Hooray! The Refund Desk is in a Good Mood Today

DerHilfer_LLC

Today I submitted a refund request for a user who contacted my business for a "Handyman" who wanted to have a stove pipe removed in segments for reuse a task that I'm not even sure if a Chimney specific company will take on.

There are chimney companies on Thumbtack, but somehow, she picked "handyman".

I requested a refund. It was approved as a credit in 33 minutes.

I want to praise Thumbtack for being reasonable and responsive. (Not great, great would be a refund, but I do understand why Thumbtack prefers to issue credits and I'm not upset about that.)

Please keep this up because I will be perfectly honest in saying that I was seriously considering deleting my business from your service after recent software changes have tripled my cost per appointment.

DustiO

Thank you for the positive feedback, @DerHilfer_LLC - we've made a lot of improvements to the refund process over the past couple of months based on pro feedback. So, happy to hear that this has positively impacted your experience!

DerHilfer_LLC

Great NEWS! Thumbtack fixed the problem and has returned the denial team to it's rightful place behind the refund desk.

This time they denied a refund for someone who has twice booked me under "handyman" to do things like repair commercial pneumatic and refrigeration systems at warehouses that have their own 24 hour maintenance staff from a VOIP area code that is the source of the majority of Florida scam calls.

I am a HOME improvement contractor, not a refrigeration or compressed air systems contractor.

He tried to send me to an XPO warehouse January 3rd and another location that has at least 25 million square foot warehouses January 27th.

BTW, I'm in Pennsylvania, not that this makes a difference, a scam is a scam is a scam.

January Thumbtack Gross Revenue: $983 (all numbers are rounded)
Successful lead generation fees: $78
Failed "lead" generation fees: $379
Materials: $325
Mileage: $522 (because I'm now 2-3X less likely to get the job thanks to TT suggesting Users should pick 4 pros when they originally picked "only me") Also, I call all requests within minutes of the interaction.
Other incidentals $23.
Net loss: $344

YTD: Thumbtack consumes more than 10% of all my expenses and as you see from the numbers above, generates negative revenue.

Last year, at least up till October or November when TT instituted a change to encourage Uses to make additional inquiries (although some that I talked to say they don't understand why FIVE pros responded when they only picked one or two), I digress, my gross profit was about $1,000 per month after thumbtack and materials expenses.

As you can see below, this User "Only PIcked Me", a minute later I had responded and in that time, she picked two other pros, adding at least 200% to Thumbtack's profit. Since this user didn't answer the phone or book an appointment, this inquiry generated negative revenue.

I think it's time to turn Thumbtack off again.

DerHilfer_LLC

One final thing, I've noticed every inquiry from a Thumbtack User is a "High Value Job". When everything is "High Value" nothing is "High Value". And no, a 45 minute mailbox install is not high value. If this person was half an hour away, I would make $20.30/hr. to solve their problem.