Thumbtack

Attention Roofing Contractors among others. Please read as the information that you will see below is the problem that you will encounter when working with THUMBTACK these days. Thumbtack used to be a VERY VALUABLE SITE for all of us contractors and I was a very LOYAL CONTRACTOR to them spending up to $500 per month. Every single time a lead for a roofing repair job or for a new roof installation was coming to me, I was responding within 2-3 minutes to almost all their leads as I wanted to keep very busy in the Houston, TX area. When I started in 2017 the price for a ROOFING REPAIR was $8 and the price for a NEW ROOF INSTALLATION was $16 dollars sharing this same lead with 5 other contractors.

Now these days Thumbtack have come up with a new model of not charging you every single time that you quote or estimate a job but unfortunately not only they have astronomically raised their prices of a ROOFING REPAIR to $23 dollars and to $75 dollars for a NEW ROOF INSTALLATION. On top of this, now they bumped and are RE-SELLING the same lead to up to 15 contractors instead of 5 bringing now so much competition to all contractors out there who cannot even get 2-3 jobs per week. I have written to them in numerous times, have spoken to some of their representative and managers and NOBODY has contacted me or is doing ANYTHING to change their GREEDY policies.

In other words, what is happening now is that THUMBTACK resells to up to 15 possible Contractors a lead that may only cost them $10 each and that can easily be from propery owners who may want to have an estimate just to see if they may do it at a later time. With this new practice, check this out. Thumbtack is now profiting a HUGE AMOUNT OF MONEY from all those contractors that will not get the job, the Homeowners and property owners are now very happy as Thumbtack is referring tons of contractors to them that will most likely lower their price way down to get the job and us the CONTRACTORS that have to spend gas to get to the place, bring our business cards and brochures to inform homeowners and arrive on time under weather and traffic conditions, can't even get an answer from the Homeowner since he already has lined up more appointments with other contractors before making his decision.

It is very disappointing to see that a fairly smart company that was truly working with us contractors to help our businesses is now the MOST GREEDY company out there charging almost double than any other lead generation company out there. Not to mention the TONS OF COMPETITION that they are bringing to contractors like me when they are sitting in an air conditioned office and us the contractors risking our lives to provide an estimate on a roof in order to try to land the job. NOT FAIR...

Plain and simple, this is the story of what is happening to this company now. I just hope that perhaps a considerate and smart executive of this company can understand better what they are doing wrong and that can also understand that in order to have a long lasting relationship with small and medium size contractors like me, they have to make something that is fair for both parties and not only for them. VERY DISAPPOINTED AT THIS COMPANY.

I have been with thumbtack since Thumbtack started several years ago, I still use their service as a profesional doing work for the people, who scower the internet for the best possible deal for some type of work, job, service, that they know absolutely nothing about. When I first started using thumbtack to get work, jobs from people, it woked well even though I enterted with much specptisism because I had been burned so bad by the likes of homeadvisor, angies list, etc., I figured to as least give it a try, at first it worked! Was affordable by the average owner operator/ small business, and for the most part was practicle, made me money, was easy to use and not use, if you dont buy credits you cant bid, or If you have credits you can just sit on them till a good job comes through... and thats when it started to get fuzzy, a few years in it was great, then it seams like they became a different entity, mabe sold out to a bigger party, that has only greed as their ego and money is their food, sending me bids now, that I dont even think are real people just 'bots' that the big companys use to make people think the are a real person. Ex: today I sent a bid in for my business, against my better judgement, keep in mind that I have only won four bids this year(march-oct my service is seasonal in western NY) I have a five star rating on thumbtack and previous seasons have netted me 60 or more won bids/jobs that ended positivley for me and the customer, a consistant uphill progress, but now this year... four.? Hmmm, maybe its me I spent and sent almost the same if not more quotes to potential customers, but only four.

Now. Today, I send the quote and within nanoseconds I recieve my usual response that I would get from wouldbe customer.?. Usually it takes a least an hour or two and sometimes a day for a response, because thats a human thing to do. And we are in the midst of getting a snow storm, my service is the last thing you are thinking about right now, and recently I have been receiving emails encouraging me to spend more/send more. Never have they done that before, and when I start a dialog with the customer. Aka 'bot', It makes no sense and needless to say no job, but they got my money, foolish me... So my advice is take it all with caution, assume that they are all just trying to get a piece of your hard earned money, and nothing is what it seems anymore, the internet is too smart for the working person/ tradesperson... and thumtack I believe, is no longer of the working people but is now part of the greed filled internet with no emotion and no care, just another way to make rich investors rich with my hard labor.

I had an account with Thumbtack when Thumbtack first started and then deleted it. They were horrible. I really felt it was a fraud or something. Then a friend of mine told me things were better to give it a second try so I did. Things were great for about a 1.5 years despite the constant price increase. However, again, another price increase announced today and the leads are even worse or maybe not even real. Who wants to pay $15-$20 a lead when you can't even ask a question like you were able to before. Other issues, I see the same name come up on a request for different categories, WTH? Are they just fishing or what? I have spent a ton of $$ with Thumbtack and my return was simply even for the year. Basically, what I spent with them it took me one wedding booking( not booked through Thumbtack) to pay for the entire year of purchased credits. However, that has since changed too. I will now be taking my $$ to Google. There is no way I am paying this kind of money on leads to "maybe" get a response from the requestor. Something has changed with Thumbtack and I can honestly say that the clientele is not there any more. I notice that when I add credits to my account I will get very few hits, but as soon as my credits are low I will get a huge increase of request which makes me think they are fake or Thumbtack is trying to get me to purchase more credits in an instant. Marketing is always your highest cost of doing business and you are better off putting those dollars toward a service that you can trust and have more control over how you deal with a consumer seeking services. This have now become a money pit waste of marketing if you ask me.

I can't believe here is another price increase, make it 3 within the last six months.

Thank you for being a professional on Thumbtack. We have seen tremendous growth in customer requests, and we're thrilled about the resulting business we've been able to bring you. To continue improving Thumbtack, we're changing how the number of credits required to quote is set for all customer requests.

