So you have to get at least 200 credits. That amounts more than $250 approx.

I am extremely disappointed. Will not use this service again.

Well, I learned my lesson. Please do thorough research before you invest your hard earned dollars, pounds, pesos, euros, rupees, yen, riyals, dirhams, franks, ruble, etc.

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!

The CON
My emails from bark say Bark don't refund credits but on my review here on SJ they respond saying they do give refunds!

WHAT?
I had to cancel my credit card to make sure I don't get auto-renewed again for $280 for BARK...
This is 2020 how is a business getting away with this.
Cant anyone stop them from ripping service providers off, is this the new world we live in now?
Take your money and not refund your credits you no longer want?

SCAM
They said turn off autofill so you dont get auto-billed, first time you do, they dont give you an option they just do it to you.
So I turned off out refill and guess what I was auto refilled for the most expensive refill they had!
All the auto refill were turned on again on my account...

SCAM - HOW THEY MAY THEIR MONEY
Just read the review from Randy F and you will see.
Even if its a real lead and someone get a gig others are still paying for the lead far after the job is done.
"annoying to get hounded by others after I had already chosen one."
Thats the point, they are making money by having others pay for a lead that has already been filled.
The lead no longer is available but you are still paying for it thinking it is!
Thats the scam...

I have only heard back from one client that worked out of the multi dozens I have paid for.
All the other leads never even responded NOTHING in any way, even the one's bark sends to me saying a client has asked for a specific quote.
What is happening is that people are only wanting quotes to see how much something MAY cost, not having a budget or finding out that it is more than they thought, what is it 1 out of every 50 projects are real? That is why they don't respond back. Bark knows that people are not really looking or just shopping around, that is how they make their money, You as a service provider pay for a lead, bark is telling you these jobs normally go for from x to x dollars, you and the other 10 providers are paying for that lead, so bark makes 200 or more per lead even though its a dead lead. So none of us get the job since there was no real job to begin with.
I call dead leads weeks later, they answered the phone since they dont think its a service provider from bark calling since enough time has passed. ALL of them say the same things, 1. I was just curious what it might cost not really wanting it done. 2. There was no real budget so the company just wanted to know what it might cost if they had a budget. 3. Their budget was $50 or $100 and they didn't know it was going to cost $500 or more to do. Or even better I called a woman who said she had already hired someone local who had done the job for her, but she just wanted to see what others on bark would say. So again that and other leads are dead before you or I even pay for the lead. Bark does not tell the leads anything at all on what that job may cost, that would stop a majority of people from using back if they knew a photograph was going to cost $200 and not $10 to do, they just want people to put in as many leads as possible since we all pay for those leads and bark makes its money.

So a canceled card.
Credits I can not get money back for
And now its off to the BBB site to write a complaint.

The only reason I'm giving it 2 stars, is because my 2nd lead led to a job, but looking at 99% of feedback from service providers, I guess I should consider myself lucky.
I tried to pick my leads as best as I could and approach only those without any other professionals, who already responded to it, but just ended up spending the rest of my 150 credits chasing either non-existent leads, or clients that simply would ghost me. No responses to emails, noone picks up their phones or bothers calling back. Only one estate agency said "thank you, we decided to go with someone else" and I'm not even sure how legitimate that response was anyway.
Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they'd refund at least some portion of credits back, if you don't land the job, but it's simply not the case. There is also no reason for bark to even help you pick up any leads or provide any other support, as Bark already made fixed amount of money per response, so why would they even bother?
As a result I unded up doing 2 days worth of work, only to spend the money I earned on ghost leads. Bark now has £150 and I'm back to £0, with 2 days spent on working for them.
Doesn't help that "Pro" badge doesn't mean you're a pro or consistent service provider. It just means you had £239 on your account to spend (ridiculous price to ask too).
Avoid with wide angle

