Unclaimed
Thumbtack
Reviews and Complaints
1.6M
CLAIMED LOSSES
3.5K
TOTAL REVIEWS
680K
PAGE VIEWS
9
ISSUES RESOLVED
Thumbtack Reviews
Other Product Review
I submitted several quotes and heard back from one "client" but then they dropped off and it was radio silence. Several never even opened their quotes and at $8.00 a pop this is a GREAT way to lose money and NOT get any jobs. I am highly disappointed. Also, many of the people had almost identical writing in their request - as if written by the same person...
ID
Location
Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Review about Scam Company
Thumbtack a total scam.
ID
Location
Bellevue, Washington
Review about Spanish Lesson Payment from Edisto Beach, South Carolina
My customer showed up late to her first Spanish lesson. She said in the hurry she forgot to bring the payment. I told her she could send a check. She emailed a few days later asking for my routing and checking acct numbers so she could deposit the money in my account. I of corse said no and haven't heard from her since.
ID
Location
Edisto Beach, South Carolina
Product
Thumbtack Account
Scam??
14 offers, 1 responded, 5 cancelled. I get it that the client may have selected other pros. No problem. But I find it hard to believe that none of them even responded to my offer. I find it hard to believe that 5 of 14 have been cancelled, some on the same day. I find...
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4 comments
PissedConsumer994884
#994884
Scammers
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ID
Loss
$38
New Reviewer
Total Waste of My Time and Money
Update by user May 07, 2015
For the clients looking for service professionals: I have seen complaints from customers who say they wonder if the people they hired really were professionals. Apparently, some of the so-called professionals were incompetent or just *** artists. That is just a warning...
14 comments
PissedConsumer1529924
#1529924
thank you for posting your feedback regarding thumbtack. I had my email explode with emails, and I did not even have my profile completed.
I was concerned so I told them I wanted to close the account due to spam.
She told me they were all legitimate real people. Being a MT that travels can be risky so why increase the risk.
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ID
Location
Haines City, Florida
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Reason of review
Bad quality
Loss
$25
Stay away from Thumbtack. Fake leads.
I tried using Thumbtack to generate photography leads. First of all, I'm really suspicious about the number of leads they have sent me because I live in a small town. I've been in this business for over 15 years and I can't imagine, in a day and age when everyone thinks they are a photographer that there are that many people in my community looking for a new photographer everyday, several times a day. It doesn't make sense. Secondly, and I know this is going to sound awful of me to brag, but I have a solid portfolio and am an award winning photographer with ans reasonable rates. When using methods outside of Thumbtack, I'm rarely passed up for a gig, yet I have never heard back from a Thumbtack user, much less gotten the gig. That doesn't match up with what I experience in any other method of advertising. I'm also not sure how they get these people to submit work requests. When I send my portfolio out to someone using another method, I can usually tell from my web traffic if they looked at my site because it will spike immediately after my email is opened. I have noticed no traffic spike in submitting Thumbtack bids. It feels very fake to me. Save your money.
6 comments
ID
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Loss
$20
Be selective in the leads you choose to quote
I have had about 4 clients from Thumbtack. I have spoken to about 10 leads. Im a Personal Trainer. One client I had for a year another about six months and the other two about a month. I believe some of the leads are not real or the lead just had a thought and is pricing it out, but some are serious. I only respond to leads that number one seem serious and number two fill out the form with complete information and number three are within a 1 to 5 mile radius. Ask questions they are free then if the lead is serious you will get an answer.