Starting on May 4th, the number of credits to quote on all customer requests will be set for each individual request based on demand for similar jobs among pros. The updated cost to quote may initially differ from the today's cost by a few credits and will be updated periodically, as demand changes. The credits required to quote will appear on the customer request, as always. For jobs with low demand: We'll decrease credits to quote to encourage more pros to submit quotes. Ex: requests for small jobs in areas with few pros.
For jobs with high demand: We'll increase credits to quote to reduce competition to quote. Ex: requests for big jobs in areas with many qualified pros.
Thumbtack succeeds only when professionals like you succeed. Changes we're excited to bring you soon include: introducing quote templates so you can send quotes more quickly and easily
Enabling automatic credit purchases for uninterrupted quoting
Improving how your quotes are shown to customers to showcase your offer
Thank you for being a loyal Thumbtack pro. We value your business and feedback. To learn more about these changes, read the FAQs below or visit our Help Center.

The Thumbtack Team

I don't even know where to start. I believe I have been using thumbtack pro for 5 to 6 years now. At first it was great, before home advisor bought the company, sometime in 2019, or possibly late 2018 (I can't say that statement is completely timely accurate, as I heard it threw the grapevine but with the massive changes Thumbtack made to the company I believe it).

At first leads would go to a handful of people in the area and those targeted could bid on the job, which was fair. The leads at that time, were at most, $7 per lead. Now I've been billed automatically up to $80 per lead without even agreeing to speak with the customer and I have been billed upwards of $80 for a job that realistically cost $150 to have done which ends up costing my company money. I've spoken with the CSR's and I've made the multiple requests for the wrongful billing, but it falls on deaf ears and doesn't go anywhere.

If by some miracle you get a compassionate worker, they do give the money back and it's a credit to your account and Thumbtack takes that credit and randomly starts sending a lot of irrelevant job leads to get that money back plus more. They also have made their website to disable or hide your account from customers unless you turn on the automatic billing process.

Now with this billing process they take every little tiny part of leads and break them down by more categories so they can make more from you. For example: Let's say you're a general contractor, you set doors, hang drywall, remodel bathrooms, roofs, etc. You have to log into your account and turn on automatic payment on roughly a minimum amount per each category. So for example drywall requests you have to set your auto paid leads to roughly $70-$1000. Roofs, bathroom remodels, interior doors, exterior doors, and lock sets you have to set at minimum as well to get leads. This means you're opening Thumbtack into your bank account for thousands of dollars a week. Another example of lead siphoning: you get a lead and they bill you $30 off the 70$ to do the job, that leaves you $40 and next week it goes back to $70 for the same lead type. These leads have been as high as $99.

Most of the clients we work with are real customers, but 9 time out 10, the job descriptions aren't even close to what they tell you it is, which is relevant due someone requesting you because the forms they are filling out they aren't always honest on, and they are forced to select certain categories to make it submittable, and we are charged for an interaction that wasn't our fault.

In September 2020 I get a message on my Facebook business account from someone that was upset because Thumbtack would not allow them to get in contact with me on their website, which I found to be really odd. So I Google search my company, clicked on Thumbtack, attempted to request a quote, and I could not request a quote from myself. Thumbtack also would not take me to the form to fill out for what work I would have been requesting to be done. So I documented it and later received additional messages on Facebook from more people stating the same thing about not being able to request me, and they were pretty upset about it, because they wasted 2 hours searching for an alternate means to contact me, through no fault of my own, for a 5 min conversation.

I called thumbtack and made a complaint about it, but again, it fell on deaf ears. A little more time goes by and I get a call from a potential customer, who tells me that he is a software designer and stated verbatim: "You need to get rid of thumbtack. They are setting things up so people can not contact you for some reason". I know someone reading this is going to say why didn't they just request someone else. Well, I'm sure 1000s of people I didn't have a chance to speak with probably did. But when you get that person that reads through all of your reviews and likes what you do and how you do it, they shouldn't have to spend an additional two hours of their time just to try and find a means to contact me when they are already on Thumbtack.

Today I had a potential customer who was tentatively setting a set of days for me to possibly come see their home on, but I admittedly forgot to get back with them the day we'd agreed to just talk about scheduling a face to face meeting on, and they were allowed to give me a 1 star review stating that I had not showed up for an appointment that was never made or scheduled to be made. I again called thumbtack and they went into my message and read it, and thumbtack and told me I did not set a time or place to meet with the customer and didn't even accept the job, but they refused to remove it, and instead said, "well with your reviews you could probably get it back if you wanted". So now I'm here and looking to lawyer up and join this lawsuit to keep others from being victimized by Thumbtack.

We hired a professional by using Thumbtack's website, which gave us "peace of mind" when it stated that Thumbtack have a guarantee that protects the clients from damages caused by a professional hired on their website. Their website's set up is that for the client to believe that their professionals stand above the rest. That proved to be untrue in our case, when we hired a professional with fictitious recommendations and claims to have been in the handyman industry for many years.

The work performed in our home by Thumbtack's service member, left us with having to redo everything he was hired to do as he had no apparent craftsmanship in the installation of floors or bathroom vanities. He butchered the back of our vanity and hammered floors down that only required to be clicked in place. All the floor seal snaps were hammered and broken, which allowed water to penetrate floors. We followed every single step required by Thumbtack to show evidence and proof of incurred damages. This included receipts, cashed checks by the pro and pictures. We understood that their guarantee policy is to only cover for damages in the case that the professional does not reimburse the client. Our hired professional refused to accept any responsibility for his negligence that caused the damages. This dispute has now taken five solid months of numerous emails. When we all finally came to an agreement of payment to be made to us using the Thumbtack's Guarantee to cover our damages, it went back to more emails, yet requesting more proof and evidence of things they had already reviewed. The latest request from Thumbtack was for us to provide them with the telephone number of the person that helped us remove the damages caused, so that we could get the work redone. This is after Thumbtack had already accepted our receipts for Lowe's, Home Depot and hand written receipt of damages removal and the copy of the bank cashed check that was given to the person that did this small removal job. This request to obtain a phone number to call and confirm the work done was just unacceptable to us (very disrespectful) and it seemed as a way to keep prolonging a pay out. Please stay away from this company's "guarantee" facade and do read the small print that prohibits you from filing any type of class action suit. Basically if anything goes wrong with your project, you lose.