There is more satisfaction to pay for the lottery and win nothing instead of paying for their service. When you register and pay for their service, Bark set your account on auto payment as a default. Also, they say you give your credit back if you get no clients.
When you realize they charged you over and over again, they make you beg for your money, really begging them. I contacted my bank and told them the story, they put this company on their blacklist, but when they figured out I complained to the bank, they asked me to close my case at the bank and they will provide me with the full refund. I closed my case, but they made me beg them for more than one month, and because I closed my case, I had no other choice, and they said I should have known that the default is on auto payment, and I should have turned that off.
Also, they advertise they provide you credit back if you didn't get customers, but what they mean is their fake credit for contacting customers, not your money.
And, there is no explanation that credit back is one-time use, and they don't care if you didn't get any customer.
Trust me, any way to find a customer is better than this site.

The way to really scam people and keep that scam going is to provide lip service to complaints and "appear" to want to resolve complaints.
You can go for a LONG time by simply saying "oh, have you tried this?"
The TRUTH is Bark.com is a scam of mammoth proportions.
The supply of quality leads is limited, the demand of businesses for new leads is infinite... the two don't match.
Bark make great promises of a "free" set of credits if you don't get any business from your initial purpose... they KNOW you won't, nor will you from the "free" replacement lot, then you're done. You'll get a curt message saying, "Buy some more"... and I'm betting naive people probably give it a second shot and fail again.
The leads that they send you are "full" (5 others have already submitted a response) immediately you receive the email... possibly they are not genuine at all, because the leads that are not "full" are weak or unsuitable and don't match the filter you apply anyway.
When you complain you get trite, patronizing "advice" with an overriding insinuation it's your fault for not presenting a good enough "pitch"... HOGWASH! I've won open national tenders, and have 40+years of sales and sales management epxericn3...
But it is cleverly done so that bark.com "appears" "above-the-board".
Whatever you do, DO NOT FALL for the BARK OFFER... it is a waste of money, definitely, but also a significant waste of time

I like the swiftness of the response after listing my request for a quote for work to be done to my roof. I was hoping to receive at least 5 responses within a few hours and up to a dozen over the next few days in order to have a range of quotes and to check out the websites of those offering their services. I received 3 responses immediately and nothing more after that. This is because those who respond to any requests for quotes would have points deducted from their Bark subscription. A fairer option would be for those who have had their quote accepted by customers and had successfully completed the assignment, be subjected to points deduction from their Bark subscription. This way, your Bark business subscribers would be more proactive in responding to requests for quotes. My second point is that the office tel and mobile contact numbers should be posted on the Bark listing page for your business subscribers to enable quote requesters like me to identify the phone numbers when Bark contact me. Because I received calls from mobile numbers which may not match the landline number listed on the Bark listing page. Thirdly, there should be a listing of the website and physical address of your Bark business subscribers so that potential customers can check out their websites as well as be informed of the kind of business offering their services as a confidence-building measure. Getting a quote alone is not sufficient as the potential customer would want to know where they can locate the builder/roofer should anything go wrong and remedial work is required. As a matchmaking platform, Bark can win more business subscribers and customers like myself if you can open up more opportunities for tradesmen to offer quotes without deducting points initially as quotes don't necessarily lead to assignments. Because if customers like myself only receive 3 responses for quotes and 3 reminder emails from Bark to make a decision, I would not be able to decide within 24 hours to award an assignment to one out of three quotes. I would want to be able to decide from a wider selection of choices. Hence, I've kept my options open for up to a week to receive more responses before doing some homework to compare quotes and find out more about the companies offering their services.