ID
Location
Baltimore, Maryland
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Thumbtack - Bidding Review
Ok so im a bride to be and wedding planner. I did search for catering and only got one quote. It was too high. Then i searched for a dj and got a ton, but again really high priced but i liked how the process worked so i submitted my company and paid for the points, then found out how it works and felt really bad. For one thumbtack never advises the person searching that the vendors are charged a fee. If i new that i wouldnt have clicked on each bid. Ugh!!! Second i as a vendor found it disturbing. I placed my average rate and found other non professional planners bidding 200 for service. You cannot even pay staff with that. Also. I have placed bids in total of $40 worth. And got one legitimate client. If they would just inform the client that the vendors pay a 8.00 fee for each bid. Then they would think twice about using it. I heard one collage student was using thumbtack for research. Putting in ficticious info in to get pricing, quotes etc. For there paper. Think twice about it.
1 comment
ID
Location
Twentynine Palms, California
Service
Thumbtack Bidding
Thumbtack is scam
I do home repairs and remodeling. The first bid I submitted for repairing a front door I got and I took it because I wasn't doing anything else. But after submitting a bunch of bids and getting no responses what ever I unsubscribed. They are also very vague about how many credits they charge to submit a bid but you find you constantly need to buy more credits. And receive no responses. The first job I did? It smelled of scam. Like the small damage had been done to get me there and hooked into the system. That sounds a little paranoid but there are other details about it that I just don't want to spend a lot of time on. It just had a real funny feel about it. I would stay away from these people.
ID
Loss
$100
LEADS ARE A SCAM
I had considered using Thumbtack to generate business for my law practice. But having been scammed by another company that promised leads, I decided to test them first. I simply made an inquiry for the type of attorney I am and received back dozens of attorney blurbs...
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1 comment
PissedConsumer1275870
#1275870
What area do you live and practice in??
Could you also have tell me what kind of law that you practice as well? ?
Thank you C.Smith
ID
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Review about Unprofessional Contractor
I hired contractor to paint apt. $850 total paid half &425 contractor did 5 hrs work no more than 1/4 of job He disappeared
ID
Location
Florida City, Florida
Hired a Scam Artist
Please be aware that a company called Thumbtack may approach you to provide professional services through Craigslist. They do not check credentials of the supposed tradesmen. I unfortunately hired a referral from them, and basically was scammed by a company called Silver Buckle Construction. He came to repair a breach in my fence, and it fell down 2 weeks later. When I tried to resolve the matter, he stood me up 5 times to fix it. He gave one excuse after another, (one was that he was in jail for a week). He did not respond to texts, his number changed, and he did not respond to voicemails. When I filed a complaint with Thumbtack, I was told his profile has been removed, and I was on my own. I am disabled and a senior citizen, and could not afford this rip-off.
ID
Location
Houston, Texas
Loss
$50
Thumbtack - Job Quotes Service Fee Review
Are you kidding me? I receive offers for job quotes. I have to pay a service fee to send a quote. Spent about 200 dollars on this service fee. Probably sent out over 40 to 50 job quotes. Half of those check the quotes and dont even say anything. The other half talk as...
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2 comments
PissedConsumer906123
#906123
I agree with you. I am greatly disappointed with the quality of the client and consider Thumbtack's screening process broken.
I intend to pull my account.
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ID
New Reviewer
Not a scam but I would not say it is a good thing to use
First I want to say I don’t think Thumbtack is a scam but if you are trying to promote your business I would say it is not worth going through thumbtack to do it. I moved back to my hometown so I wanted to find an easy way to get my name back out there. I am a mobile DJ and have been so for over 20 years. I went through all of things thumbtack wanted me to do to promote my business (videos, pictures, past clients posted reviews for me) . So once I got my page in order I purchased close to $110.00 worth of credit over the past two months. Not saying all the leads were false but I think the majority of them were. I did some testing. I lowered my price from 400.00 to as low as 175 for a whole party and only got two responses. My opinion is thumbtack is legit but the people who use thumbtack are either spamers or people looking to get quality work for nothing. I basically wasted $110. Over a two month period is not that bad but it is still money wasted. Here is what I would do guys (which I plan on sticking to). When I started back DJing, I got my own website through Vistaprint. It only cost me 16 or 17 dollars a month. Make sure you put things on your website that promotes your business to the fullest. If you want (which is what I did for three months), you can pay extra money to get your website put closer to the front page of any search engine. The more people check out your site the higher ranking it will get of course:). I began to average two parties a month when I did that which easily paid for my website. I could have done more but this is a hobby more for me with a fulltime job and family. With having your own website you will get more customers that are legit and you don’t have to pay to put a bid in. They already know what you charge so if it is too much for them they can go to the next DJ. I am sure with thumbtack, you also have DJs who just want to do a party and may not have top of the line equipment that will underbid you like crazy. I have turned my website back on and I plan on going that route. Hope this was not too long but I wanted to give you my honest opinion.