I had a VERY large move the other day. I hired Movers Connections after getting a Thumbtack account and hiring them after Thumbtack sent me a quote. We, (my sister and I) have very large and old heavy antique furniture. We were moving from a 3 bedroom house to a 2 bedroom townhome. She wanted to take EVERYTHING! And the three guys from Movers Connections did just that! On top of that, some things were not packed and it was chaotic and frustrating for us and doubly so for the movers. When Michael, Julio and Edwin showed up to move us I was doubtful they could actually do it but how wrong I was! Michael the team leader was a wiry little guy with no muscles showing. Julio is 57, and Edwin looked like he still should be in school chasing the girls! These guys were astonishing! The move took about 10 hours to tell you how much stuff there was. They had stairs to climb with the heaviest furniture, a piano and couches, chairs loveseats and boxes, so many boxes! These guys deserve a rating of 10 STARS! Additionally, they had closed the contract because they thought they would be finished but ended up having to stay about 4 additional hours. Michael told me his boss said we needed to go back on the clock and I was a little huffy about that. At a two hour minimum for $95.00 an hour was getting to be too steep. James, the big boss said he would cut us some slack and allow me to pay for just one hour. I wasn't happy but i said OK. In about another hour and with still more furniture to unpack, Michael came to me and said the deal with squashed! They were not charging me another dime! I couldn't have been happier of course! And they still were not finished! And, they had a small move after that and I believe it was going on 8 or 9pm! Whenever you need a big move, call Movers Connections! You will not regret hiring these guys I promise you! Clean, neat, professional and they really care about how your furniture is treated. They were careful not to break anything at all and spent a few hours just wrapping and securing the furniture, removing the weights from the clock, tying down furniture so it didn't slide, etc... Hire Movers Connections!

Working through Thumbtack is really a race to the bottom in terms of quality of work and pay rate. You have to buy credits on their site. These credits are then used to bid on jobs as Thumbtack come in. A total of 5 contractors get to bid on each job using their platform of email templates and / or your online profile. You pay around $1.50 per credit. If you learn to navigate the system, you can drop that to around $1.40 per credit. I work as a photographer, I have a really strong portfolio and competitive prices, and I've spent a lot of money for a small number of jobs. To simply bid on a photo job, it costs me a minimum of 4 credits. ($6) Several of the job bids are bogus, from looky-loos, or other photographers testing out the portal. (If a job positing is so clearly fake, you can request a refund, and you will get it after a few days, but that takes a lot more work and its not clear how many fake postings pass as looking real.) Often I have to bid on 4 to 6 jobs before I get hired. ($24 to $36 bucks!) I really cant imagine how photographers that dont have a strong portfolio and who charge more money every get hired. To bid on the more lucrative jobs, the cost is 8 credits ($12). Ive never been hired for any of the more lucrative assignments. Its a lot of work, the cost to use the portal is very expensive, and you have to put in a lot of hours to get the job, and then to complete the job assignment. Not worth the effort. Especially considering that the bids are often few and far between.

Old fashion networking and business cards / postcards work much better for me than this tech option.

Major complaint is Thumbtack does not stand by or protect its contractors.
So I obtained jobs by using the Thumbtack portal for over 1 year. My clients loved my work, and my ratings were so high that Thumbtack issued me the status of "Top Pro," something they only award to the top 3% of the contractors using their portal. Then, I was hired on a job where I completed a beautiful set of photographs, delivered bonus images with complete editing, over 50 photographs in total. Several weeks later, the client contacted me asking for more editing, around 10 hours worth of editing. I let the client know that the added editing was not included in the original bid and offered to complete the editing at a reasonable rate. The client then used extortion style tactics to pressure me into completing several hours worth of unpaid work, otherwise Id get a bad review. Needless to say, this developed into a civil dispute.

Rather than allowing us to go to neutral mediation / arbitration process as stipulated under their terms of use, Thumbtack concluded that I owed the clients a refund. When I refused on grounds that I honored the original agreement and had spent over 8 hours total on the assignment, they withdrew money from my bank account using my check-card they had on file for buying credits, without my authorization, essentially breaking the law. The customer service rep at Thumbtack that was overlooking the dispute sounded like a 12 year old. I know there are a lot of brilliant young women in the world, but the one handling this dispute happens to be a complete morons. They kept trying to send a link for us to communicate our dispute that would never arrive, when I made a phone appointment to speak with Kerri, it was some sort of cheap internet phone line that didnt work properly, had a lot of static and kept cutting off.

In short, this is a highly unprofessional company that all true professionals should probably stay clear from. Dispute is still pending.

It is important to understand the two sides of Thumbtack. I see a lot of the reviews are by customers that put in requests for a service through Thumbtack. The reviews are not of Thumbtack, but of the service provider in most cases. Granted, the service does reflect on Thumbtack, but the front end user does not pay Thumbtack for their service.

We service providers should have the ultimate reviews of Thumbtack. We are the ones that pay for the link to prospective clients and as of a few days ago, it became about 30% more expensive to contact clients through Thumbtack.

Every month, I evaluate each of my marketing vendors to make sure that I am spending my money wisely. Here is my report for Thumbtack for the month of May 2016.

May Thumbtack Efficiency Report

During the Month of May I purchased 52 bids (approximately $170) which is up from April 19%. Thumbtack has been the best thing going for my business despite my frustrations with their increasing costs and lack of transparency over half the time.

Of the six quotes I was hired for, I will make around $2000. I am willing to feed Thumbtack 10 to 15% for legitimate quotes.

On June 9th, I noticed that Thumbtack raised their costs by about 50 cents per credit. That means that each bid will be about 30% more to purchase. I have been over spending my marketing budget because Thumbtack has been working for me. This is a step in the wrong direction for me. It will ultimately cost Thumbtack some of my business.
Here are my results from the Month of May

The Ugly side...