I have started my journey with Bark last year. It is not cheap to reply to Bark requests from the potential clients but it would be reasonable if all the requests were legit. I have emailed you few times to say that I was informed that the client was just checking how much is the service and wasn't returned my credits. In situations like this the credits should be returned. It would be different to loose a job to another professional but not to someone who is just checking. Each time I was told that you only return credits if the contact is not reachable and you screen the requests. You clearly don't as I had few people saying that or Bark were checking or they haven't bought the property yet or will maybe decide to do a job in the future etc. I am really disappointed and agree with most of the negative reviews. It seams like there is a lot of clients who are not real about hiring the professional. I have raised it with you before. I suggested that the clients should pay a deposit which will be given back if they hire a professional. That would steer away people who are not serious about hiring someone.
It has been repeated many times here and you keep saying to most professionals that you screen all requests. It clearly doesn't work. On top of that you have recently updated a way to reply to people taking away a possibility of replying to a single request and professionals are forced to buy a pack instead of paying for what they can afford. Change your policy in regards to checking potential clients and your credit refund first.
A.

Dear Kai Feller / Bark Customer Services

We are a Lettings and Property management company based in London E15 and have been using Bark for a 1 year and we have been a loyal customer paying a monthly premium service of £23+pcm in addition to purchasing credits to buy leads.

Bark is supposed to provide authentic leads to our company, usually, Bark are not always in my preferred area but I keep an eye on my account in the hope I may find/attract a landlord in my preferred area. Once you identify a suitable landlord lead to contact (or to reveal his details first) I must purchase these leads via credits bought in advance, without credits you won't receive any details.

Simple enough to understand however the leads can be from bogus landlords, therefore quality is questionable. Recently I have received a lead/message that suggesting that a landlord is looking for property management services and finally in an area that I would like to respond to, which I did immediately and being the first letting agent before others agent whom are also trying their luck.

"Lead Email received from Bark
Zana needs a Property Management
LocationLondon, IG3
Phone079********
Email z*********e@g***l.com
Credits 8 credits to respond
Which services do you require?
Tenant move In/out
Which type of property is this for?
Home
How many properties do you need this for?
3"

Unfortunately, I can't tell from this email if this is a tenant however I have assumed this is a Landlord that has 3 properties.

Bark sent me the landlord details after spending 8 credits, I immediately contacted the landlord and it turns out they are a tenant looking to move into a 3 bedroom property.

I sent a message to Bark and explained that this was a tenant, not a landlord and Megan from customer services responded to my message explaining the following;-

"Hi there,

Thank you for your response.

I have copied the details they provided in their request below:

Which services do you require?
Tenant move In/out

This information was available to you before you purchased the lead, and so I am unable to return the credits. Please be careful to double-check this on any requests before you purchase them in the future.

Let me know if there is anything else I can do for you.

Megan
The Bark Team"

Its seems from customer services that this is all my fault I should have deciphered their message properly.

Anway I have lost faith now, I didn't realise that Bark.com and their staff have broke souls and they rather lose a client (especially in the current climate) over 8 credits, probably worth no more than a tenner, maybe they need a lesson from Jeff at Amazon.

In these current times especially after witnessing George Floyd's last moments, companies collapsing all over the place... when are companies, the police etc are going to think more holistically about their customer and the public?

The sad thing is this is an easy fix for Bark, but out of principle, I will stop working with Bark immediately and I would recommend any Letting and Property management company to stay away as you will only encourage the spread of this type of mindset, but I guess you can be the judge of that, I have already decided going forward I will never expect anything less then what I deserve, no more will I be vulnerable to companies like Bark who sell you this dream of helping your business and what I have received is a cliche "company takes your money for years and soon as you complain there is no love".

In addition, Dear Bark/Algorithm, please don't apologise to me after receiving this on TrustPilot and don't ask me to call you to resolve this issue, you had your chance and Megan blew out and decided that Im not worth it and its more important you being right about what you think you are right about is more important.

Various other spam emails like:
I am Mr. Kevin Alagbe Esq from Togo, a legal practitioner and financial adviser. I have an important legitimate fund transaction to discuss with you about my late client with your same nationality. Kindly get back to me through my private email address for more details.

From a customer made to feel worthless over 8 credits.
Harvey

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 Bark 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.

