Thumbtack’s Refund Policy
Thumbtack claims to protect pros with their refund policy, but in reality, they ignore their own rules when it benefits them. Here’s what their policy says vs. what actually happens:
🚨 Thumbtack’s Policy: "A lead that violates our Terms of Use qualifies for a refund." ✅ Reality: I was charged for a lead that NEVER opened my messages. Their Terms prohibit fake or misleading inquiries, yet they refused a refund.
🚨 Thumbtack’s Policy: "If a job changes significantly, a refund should be considered." ✅ Reality: A lead requested bridal and family portraits - services I don’t offer and have never advertised. Thumbtack still denied my refund.
They expect pros to pay for leads that are either non-existent or completely mismatched, all while hiding behind vague “case-by-case” excuses. This is an exploitative, unethical system.
If Thumbtack actually cared about its users, it would follow its own policies, refund bad leads, and stop forcing pros to pay for their broken system. Until then, they are just another pay-to-play scam.
Thumbtack, fix this now.
#ThumbtackFail #FalseAdvertising #UnethicalBusiness #LeadScam #ThumbtackFraud #PolicyAbuse #SmallBizSupport #ProCommunity #FixThumbtack
Comments
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We rely on Thumbtack to provide quality leads, but what happens when their refund policy isn't being honored? Recently, we experienced an influx of bot-generated leads, resulting in over $1,000 in wasted ad spend. Despite meeting the refund criteria, our requests were denied.
🔎 Key Issues:
✅ Names in all lowercase, repetitive messages like "I renovate my home."
✅ Disconnected or fake phone numbers.
✅ 30+ identical leads in just 10-15 minutes.📜 Thumbtack’s Own Policy States:
👉 Leads that violate the Terms of Use qualify for refunds.
👉 Invalid phone numbers qualify for refunds.
👉 Duplicate or fraudulent leads qualify for refunds.Yet, our refund requests were rejected despite clear evidence. Why is the refund team ignoring Thumbtack’s own policies?
📢 We urge Thumbtack to:
✔️ Honor its refund policy and issue credits for bot leads.
✔️ Improve lead verification to prevent future spam.
✔️ Protect paying pros from fraudulent charges.We love using Thumbtack, but this issue must be addressed to ensure fair business practices. Have you faced similar problems? Share your experience below!
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@DmytroKlynov aside from submitting a refund request, did you also "report" these leads? If not, I would advise doing so, especially if you believe these are spam leads. Let me know if you've done that. Thanks!
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I just took a look at your payments page and it looks like the vast majority of those leads were refunded - see screenshots below. If the others you feel should qualify, I would also recommend reaching out via the new refund disputes team at refunddisputes@thumbtack.com
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Did a little ore digging and wanted to share quickly the reasoning behind the refund denials and then the refunds coming through: Our refunds team reviews refund requests on a lead by lead basis (so when reviewing an individual lead they may not see anything suspicious), however our Trust and Safety team has a different process that can detect spam leads and refund them - those are 2 separate processes. I would recommend always reporting suspicious leads and checking your payments page to check if any additional refunds have come through.
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Refund team solved a problem!
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Hi @mayadcar I took a few moments to look at your account/profile. I can see a request for family portraits - but it looks like you have "portrait photography" enabled. I am not able to look at the granular settings for that service, since your business is hidden. But, if there is a preference there that says "family portraits" and you don't have that checked, I would recommend reaching out to refunddisputes@thumbtack.com and you can follow up with the team there. This is a new update to the refund process, and has been really helpful to a lot of pros since launching.
There is nothing in Thumbtack's refund policy or Terms of Use about non-responsive customers, so those would not be eligible for a refund. However, we recently had a great discussion around the topic of non-responsive customers in a recent CommuniTEA session and the group of pros had some really amazing tips for how they have been able to get customers to respond. Here are all of the tips they shared:
- Refresh your profile intro once a month using chatgpt, to mix it up and test what resonates more with customers (from @1_gold_hands, a handyman who has grown to 7 locations using Thumbtack)
- Reach out via the Thumbtack messenger, and then text and call - different pros suggested different timing that works for them like text immediately, call after 1 hr or 2 hrs, etc (several pros suggested this one)
- Leave the message on a positive note and follow up with "nurture campaigns" - reaching out to customers every 30 days/60 days/etc with a refresher message (both @ShaquealThomas and @SOUNIQUE007 use this tactic and have multiple customers hire them at later dates)
- Try a contest/sweepstakes - tell them even if they have used another pro and don’t need your services they can gift it to someone else! But put a deadline on it to add some urgency
- Leave on a positive note, leave all of your contact info if they come back later (from @ShaquealThomas)
- Message people during off time like evenings and weekends, when they will have time to respond to the message right when they see the notification, vs if they are at work) (from @AR2i, who has had a lot of success using this tactic)
- Send them a note with all of the services you offer, in case they have already figured out that job, they can return later to hire you for other things (also from @1_gold_hands)
- Last, but certainly not least, we did just have the Pro Summit with a lot of great tips, especially during the pro panel. The recap post is here and the full panel is linked there as well (linked above, but figured I'd add it here too).
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There is such a BIG issue with the fact that the TT executive team, or whomever oversees TT refund policy (likely lawyers) would think it's appropriate for a customer to contact a Pro to not only not read the Pros response, but have TT still keep the Pro's $ via THEIR policy is diabolical.
Sadly, the fact is that it's generally not just one Pro per customer, its multiple Pro's because TT promotes contacting multiple Pros.
I wonder how those that approved and continue to support such a policy would feel if they were dealing with the same issue..?!
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Why so MANY refunds?
Each refund takes time out of our day to try and contact TT to then only be faced with jumping thru the hoops for said refund while we are busy trying to run our business.
The problem seems to clearly lay at TT's feet, not the Pros.
Jmo
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I absolutely agree. In my experience, any time a customer has not contacted me back it is evident that they have not read the response and aren't simply ignoring it as a result of hiring another Pro. It is so easy for consumers and potential customers to forget that they even sent an inquiry through the platform, yet Thumbtack does not see this as a legitimate reason to refund us (although, if you read the fine print it 100% goes again their own policy).
I did not even think about the fact that this is happening to other Pros simultaneously. This is very unfortunate, and I'm sure a considerable reason why many service providers do not use this platform. It is the sole reason I am discontinuing my membership.
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It's been 3 weeks since I've emailed both the refund and support teams to address a lead that I clearly do not service. My first refund request was denied, therefore I sent a more thorough review and evidence to counteract this. After one week of no response, I sent another follow-up email. Two weeks later, and I still have not heard back from either team. I, unfortunately, continue to be disappointed by Thumbtack's support teams.
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