52% of those quotes were viewed but no other information was given (unchanged from last month). I can only assume that Thumbtack did not act on the quotes and/or were fishing for approximate costs or not serious about hiring a professional. This is simply not acceptable from Thumbtack. Either these clients need to be vetted, or Thumbtack needs to document more closely why a professional is not being hired. I also have observed them taking positive steps, but this number is still virtually unchanged in the last months. Thumbtack, you had better start hunting these people down and ask them why they are wasting our money.

17%-Have been refunded back to me (down 2%). While I appreciate this, it tells me that Thumbtack is not doing a good job on the front end of the process. That means at least one in five requests are not serious about finding a professional. A professional that is willing to pay for their business. Perhaps some form of chart showing general estimates for the particular task might be a part of the front end user experience. Two of those refunds were from customers that chose "to have a friend or relative" do the work. This is a nice new step from Thumbtack.

1%-Potential clients that I discussed details with and then they ghosted. One of these marked me as hired but never returned an email. There is no record weather they hired a professional on Thumbtack or not.

The more reasonable side...
8%-I was marked as not hired (down from 13%).
12%-I have been hired (up from 5% in April).
1%-Currently exchanging information with a perspective client.
8%-As stated by Thumbtack, the client changed their mind about the event. Acceptable to a point. Thumbtack actually refunded my credits on a couple of these.
3%-A new and good problem... I had to inform clients that the day we were discussing was already booked based on a deposit from another client.

Professionally
Gregg A. Pohll
Owner & Operator of GAP Photography, Centralia, Washington.

I finished my first manuscript, and with my first completed work, I had no idea where to start with finding a reasonably priced editor. So I found Thumbtack.com. I hired a woman by the name of Christine Stewart based out of Baltimore Maryland, who calls herself "The Real Writer". Well now I understand why she has to call herself that instead of people just assuming she was an actual writer, or an actual editor for that matter. She does an amazing job at selling herself as one, which was why I trusted in her to edit my manuscript. She had 3 reviews of 5 stars, and after doing some research, I took a chance with her. I paid her $800 for developmental editing of my full manuscript. This would include subjective editing for consistency, and flow, and structural improvement, as well as grammatical corrections, spelling and punctuation. After paying half of the fee up front, upon the last half of payment I should have received the manuscript with the editing marks, and the manuscript with all of the corrections made. A clean copy. What I got back was far from that. The clean copy was FULL of typos. She did not know how to format my document, which I had to correct myself. She did not finish making all of the changes throughout the document, handing it back to me and saying that I should make the corrections "for practice." She handed the manuscript back to me sooner than the deadline, but did not complete the job at an acceptable level at all. When I communicated this to her, she complained about having to leave a party early to finish the work. On another occasion she had the excuse of being sick. Overall the service was very unprofessional, and her attitude was very negative. She did not seem interested in the manuscript at all, which is fine if she didn't enjoy the story, but she should have shown interest in the work itself. As an editor, you will not always enjoy other people's work, but she is being paid to make corrections. When I gave Christine a negative review, she in turn got very nasty and made several responses in reply, using a personal email I sent to her, editing it to say things that I did not say. If you go to her page on Thumbtack, it clearly says that she has completed only 5 jobs with Thumbtack, yet she has 12 reviews in total, all except for mine giving her 5 stars with glowing reviews, which leads me to believe that she is posing as an editor, misleading amateur writers and duping them out of money.

Thumbtack.com contacted me about one of the reviews I wrote, asking if I actually dealt with Christine, and because I did not reply fast enough, Thumbtack told me that they had to remove my review because Thumbtack had a policy of honesty. Well I replied telling them my story, pointing out that Christine was misleading and in fact not being honest when she has 5 completed jobs with Thumbtack and 12,5 star reviews. No answer from Thumbtack, and her lies that she put up on her page about me are still there.
If you are a new writer, desperate to find professional editing services, DO NOT trust your hard work with CHRISTINE STEWART, or with THUMBTACK.com They are both a con and could care less about providing professional and honest services to anyone. Like the worse of them, they only care about making a buck.

I have hired 2 lawn maintenance services within the past year in the Tampa Bay area, through Thumbtack.com (Thornley's Affordable Home Service and All Around Lawn Maintenance).

Both proved to be extremely unreliable and highly unprofessional characters.

Josh Thornley of Thornley's Affordable Home Service, seemed trustworthy and did a thorough job on my lawn during the first, and only 2 other times he decided to keep his word and take care of my lawn. However, it didn't take long before he showed his true colors.

Although I told him I was on a fixed income and would only be contacting him as needed, instead of weekly or bi-weekly, the last time I dealt with him, he chose to text me between 11pm - 11:40pm of all times, asking if I needed my lawn done. He was almost begging.

After I approved his visit, he didn't get back to me until the following morning, saying he would come by that afternoon. Sounded great to me. The whole afternoon passed and I never heard from him. I had to text him twice, to find out if he still planned on coming, and if not, I told him he needed to let me know. At the end of the day, he finally responded with, "No, I can be there tomorrow if that's okay." I told him this was not okay, and made him aware that I ended up wasting my entire day waiting for him to show up.

After telling him I no longer wanted to do business with him, he apologized and kept texting me, trying to win back my business. He even offered to do my lawn for free!

Still, I stuck to my guns and unhired him via text, as well as, on Thumbtack. I wanted him to know that his unprofessional behavior was totally unacceptable and I was definitely done.

More recently, I dealt with Dustin Quigley of All Around Lawn Maintenance. I also explained to him that I was on a fixed income, and would contact him as needed. I even told him how the last person treated me. He assured me he was different and asked me to text him whenever I needed lawn maintenance.

He was very talkative (too talkative at times), friendly and seemingly, willing to assist. He did a decent job when he came.

I felt as if we built a good rapport, so I was confident that he would be a keeper. Once again, I was wrong.

He showed up at least 2 or 3 times as promised, and since the lawn had not been growing during the winter months (figuring he was aware of this himself, specializing in lawn care), I contacted him recently. Last week to be exact.