MY ORIGINAL REVIEW: Bark put me in touch with three firms of bricklayers, two quite local, the other surprisingly far away. All gave estimates and I did in fact use one of them who was very satisfactory. I noticed that one of the companies didn't seem to know who or what Bark was, yet they had obviously been contacted by them. As far as I can tell it's a perfectly legitimate company and found me results almost at once.

EDIT: To my acute embarrassment I now have to rescind what I said about the Bark website. The man I employed, supposedly a bricklayer who was trading under the name "A1 Home Improvements" and using the email address "*******@icloud.com" turned out to be a fraudster. He took a deposit of £500 for which he gave me a junk receipt and disappeared off the face of the earth. If you know anything about him (from that email address his name might be Thomas Harber) the crime has been reported to Police Action Fraud, phone number *******040 and the Crime Number is NFRC*******626, Reported 29/01/2020 at 15.48. Do please phone in any information about him you may have and help to protect others from similar frauds. Obviously the Bark website conducts no checks on the people listed on their site, and based on that experience you would be a fool to have anything to do with them. They were completely unhelpful when asked to give any information held to either me or the police.

This note is in addition to my previous note. First, Bark sent me one free potential client. The client's name and phone number were on Google search so I figured he was legit. He claimed he'll pay for my hypnosis services, but I never heard from him again. I paid the $66 Bark wanted for 10 potential leads and over the next few weeks, I got 8 that were within the perimeters of the type of clients I was looking for. Now here's the rub. None of them could be found on Google search, not their names or phone numbers. So I didn't call them. I emailed them instead and never got a reply. This alone leads me to believe that Bark might be a legit company but the potential clients might be typing in fake information just to screw around. Maybe I should call the potential clients making not calling them my mistake and not Bark's. Bark will give me 10 additional free clients if I don't get at least one client out of the first 10 that I paid for. We'll see. I have 2 more clients that don't respond first. Personally, I'm old school. I believe the only real way to get clients is to go door to door and introduce yourself with a business card and a possible flyer with features and benefits. As for my $66 investment, I follow my dad's advice from way back in the 70's. He said "If you've saved enough money that you don't really need and you're going to piss it away (like at Vegas, on an expensive meal out when Burger King would've done just fine), then invest it instead. And if your investment didn't pay off, then what do you care? You were going to piss it away anyway." No truer words were ever spoken.

MISLEADING. The exact words on their website are "We're so confident you'll win business with your first credit pack, we'll return all your credits if you don't."

That is NOT the same as getting a refund. Once you've sent money, you're never getting it back. Bark will keep resupplying you with credits, assuming you want to keep investing time and effort on a process that didn't work.

Could be worth it, if you know going in that's how it works. But they don't RETURN your credits (as in, give back your money). Instead, they RESUPPLY your credits (as in, give you the credits again).

And while they do provide listings for a lot of services, they don't provide listings for ALL services. And it's not like you can add your specialty. You have to choose from their menu--and you don't know what that menu until you buy those credits.

In addition, I recorded their "discounted initial credits" offer on 2 Dec 2019 as $72.50, in the spreadsheet I use to track expenses. When money was deducted from checking account on 14 Dec, it was for $79.20. The person I spoke to on the phone insisted that was the amount specified on the website, but his response does not agree with my recollection.

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 Bark 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.

I have been on Bark.com for a while now, and find that u can not possibly make money on this site as we pay for nothing really. Some people I have discovered on this site r not real.

I found this out from some numbers I called for the job, and found these people who answered did not know what I was talking about, in fact, some of them did not even know bark.com.

Some notifications I got, that had just come in. The so called customer answered only to state that Bark had a DJ already. Now with my understanding on this, how is it that as soon a new notification comes in, the job has gone. I have never seen speed as fast as that in my life.

That to me is differently a scam. I was called by bark.com to try and convince me to pay more money to something I never made money out of lol. A total joke i tell u.

I told the lady that I might as well go to a casino to gamble, as i might get lucky there more then at bark. She said if I pay the money, she would make sure i get the credits back that i never got a job for.