2 comments
ID
Location
Knox, Indiana
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Wasted My Time & Money
I operate my own mobile dj company in Greenville SC. A friend found this company online and sent me the link. I was impressed with the way it looked and navigated. Quickly signed up my company in their database and even bought their $35 credits so I could participate. All is fine, until I notice that NO ONE responds. The moment you pay, you receive several leads a day. So this kept me busy for a week, just sitting at my desk writing up custom quotes to all the leads I was receiving. I was very excited at first. Eventually, I suspected fraud, because I'm a very marketable and talented dj. So I did a series of extreme under bidding, $250 to $350 dj responses to several leads. Still no reply. MAYBE: Maybe they are sending out a few, a handful of real leads. But I'm certain that they generate fake leads just to tease the vendor into paying for the quotes. TRUE BUSINESS GOAL: The real bottom line for a vendor is to have the clients click through to their website. Like placing an ad in newspaper, the newspaper doesn't sell your product, they just share your name to the audience. So in the end, if the client clicks your website and still doesn't buy your product then it's the vendors fault. But thumbtack doesn't even get real clients, they create fake leads.
1 comment
ID
Location
Greenville, South Carolina
Service
Thumbtack Leads
Loss
$150
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Thumbtack
I am a small business owner and I use Thumbtack. It's amazing.
I get three or four jobs a week, then again, I am in a necessary profession. My services are a need not a want.
It upsets me when people badmouth Thumbtack. Maybe it's time to hang up the camera and get a real job :)
I think thumbtack stinks and should be investigated for internet fraud. Hows thats sound?
You want to have a discussion about people badmouthing them? Being it on....
I totally agree with the author and have had a very similar experience with Thumbtack! I advertised for French and Spanish tutoring - I don't want to brag myself either, but I am quite an expert in my field.
I am a French native speaker, fluent in Spanish, with a Ph.D. in linguistics and more than 5 years of teaching experience. My rate is very reasonable comparing to others. I paid money to submit quotes to my potential students and indeed, it seemed like there were many people interested in learning those languages.
However, I have never heard back from anyone! This, of course, did not correspond with my advertizing experience outside of Thumbtack. I wanted to get my money back. Then, suddenly, a lady contacted me and we set up an appointment at a public library.
But... when I arrived at the destination, there was nobody waiting!
Conclusion - stay away from Thumbtack! Use craigslist or create your own websites.
I feel that thumbtack works better for certain industries then others. Service industries like Lanscaping, Pool Service, Pest Control, Remodeling, etc, tend to do better.
Visual Artist fill the same role as, for example, personal trainers. People using thumbtack for these "luxury" services are simply just kinda sorta interested.
I own a pool service and repair business.
I have picked up 18 new customers in 3 months alone from Thumbtack.
I have went from 26 accounts to 61 accounts with a lot of being due to Thumbtack.
You are stinking liar. You are a thumbtack employer or more than likely the person who started the business.
I hope you get a big ole tack smashed into your pathetic thumb. BBBOOOOOOOOOO
I have to agree. I signed up last Friday and received close to 50 requests for graphic design services in one day!
I have been in the business for over 30 years and know how much it takes to attract business.
I think this is a very suspicious group and have suspended my account until I learn more. Thank you for your review.