I was courteous enough to apologize for the length of time I had not reached out to him, and asked him to come by and take care of my lawn. I also asked him how much he would charge to do a little extra work such as; raking leaves, cutting limbs and bushes.

The whole day passed without a response. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and chalked it up to him being busy. So, I texted him again the next morning, asking if he received my text and to let me know whether or not he was still interested in doing business. The whole morning went by, into the afternoon. No response.

He pretty much ignored and wrote me off without warning or cause.

From there, I decided to unhire him on Thumbtack. Then I texted him, making him aware that I am convinced he doesn't want my business and I will look elsewhere. I never received so much as, "I'm sorry." He basically proved himself as a COWARD!

In the beginning of my dealings with both of those individuals, Thumbtack urged me to give them good reviews on Thumbtack. Who does that?! That within itself should have told me something was not right with them.

Unfortunately, I fell for their lies, and gave them 5 stars and excellent feedback.

Until they BS someone else, everyone will believe they are legitimate business persons who are 100% worth their time and money!

That in turn, makes Thumbtack seem upstanding as well.

Now, I can't even undo those good reviews to let everyone know how disgusted I am with these clowns. Thumbtack doesn't provide that option for some strange reason.

Word of advice, if you need to hire someone to do big or small jobs around your home, DO NOT USE THUMBTACK.COM!

Sometimes, we get what we pay for.

Go online and search for reputable companies/establishments in your area, with real credentials, websites and actual business cards to hand out upon their arrival, that specialize in the projects you need assistance with. A regular handy man is not going to be reliable in the long run.

TAKE IT FROM SOMEONE THAT HAS BEEN BURNED TWICE BY THUMBTACK AND THEIR UNPROFESSIONALS!

I have been extremely disappointed with thumbtack. I had a situation with a professional where the professional used homophobic language with me. The thumbtack team claimed that Thumbtack were willing to help me with my concerns, but they didn't promptly write follow up emails. For instance, they would tell me that I would get a follow up email after I wrote about how I am concerned that this professional received numerous negative reviews on yelp for harassing and scamming people, that I had been called homophobic slurs and insulted on my physical apperance, and that I was being delayed receiving a refund on paypal. Thumbtack did not respond with very much depth to my emails. Instead, they would write vague things like "oh, have you heard anything from paypal."

Additionally, Thumbtack took the side of the professional who was using homophobic language. Thus, they banned me from their website claiming that I used inappropriate language in these interactions. However,
I have clear evidence in text messages that what I was writing was not inappropriate. Additionally, the professional that they hired was using inappropriate language in our interactions. Nonetheless, the professional was not banned from the website! They are still doing business on the site. Thus, thumbtack appears to hold different standards for professionals versus consumers in terms of their interactions on thumbtack.

Furthermore, I reached out to thumbtack numerous times to ask about why I was banned. Thumbtack offered no emails. This was unfortunate because I had connected with an actual personal trainer on thumbtack who was responsive to me and I wanted to work with. Nonetheless, when I called thumbtack (more than one week after receiving absolutely no response) to ask about using the website, they told me that I am not allowed on the website because of the email that clearly instructed that I'm banned from thumbtack because I used inappropriate language. Nonetheless, this email is completely null because I never used inappropriate language and have text messages to prove that it never happened. Additionally, thumbtack never sent the email in the first place! Its nowhere in my inbox. They promised that I would get an email within 2-3 days of my complaint (which was more than a week ago). Nope. Nothing!

In conclusion, I am never using thumbtack ever again. I am scared that I will not receive my $140 back. However, this is not just about $140. Thumbtack clearly does not listen to their consumers and their needs and fears. I was afraid that a professional that I was talking to was scamming/harassing multiple individuals and thumbtack did not take this seriously. Instead, Thumbtack banned me from their website so Thumbtack could continue to make money from the professional. I am truly disappointed by this situation.

Furthermore, neither thumbtack nor the professional that they hired has offered any apology on my physical apperance and sexuality being insulted. Instead, one customer service agent on the phone said "What was said was said."

So, guys, please be wary of thumbtack. Choose businesses that actually care about their customers, do adequate background checks on the professionals, and respond to emails promptly. And choose businesses that do not delay giving refunds to people for extremely long periods of time!

Stay away from this and similar companies!

I was with Thumbtack from the beginning. I got one call after another and scheduled probably 8 out of every 10 jobs. Thumbtack was amazing. And then all the sudden nobody would ever get back to me. It happened overnight. Sorry, but that doesn't happen naturally. And the jobs that were coming my way were not even real jobs. More about that later.

I asked Thumbtack what was going on and Thumbtack insisted I wasn't getting jobs because I didn't have any reviews. Well, what happened to them? They literally wiped out my long 5 star history.

Just days ago I decided to give Thumbtack another try. I updated my profile and added lots of pictures showing my 5 star work which very few have the ability to do. First lead comes in and right away I know she's a fake customer. Then another fake customer contacts me. Both had pictures showing damage that was clearly beyond repair. And all three communicated in ways that made it obvious they weren't real customers.

So, not only is Thumbtack shady, but competing businesses are also shady. In fact, did you know businesses exist where their sole purpose is to eliminate their clients competition? Shocking but true.

I used to make a ton of money from Craigslist then every one of my ads would get flagged. And then I found that flagging services exist. On the front page of their websites it would literally say, "Eliminate Your Craigslist Competition". How is that legal? This is why CL now charges for ads. And the same thing goes on with Thumbtack, Yelp and all the others. Games are played by both advertising company and their larger customers.

BTW, Do you want to know why I had to give Thumbtack another try? Yelp wiped out my 5 star history too!

Yelp had been calling me for years wanting me to advertise. I learned from customers that I have nothing but glowing 5 star reviews. Many of them! Hey, I've been in business longer than they have! But, when I asked the people at Yelp why I can't find my reviews they said I didn't have any. So, I've got all these 5 star reviews from every similar business yet the biggest of them all has no reviews on me? Clearly that doesn't make sense!

This had me questioning everybody that found me on Yelp. I would literally have them show me my reviews, which were so amazing. It made me feel really good to hear all the wonderful things people said about me.