So, Like a fool, I believed her, only to discover that there r people already complaining about the same thing I am talking about here on the net, and I had sent a number of emails asking for my credits back which was promised to me, and would u believe it?

Now when I call them to find out what is happening? I find that no body answers the phone on both numbers. So when I researched more? I found loads of people that r not happy with bark.com at all. All I know is if they carry on scamming people here? They will make such a bad name for themselves, they will have to shut down or something as there r allot of angry people out there.

Their leads are mostly not viable: 90% of leads refuse to reply (won't answer phone or reply to email). I mean, it takes me 9-10 leads to get one reply.

I still get many bad leads:
1) I help people with their everyday problems and some people are nonetheless embarrassed to ask for help; many people who reach out for help and create a lead on bark immediately cancel their lead having had a change of heart, but I already paid for the lead! This all can take place in under 10 minutes!
2) I am still getting what seems to be someone playing a prank, and that prank leads to a bogus lead
3) Many leads don't understand that if Bark say they are open to doing things through internet meetings (like Zoom) that I may be located 100s of miles from them, so they decline when they find out I am not in the same town they are in

It's exhausting. But maybe that is just par for the course. What is bringing this to a head for me is that Bark's bad-lead refund policy is now too strict.

It used to be if you could make the case to them that the lead was not serious they would refund what you spent on it. Now you cannot reason with them. Very frustrating.

These points 1-3 above I have brought up with Bark before, either in direct emails or when they sent a survey to the user community.

My guess is that if Bark management replies to this review, it will be at best a simple restatement of their refund policy. (In other words, they will double-down, and not address points 1-3.) Prove me wrong Bark.

I have been with them for about 2 years and became more active with them when COVID hit last March.

Ok honestly I thought I would give this a go despite reading bad reviews, I have spent £1596. 63 on leads over the last two months I've gotten in £1950 paid for work not a lot of profit

The problem with bark is it SHOULD work but people are horrible when Bark can hide. Like the people who reach out to my full 100%profile (it's a bark thing) for a quote then don't answer the phone or respond to the email after me spending up to £28.00 on an aerial photography lead, this is soul destroying or the examples of people I phoned ten minutes after the bark has gone live, and the jobs went already yeah someone else is doing it for me sorry I forgot to cancel the bark.

Do you get a refund of your bark credits no, no you don't because the phone was answered and the person who requested the bark has no culpability.

Credits! That's another thing you buy credits with hard cash and you bid for jobs using credits each credit cost £1.20 so you get the bark and have to spend 28 credits to answer it that's actually £33.60 to spend on a job no-one will pay you more than £250 for and even if you can get that much just bid with pounds credits is a crap system trying to disguise what people are actually spending. And its a lot

What is a job worth?, this is another thing wrong with bark they have a suggestion of most people pay £? For this, that is way under what I would charge as a photographer this section sets up a race to the bottom if people read that and set up a request they expect to pay a figure no-one wants to work for, that figure just makes suppliers angry and we then have to defend our craft

Overall its been a fair experiment I'm a good salesman and can talk people into things on the phone if you are weak in this department you will not make money I knew I would break even I even hoped it could work but it can if you add up my time and petrol and another expense BARK.COM hasn't made me a penny so ill leave
If you are going to go ahead be warned its not a great model it could be so much better if you only paid for jobs you won but that would be too much to ask from bark i think

