I am okay with paying a platform acting as my marketing channel as long as they are fair and honest. However, it is much worse than I expected. Starting November 2023 when I signed up with Thumbtack, only after a few leads, I felt fishy, something not quite right. Of the five leads I received, I paid Thumbtack $75.01, while I was paid $150 from the only lead I won. That left me a net profit at $74.99. Thumbtack made more money than I did! Fast forward, I still had similar experience of losing money as a five star professional on Thumbtack. Being new or seasoned makes no difference.I once asked one of my clients if they were aware Thumbtack charged every professional as soon as they reached out. They said they were not informed at all. I raised this question many times to Thumbtack and kept asking them to disclose this important information upfront to all customers seeking services. It never happened. Acting as a customer myself, I realized Thumbtack matter of fact encourages customers to reach up to five professionals, (I noticed some customers sent out more than one lead) and of course only 1 pro would win. This practice results in no more than 20% success rate on average for professionals. Who benefits financially from this non-disclosure? Thumbtack! Only Thumbtack! Customers do not benefit directly financially. Talking about leads, Thumbtack claims to be a lead based company. It is a cover for many malpractices of theirs. From my experience, more than 60% leads I got were fake leads. Either some customers never responded (not even read the messages I sent via Thumbtack App), or Thumbtack sent me mis-matched leads, or I got third party leads which should never be allowed on Thumbtack, or simply found a lame excuse to drop later. Who benefits from fake leads? Again, only Thumbtack! Real customers do not, unless those customers got paid under the table. Thumbtack of course denied accusations from me and many other professionals. If Thumbtack is really innocent, show me what it did to prevent professionals from losses? They could never elaborate the detailed measures they ever implemented to guarantee quality leads. The winning side is always Thumbtack. This along should tell everyone something. I strongly believe, like many other professionals before me, that everything happened on the platform has been intentional. I cry for auditing or investigating this business thoroughly. It's shame their malpractice is allowed for so long. p.s. Thumbtack just left a reply today, almost 1 month after my review! I do not accept their response. I tried, with Thumbtack multiple times. For example the last batch of 3 disputes, I spent a lot of time chatting with them for 2 rounds, in the chat box then the follow-up emails. In the second round, I finally got refunded for one obvious mis-matched lead which Thumbtack should have refunded me in the initial refund request. However I was denied again for the other two disputes. Ironically soon after the refund, I got another fake lead, it pretty much erased the refund I just received. In the end, no matter what I did or didn't do, the result is the same. There is no reason to try again!