So, why did they eliminate my 5 star history? Because for the first time ever I got a review that was less than 5 stars. In fact, it was a 2 star review. And now my single Yelp review is visible to everybody. Yelp turned my 5 star reputation into a 2 star one. And they did this to me all because I wouldn't advertise with them. I'm sorry, but if that's not evil I don't know what is.

Research what people say about Yelp and you'll realize they toy with peoples businesses and lives. People are very, very angry and for very good reason.

I for one would like to file a class action lawsuit to stop these companies from destroying lives. I just can't believe this is allowed to go on.

I would give them zero stars if that was an option! My issue worked out, but no thanks at all to Thumbtack. Thumbtack front like they will help a consumer, but really they have no power over a "Pro" to work out financial or contractual issues. They make money recommending people and are not accountable in any way. I was having a problem with a "Pro" who I found through Thumbtack. I read his reviews and they were great except one that said he never got back to them after they tried to contact him. It happens! I hired him using a signed contract and gave him a deposit. This was followed by five times that he said he was coming the next day and then never showed up. He ignored calls and most texts, except to let us know when he would be "fake" showing up again. I was already actively pursuing civil and criminal action, but decided to turn to Thumbtack for advice and assistance. I used the online chat feature because I like to have an exact transcript of the conversation. The agent took all the details and explained that this dispute would be escalated to the Thumbtack Solution Center. The agent also said that I would get a call from them - I did not - and that they would email me a copy of the transcript of our chat - they did not. I knew enough to copy the chat and was able to paste it into a blank word document. When this "Pro" got the complaint he finally showed up and did the job. Two days after the job he contacted me to ask why I made a complaint and if I was unhappy with the work. I knew he had received the complaint days before. I explained to him that I filed that to help protect myself and make a trail of evidence for court, but now I would withdraw the dispute, A few days later I received an email from Thumbtack. I asked them to get the pro to do the job or refund my deposit, HERE IS THERE BIG HELP FROM THE SOLUTION CENTER: "We have an update on your dispute in the Thumbtack Solution Center. It looks like ***** didn’t accept or counter your suggested solution by the deadline. We know this is
Disappointing, so someone from the Marketplace Trust and Safety team will reach out to you within two business days. In the meantime, we suggest looking into the resources available in your area to hold ***** responsible." So basically they said we tried to reach him and he ignored us. Good luck@. I will never use them again! And BTW they did not get back to me!

You’ll hear from us soon.

Marketplace Trust and Safety Team

Thumbtack is a scam for business owners. Quotes are free to send but if someone replies, even if Thumbtack have not read all of Thumbtacks rules and regulations, or if someone has something misclassified, such as needing a printer, not a designer.

You are charged $20-35.00 for every 100.00 in a quote you sent, so something you charge $300.00, you get charged $75.00 if someone replies to your quote, NOT if someone hires you. (A lot of users looking for professionals, this service is free, they do not read the lengthy rules, then YOU as a registered pro are charged just for someone saying, I'll save your info and get back to you when I know what I need, or if someone needs a printer and not a designer not understanding the difference, you have to file a claim with customer service, and it isn't really refunded to you.

All of this is VERY unclear on their website. After lots of emails and customer service chats, I was told I would be refunded a couple mischarges. Then after more time talking to customer service, to find out they didnt mean I would be refunded the money to the money to the bank account from which it came, they indicated my money would be credited to my thumbtack account and told me in the fine print they do not refund money to bank accounts.

Next, I went to my account and removed my credit card, just wanting to use the money that was credited to my account, I then got a message saying I could not send quotes unless I had a credit card linked to my account. You know, Ill take the loss, so that I dont give you one more dime I work really hard for!

For 100.00 on Facebook, I can run ads for weeks, probably gaining at least 5-10 new customers for what they are charging. Hire a local designer/advertisement pro and get some real advertising for yourself!

I have since read many reviews from other areas of service, home contractors, hair stylist. Same issues. Home contractors look like they have it rough based on some of the bids change but the average proposal cost 500.00?!

Ill join a class action with anyone else that feels like this service is a scam! I'm also filing complaints with BBB and FCC is possible!

Thumbtack is an utterly irresponsible and reprehensible company that provides no information and takes zero responsibility for their contractors. It should be illegal for them to connect customers to short and long distance movers. Recently, the FBI charged 12 people for moving scams where these criminals will either a). Take your stuff hostage and demand more and more money to return your stuff or b). Steal your stuff and then auction them off. There are in between outcomes where your stuff will likely be broken by illegitimate movers who will also severely overcharge you. The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration keeps a database of movers who are registered and insured with the Federal government. In addition, a U.S. DOT number is required by FMCSA for interstate moves. This is the BASIC minimum step to check for the legitimacy of a purported mover. Otherwise movers who don't meet this basic minimum requirement: a) may not be insured and therefore you may be mislead into believing the insurability of your goods b) may actually NOT be legal to carry out interstate moves and c) are NOT subject to any regulation because you can't file a complaint against them with the FMCSA.
Think about online websites that connect customers to service providers. When you sign up on eBay, you are given hints to how to purchase safely and how to sell safely. Thumbtack provides NO guidance on identifying legitimate moving companies. This is because their business model SUPPORTS predators who prey on unsuspecting or ill advised consumers. Businesses have to pay a fee to see your request and that's how Thumbtack gets paid. They're largely accepting of scammers and shady contractors because Thumbtack get money, take no responsibility for your pain and loss when in fact, they should be legally liable for not doing background checks on contractors.
I was contacted by a shady person, likely a moving "broker" who gave me a quote for moving interstate. I was asked to pay an upfront 20% deposit (a sign of shady business practices) which I did through PayPal. The moving company name this broker masquerades under is the same name as a legitimate company in another state, which is not unusual as moving companies often do long distance interstate moves. Their phone # also matched the area code of the legitimate moving company (Flag 1 for misdirection).
I then googled the name of the actual moving company, who has a similar name to yet another legitimate transport company (Flag 2 for misdirection). It wasn't until I felt a sense of uncertainty that I looked further and realized that this was one of those shady illegal moving companies that hire a local penske/generic truck, bang up your stuff and possibly hold your items hostage and/or force you to pay "storage fees". They CLAIMED to accept credit card payment, but switched to PayPal or Venmo (Flag 3). I was able to resolve the issue through several calls to PayPal but I had to escalate the issue as they did not believe me and thought I was backing out of a moving contract. I later did some research and it turns out the invoice was illegal because they charged by volume instead of weight (google binding vs. non binding contracts and the legality of quoting by volume vs. weight) so had PayPal not stopped the transaction I could have sought back my deposit by other means.
I contacted Thumbtack and sent them PROOF with screenshots. The moving company has ALSO been reviewed under Yelp with complaints that Thumbtack referred them. This is 99% Thumbtack's responsibility and yet they don't care. This individual is still on Thumbtack with fake 100% positive reviews. There have been other reviewers stating that these scammers just change to another name on Thumbtack even if action forces them to close down one account. In the end Thumbtack proposed a solution to connect me to this shady individual summarizing that I was "not comfortable pursuing services." This is highly misleading and has NOTHING TO DO with personal feelings or being comfortable. There were CLEAR signs and proof their contractor was shady and illegal. Not only that, it is dangerous to clearly disclose to a shady individual, "your customer is uncomfortable doing business with you." Who knows if these individuals will retaliate or get revenge, GIVEN that my original and new moving addresses were given to them. I advise anyone considering moving to NOT use Thumbtack and instead use OFFICIAL and FEDERAL government licensed companies and most of all, do research. Thumbtack doesn't care if you lose your valuable belongings, get terrorized by scammers or lose money. They will keep a band of thieves if it serves them their dinner on a silver platter at the expense of your WHOLE LIFE.