Craig Lonie

I've spent £100 so far on Bark.com for my videography business and my overall experience has been disappointingly poor. The leads are low quality and the majority of them that I purchased were uncontactable. Most of the leads in my niche are about 25 credits which roughly equates to £1.20 + VAT per credit. So Bark are not cheap. You call, leave messages, email and text and they don't respond to even say they're not interested. Which makes me question whether they're even genuinely interested leads. I'm also curious to understand Barks lead generation process as I wonder whether they are going for a quantity over quality approach. I even stupidly responded to an email from Bark that said someone specifically requested that I quote on a job and low and behold after spending £30 for the pleasure of contacting this "keen" lead they didn't respond. Their customer service team were relatively helpful when I complained but ultimately my money has gone down the drain and there's not much that can be done about it. The qualification process on these leads need to be addressed. It's been a costly and disappointing experience as I was really hoping that their leads could help me to grow my business. I don't mind paying a premium for quality leads but the leads from Bark.com are definitely not good quality or value for my advertising spend. I've attached a screenshot of a lead which they're offering for 18 credits (£21.60 + VAT) this is the type of brief you can expect when you advertise with them. Would you spend £21.60 + VAT on that? It might work for other businesses but If you're a Videographer or Photographer I'd avoid it like the plague!

Worldwide but especially our New Zealand consumers, vendors and businesses BE AWARE! Don't take my word for it... read all the other complaints and do your own research first. I tried advertising two businesses.
- Firstly, Bark are a UK based company claiming "ex GST": Isn't it illegal to charge GST if you're an overseas company?
- Misleading currency charging for their service: Should they disclose what currency they are also charging us?
- On the bottom right of the site it has a NZ flag icon. Quite misleading using our NZ flag icon without correctly loading the information relevant to that country – ie NZD $300 not just $300 ex GST.
- Excessive fees: If it is, say $2.50 a credit and I am being charged 26 credits to purchase a lead x $2.50 = $65. That is also not in NZD! Highly excessive to purchase a Lead. That's approx 26 hits on google ads for me if the CPC is set at $2.50
- Consumer Protection: They are not taking any steps or care in vetting Vendors/Business Owners/Tradies signing up their services. The professionals on here could be scammers, cowboys and dodgy people claiming they know what they are doing, take someone's money and that's it. Where is the Consumer Protection? Have seen heartbreaking overseas feedbacks from consumers being ripped off from a so called Professional.
- My Visa Credit Card statement: Where are the Offshore Service Margins when charging a credit card from overseas? It clearly shows on the transactions, they are setup in UK so legally should disclose the exchange rate and offshore margin that comes with that transaction. What currency was this charged at?
- Misleading and False Reviews: Under my Celebrant profile they claim I have 4 reviews. I got one job and made $50? Where did the 4 reviews come from? That is false advertising and misleading the consumer.
- Option to Auto topup or manual topup: You cannot manually topup when you want. I just keep getting charged each time my credit runs out, so no control for the business owner.
- Cancellation: There is no option or button to cancel. You have to contact them directly.
- Misleading/false advertising: Under my Graphic/Web Design profile, it says that I am an Elite Pro – that is false. And that's just the surface!

Contact your own relevant governing bodies for consumer law, commerce law, online consumer protection, credit card transaction regulations (like your bank).

So I called in to see what Bark.com's "money back" policy if not successful in getting leads was all about. After speaking for a while, I thought this was a great way to do business and not just scam small businesses like a lot of other online services I heard about. This person with an English accent said to me "if you do not get a job in 10 days call us back and I will credit you your monies paid". I signed up based on this as being a fair shake knowing if no results, I would get my money back. That was the easy part. I paid $132 plus an ISA fee of $3.96 for total charge of $135.96. I was funneled lots of leads and responded to them all by emailing these leads in a very professional basis with even my website reference. All these leads had a cost based on my purchase of their bidding system. I blew through my $132 in no time, and Bark charged me for another $132 of which I called them immediately and said "no way did I sign up for more than $132". The second person I spoke to assured me if none of the leads come through, to call them back and they will "get you a credit". I said great and put on my calendar the 10 day alarm to call if no leads materialize. Well 10 days did go by and I called them again and they said that it will be "credited to you" immediately. I waited 3-4 days to see my bank account and no credit. I waited another 3 days and still no credit. I called the once again and asked where my credit is. They told me that the credit is NOT refunded to your credit card, but they said they have provided me with $165.00 of Bark.com 'bid monies"! WHAT A SCAM! Was not what the sales people told me. Now I am disputing this for false advertising. THESE PEOPLE ARE SCAM ARTISTS AND MAKE A LIVING OFF OF HARD WORKING SMALL BUSINESSES AND HAVE NO ETHICS!

