Thumbtack is a TOTAL RIPOFF. Beware! On the Internet

If you are considering using Thumbtack to get leads for your business...STOP!  Read this first.  Their system works like this:  you put in a free ad for your services. then you get contacted by supposed people who need your services.  For example, if you offer resume writing, you put in your ad, and you will get responses from people who want their resume written.  

In order to respond back to those people, you first need to buy "credits" from Thumbtack.  The cost is about $29.00 for 20 credits.  Each lead you get costs between 2 and 10 credits.  So you buy these credits and then spend them to contact those potential customers with your bid:  $50 for a 1 page resume, something like that.  And then the customer, if they want to use your service at that price, contacts you and you begin working together.

Looks good on paper, right?

But the reality is this:  Thumbtack makes their money on you buying the leads, so they VERY OBVIOUSLY create fake leads that match your ad perfectly, so you of course buy the credits and contact the people expecting to do business with them. Bzzzzt!  The people are fake!  No business!

I received over 100 leads for my ad.  Reading through them, I noticed that many were very similar...  it was almost as if some guy from Thumbtack was whipping off as many fake responses to my ad as possible, but then he got lazy....and the responses started looking very much alike.  I was skeptical, so instead of buying enough leads to contact all 100 people, I paid the $29 and bought 20 leads.  I chose leads that only cost 2 credits, which means I was able to contact 10 people.  And I gave them all the lowest possible bid for my service, which, based on the local going rate, was about 1/4 of everybody else's standard price.

Yes, you guessed it:  0 people out of the 10 got back with me to actually do business.  Their initial responses all seemed so urgent, so ready to write the check as soon as they heard back from me.  But then, 0 out of 10?  The odds are totally against that kind of a strike out.

Thumbtack creates fake leads and charges you for them.  Period.  End of story. You see the leads and think you're going to do business with these people, and so you pay for the credits.  And once you do, Thumbtack is in the money...  they're on to the next victim, and you're out the money you've paid for your leads....and you don't even get 1 person from the Thumbtack system to write you a check so you can at least break even.

Use Craigslist....go to Upwork and hire a marketer who can place you high up on Google... do facebook ads, whatever.  But steer clear of Thumbtack.  They are an absolute scam!!!!!