Thumbtack, while a great idea, has problems that plague both consumer and vendor.

The vendor is told that Thumbtack is an "introduction" service. Thumbtack sells the "introduction" to 5 vendors per request. The price of the "introduction to each vendor can be as low as $3 to over $20 per "introduction". It's possible that Thumbtack is collecting from multiple vendors 25,30 or even 50 percent of what the consumer is looking to pay for whatever services Thumbtack want. Thumbtack doesn't want to reimburse or credit back to the vendors for people that say that they hired someone outside of Thumbtack. Better than 90% of the people that use Thumbtack do not provide contact information. Vendors can use the Thumbtack interface, but no phone numbers, business name or anything else other than a personal name is generally provided. The requests are usually very very generic and do not provide adequate information to provide pricing for the service they say they want. As such, you cannot provide a quote or need additional information from someone that you do not have contact information for. Thumbtack is also appearing to appeal to the bottom feeders of both vendor and consumer as of late. Who, as a professional, can or would provide services at a rate that would require subsidy from some other source of income? The expectation of most of the consumers that utilize Thumbtack is to find bottom of the pricing scale vendors.

Consumers wouldn't want to utilize a part time doctor or attorney, but Thumbtack allows non-professionals to buy "introductions". While the free market is a great thing, the whole premise of Thumbtack as an introduction service for vendors and consumers is fraught with issues for both sides. Vendors spend money for "introductions" that are likely never going to amount to work and consumers have no way of knowing that the vendor is really a professional. It's very easy to have a great web presence and do crap work. What's to say that what you see online is actually work or testimonials that relate to the vendor?

Bottom line: Vendor and consumer beware!

Look closely at the "leads" -- the names are ridiculous, 99% of the leads are people who don't have facebook or LinkedIn profiles. Coincidence? If an executive named "Simon Z from Maui" is looking to hire a photographer via Thumbtack, don't you think chances are pretty good that "Simon Z" would have a profile SOMEWHERE on the internet? 99% of the names given as the "first names" of the "leads" are so off-the-wall that you think it would be easy to find them on the internet -- nope. And, if you do find one on LinkedIn, it's a "person" with no picture, no information, and no contacts! I can't tell you how many "fake" leads I have come across! On top of that, when I started comparing what the descriptions were for what Thumbtack needed -- they were all very similar (all very vague).

DON'T put your business on Thumbtack unless you have hundreds of dollars to blow every week. If you already have your business on there, copy and save your profile (so you have it) and copy and save all your positive reviews (so you have them) -- just in case they go out of business before you had a chance to do that!

They should have the potential customers pay $10 (and reduce the fees for the pros). If a customer is SERIOUS about finding an awesome professional to help with his/her project, they won't mind paying $10 to find that contact! In addition, they should make the customer provide a legitimate phone number and email address.

It just makes no sense to pay $20-$70 per POTENTIAL lead with no guarantee of ever being able to have a conversation with the client! With their new business model, all they were doing was simply charging my credit card over and over and I never got any new clients or the opportunity to talk with potential client! Prior to that -- when I was picking and choosing the projects I wanted to respond to --and was paying to send them quotes, I was getting a new client every day! A few weeks ago I responded to about 50 projects -- just to see what responses I would get via their new model! I got lame questions like "Can I call you?" (and, of course, never got a call but got charged on my credit card $20 for that question!) or I was asked a question that was answered in my profile (and got charged for that question).

I am done with them. Their business model will NOT sustain itself if they have no pros (like me) no longer on board.

After over a year as a Thumbtack Pro I had 46 customers and was still at 5 stars because I take pride in my work... I had 3 customers in one month that left me bad reviews, Thumbtack all had striking similarities: the customers tried to renegotiate my hourly mid project, when unable to lower my rate, they all rushed the job, they all were from Iran or India and they all later left me bad reviews, and these were all honest similarities... the last customer got frustrated and claimed water damage from a baseboard install 2.5 weeks earlier... she filed a claim with thumbtack with zero evidence of water damage and then left me a bad review threatened to sue me... nobody called me on thumbtack... but they deactivated my account... later I spoke with Ashley in some marketplace integrity department, she treated me as a number... not a person, she admitted to me as we talked that she had zero evidence of water damage... she and I reviewed the entire text chain showing my professionalism from start to finish. But my account was still deactivated because I was "unprofessional" and would not work with the customer even though I had nothing to work with, she offered nobody any proof of any damage, so how am I to rectify this?... later Ashley said I was a racist because I used the words India and Iran... so if I had 3 customers from Kansas who left me a bad review under other similar conditions, would I be racist against people from Kansas?... so as of now I cannot reach anyone at thumbtack to re open my account and I have several paid for quotes I am trying to follow up on... while my account is deactivated for no real tangible reason other than I used two adjectives that someone did not like... and after 300 hours in the field, with perfect customer responses, and after paying over $400 for all the quotes to get any business I find I am banished as a low life I am thumbtack's customer here and I needed help. Nobody called me, but one customer with a fake damage claim got me booted from Thumbtack...