I never signed up for Bark but yet started receiving emails from them. I answered one lead. Most of these people making Bark requests are just tire kickers. Meanwhile, you have spent money to respond to a request.

Today I received a bark request for "robbie". Reading the job description I realized right off the bat that "robbie" is a scammer. He uses different names but the MO is the same. I've been contacted by scammers like robbie using the same scam.

Here's how robbie's scam works:
He says he is starting a new business and needs a website built. He wants it to look like a website that he gives you the link to. So, you go to the website then send him a quote. He accepts! Then he emails you that he will pay MORE than your estimate but you must send the overage to his "partner" who has all the files to send to you to begin work. That's when I knew this "robbie" is a scammer.

He has contacted me several times over the past several years and now see that he/she/it is using Bark to advance the scam. This tells me that Bark DOES NOT check for legitimacy.

Glad I only spent money once. I answered a few free barks but never heard back. Bark are in Britain. If you're in the US and respond to a bark you will pay exchange rate fees.

Stay away from Bark for leads. The leads most often are bogus tire kickers and Bark does not vet them for legitimacy.

My first problem was using my one free lead for a client that was supposed to be interested in using my service and found out Bark wasn't. The name and phone number were correct, but this client told me me over the phone, that he was NOT looking for the kind of service my company provides. I was completely embarrassed for disturbing the poor man, and tried to contact bark about the error and attempt to get credit for my now used free lead that wasn't a lead at all. The "Team@Bark" link to contact support didn't work unless I copy pasted the link to my email browser and sent a letter. I received a response back from Liam, assuring me I've been provided with another free response, but later when i logged in to my profile, I never received the credit. I read where they screen these leads but that's a load of crap. I sent another email on the same issue, and again received the same answer back. However, my profile still showed the lead was spent and no way of getting it back. The next issue I had was when I decided to just go ahead and purchase the starter package with their 20% off promotion and not only was the price significantly higher than what the rep quoted me over the phone a week prior, but it wouldn't take my form of payment. I tried both cards and got the same error to each of them. My bank was denying payment. I knew immediately this was wrong and contacted my bank anyway. My account showed no record of anyone attempting to process the cards for payment. I then tried calling Bark's phone number on the website, and wouldn't you know it... no one answered. I certainly can take a hint. It's shouldn't be this difficult to obtain clients, unless they are not what they say they say they are. I've decided to take my business someplace else.

SCAM STAY AWAY. FAR FAR AWAY...
Wish I had seen these rating before I signed up.
Many things wrong with this service, most of all none of the leads that are provided returned a single call back, email or text.
Zero!
Auto-renew it automatically turned on or auto top off, so you are charged right away.
Bark will not refund the top off even if it was not used and is full.
Simply put its a money grab, Once someone files a class action against them for not returning funds to people then perhaps I will get a refund. Or possibly they will just close and open under another name.

"UPDATE"
Auto refill turns on when you sign up without you knowing it so that is a surprise.
They said turn it off, I did and then I was auto refilled for $280, you can turn off auto top off but it does not register what it does is turn on all the auto refills so you get charged the highest refill there is $280. SCAM!

Update on refunds - SCAM STAY AWAY
Here they say on ReviewFeeder
"First of all, we do give monetary refunds for unused credit packs. Please email us at *******@bark.com or call us on *******237 and we can sort that out for you."
What kind of number is 0203?

Here is the email they sent me in private SCAM
Liam (Bark.com)
Dec 19,19:34 GMT
Hi,

Thanks for getting in touch about your account.
We don't unfortunately refund used or unused credits back to an account. It is not our company policy to do this - we offer all our sellers the ability to purchase your credit packs as needed, to provide you with flexibility.
You can find a copy of our full terms here: www.bark.com/terms/
Kind Regards,
Liam
The Bark Team
www.bark.com
*******@bark.com

As an academic coach, I received one client who I had very good business from Bark the first time I purchased my first few leads. This made me feel successful very early on as a customer of Bark.

However after a considerable time now spending my very small marketing budget as a sole trader, I have found no additional clients. I have responded to a few request for quotes but never received any definite business. I've also submitted interest to a few students while purchasing more credits to enable me to do so. $50 here and there, it all adds up for a tiny business like me.

At this point it has become a cash sink for me with negative return. Don't get me wrong, there are definitely a large number of potential clients in their list of leads. In order to reply to them I have to spend so much cash, which I did previously in the hope that I can find another quality client. As much as I hope Bark can provide me leads that convert to real business, I can no longer afford to continue.

I am not sure if this is simply a competition for who can offer the cheapest service. I have to spend an enormous amount of cash to possibly get 1 client, something a tiny business like me as a sole trader cannot afford. I cannot tell if leads are of good quality at all, unless you are able to start a genuine conversation with the potential client. My experience further from my first few leads was like it is a one-sided affair. I am not certain I am paying for genuine leads either. There must be a way to confirm contact with the clients even if Bark do not choose you. It just feels like I am throwing away cash.

Unfortunately, Bark is a gamble that I cannot keep playing as a tiny business. It may be useful for larger companies with more cash to spend in marketing.

Far too expensive to respond to leads that are not actively seeking the service you offer. It is very suspicious that the majority of leads do not respond to emails, SMS messages or answer the phone so I do agree with the many accusations of fake leads. If Bark were real leads they would want to engage with suppliers. In some cases the phone numbers produce a 'you have dialled an incorrect number' automated message so their claims to verify numbers are incorrect. Also beware if the number is verified because they won't return your credits even though the customer has already hired elsewhere and is not interested in engaging with any suppliers via Bark. So they are very happy to charge service providers for leads that are no longer active. Many of the customer service reps make it very clear they do not value their service providers who give them repeat business and the quality of customer service varies depending on who answers the phone. There appears to be no consistency on customer care policies. Yesterday I rang to complain about 2 leads that were clearly not interested in hiring because they had hired elsewhere, they refused to return my credits and those leads are still active meaning other providers are still being charged to respond. The customer service rep wouldn't listen, talked over me the whole call and hung up on me. That is not acceptable customer service and makes no business sense as I have been a repeat customer for years. I won't be in the future and would advise other service providers to look elsewhere for potential customers.
They tell you to email *******@bark.com if you have any problems, which I have done on multiple occasions, but they never respond. Again appalling customer service.

First became aware of this company when Bark started spamming our website contact EMail address, with daily (or sometimes multiple spam per day) claiming to be sending us leads for people interested in the services we provide. The only real difference between Bark & most garden-variety spammers is that Bark doesn't lead with their sales pitch - but it's obvious that it is a sales pitch if you try to actually respond to any of the leads they send you, because that's the point where they ask for payment.

The traditional definition of spam is "unsolicited commercial email" - and the the EMails from Bark clearly meet that definition. They are both unsolicited (we never subscribed to mail from them or requested the messages in any other way), and commercial in nature (by being advertisements/sales solicitations for their services).

It also appears that they are making no attempts to comply with federal anti-spam laws, at least here in Canada where we're based - and in our case, their spam was sent to a. Ca domain name, so it's not exactly rocket science to figure out where we're based. CASL, Canada's federal anti-spam laws, requires senders of "CEM" (commercial EMail marketing) - including Bark - to obtain explicit, opt-in consent from the address owner before sending marketing EMail to that address. In our case, since they started spamming an address that they'd scraped from a website, they didn't even make an attempt to give us the opportunity to provide (or decline) consent - let alone actually obtain it.

If you're in Canada and receiving spam from Bark, then the best solution is probably to report them to the CRTC - the federal agency responsible for enforcing the anti-spam laws.