My full honest experience of dealing with Thumbtack, is a horrible experience, like all the other BBB & online complaints on thumbtack, beware of this company! We wondered why many appts made with Thumbtack vendors were so unprofessional over the years, some will not bother to show up for appts, or will not even get back with promised estimates after viewing simple jobs, even though Thumbtack appeared nice & professional initially.
Tried making this nightmare as short as poss, we hired another one of Thumbtack's advertised contractors thru their site, to do a simple concrete job below, that he said he was a professional and could do the service of simply removing old peeling sealer, without damaging concrete.
The only reason we hired this guy who owns the company Corale Painting LA Ca. (Who did not know was unlicensed-suspended) thru Thumbtack, is because of Thumbtack's Guarantee and reputation for supposedly screening these guys who pay to advertise on their site.
After being so very nice and patient with this guy, even giving them cold waters in the hot sun, the first day he showed up over 2 hours late, with his 3 little kids running around on job, he told me he had a family situation, and his kids seemed nice, so I wanted to be understanding that things come up, and was ok still.
After a few days of using multiple chemicals and 3 rented different pressure washers, we started to realize that this Thumbtack vendor was not professional at all, and did not know what he was doing at all. His last pressure washer left huge large ugly swirls throughout our concrete, right in the front of our house. Why this guy if had any common sense, continued using pressure washer after seeing these huge swirls being put in concrete, is beyond our belief.
Thumbtack's contractor apologized to me as a man, and said he would be back within a week to repair, and I took his word. He kept putting us off for several weeks, informed him we will have to file complaint with Thumbtack, he did not even seem to care, after a couple months, we realized he was not even planning to return and fix his major damages in our property.
Within a few weeks after damages, filed a complaint with Thumbtack corp, even provided them with documented text messages where Corale painting company acknowleged damages & he agreed to fix asap, and submitted our photos of the damages he did, even all my neighbors who are my witnesses that saw him damage our concrete.
After a months or so filed complaint Thumbtack corp, even though all my most of my communication with their vendor is clearly documented on their website, they now tell me that since I (did not)hit the small indiscreet hire button on my account, and since I trusted & waited on the contractor to return & did not notify thumbtack within 3 days, on a techni-cality their supposedly Thumbtack Full warranty is not responsible to fix damages( Currently since my Thumbtack BBB & Attorney General complaint- They slyly now made the Hire button more visible and clearer on their website, to try and cover themselves)
Since filing my Thumbtack BBB & (Attorney General-CAN ALSO FILE EASY ONLINE BUSINESS COMPLAINTS ON THEM) so attorney General can track all complaints, Thumbtack just to merely appear like they are trying to help us, the consumer, they conspired with their shady vendor, to propose their fix for our damaged concrete
( Thumbtack proposed to Send this unlicensed contractor back to my home, and simply use his finger to spot paint concrete mix over large swirls in the front of our house. (My family were shocked, we knew then that not only was their vendor shady who pays to advertise with them, but Thumbtack Corp were shady and had no integrity as a company)
Again, beware of this company, even though they do have a few good contractors, but they also have many of these Suspended or unlicensed shady contractors, who can hide under Thumbtack and not face any real responsibility for damages they cause.
This vendor is still paying them, & openly advertising on Thumbtack.com until this day, leaving us Thumbtack's customer, now stuck and looking to pay and fix all their damages to our concrete.
One good thing out of this Thumbtack nightmare, is we that we found a much better company than Thumbtack in our opinion, SERVIZ.COM, they at least have integrity, no suprises, and will stand behind all the vendors and guarantee all their work, unlike Thumbtack.com, who turns their back on their customers!

I wanted to warn you about a terrible experience I had with Thumbtack. Ive used them before and found a great moving company that moved us across the country. Therefore, when we were wanting a custom bookshelf made for our living room, I was excited because I thought I found a great carpenter on their site. He had almost perfect, verified reviews. He came to our house, created a prototype for our bookshelf, and we were excited to hear we would have a bookshelf made in 4 weeks. We signed a contract where we paid 70% upfront. After paying the carpenter, he stopped responding to our calls/texts/emails. We were really worried because we had paid close to $5000 and didnt know what was going on. We spoke to Thumbtack, and Thumbtack told us not to worry and that 9/10 times they were able to resolve things. Thumbtack had his credit card on file and tried charging him for the full amount but could only get half of it cleared. They mailed us a check for around $2400. At this point, we heard back from the contractor and he apologized saying he had health issues. We went to his shop and saw the wood he had purchased. He assured us that it would take two weeks or so to finish it up. Afterwards we didnt hear from him again for a couple weeks and then we got a text from him saying he that he cant finish the project because his health is too bad and he would repay us the balance. After trying to get a hold of him again, we heard nothing. In the meantime, the contractor posted pictures on social media of him making a table with the wood that we presumed he purchased to make our shelves. We ceased contacting him further because he was tweeting messages that were satanic and made us feel uncomfortable. Furthermore, we saw online that he has a criminal background. We contacted Thumbtack again for their assistance, and after our case was escalated to a manager, they advised there was nothing else they could do to help. They said that its now between us and the contractor and they have no additional responsibility to us. When I asked Thumbtack does background checks, they say they ALLOW the vendor to complete one. This experience has been ridiculous and we feel beyond disappointed. We are out $2400 because we trusted Thumbtack to vet their vendors. Instead, they put a criminal on their platform and refused to take responsibility. STAY AWAY FROM THUMBTACK so you dont find yourself in a similar situation!