The new Phone number situation

serious issue for me as well. Just took effect yesterday. I need to be able to see an actual phone number if I’m Paying 35$ for inquiries guys. This app for years has been set up solely to make the money off the ones keeping it afloat. That’s a fact I’ve had to live with but this is actually too far and will probably drive me from the site (5 year plus top pro) by the end of the week

Dusti… do you have any comments about that?

The app has had support lines available only for customer issues and technical problems for years. They’ve never had a pro phone line to call for any issue at all or any sort of pro protection.

if you click contact us in the app and reach a Support line that line can only help with getting logged back in or with lead discrepancies. There is a trust and safety team that takes weeks or months to respond and will not call a pro ever if there is ever a real need.

The goal Of the site is supposedly to support pros (the ones who pay the site) but things like this happen and they’re not optional and we get almost no (I got one day) heads up to know about it. If the goal of the site was to support pros why would you chose the way we run our business. ‘It’s more successful’ for who? I’m running my business and I know what’s been successful. You guys can’t even figure out how to get the targeting range figured out for photography why would you be able to get sensitive contact info figured out ? Clients appreciate seeing me profile picture when I call as they’ve told me 100s of times (yes 100s I’ve been hired MANY times on thumbtack over the last 6 years) it’s just sad because at a certain point they’re not even pretending to be helping pros.

Good evening Arvin,

I understand Thumbtacks attempt to protect customers privacy but you invalidated that concern by recording private conversations. The pros who are paying for the leads should be Thumbtacks 1st and 2nd priority. Business has been done for thousands of years and I'm unaware that two parties conducting business are afraid of sharing their information needed to do business. It sounds like their are bad customers and or bad pros who want privacy after they conduct business in bad faith. These issues should be addressed on an individual basis and not something mandated for all professionals. If a bad faith customer wants to hide their contact information, they can easily communicate via a fake email and or using a variety of mobile apps that protect their phone numbers before disclosing their phone numbers to professionals. If customer privacy was actually the reason, Thumbtack could easily offer these fake numbers to those who require such privacy instead of preventing paying professionals for obtaining legitimate client contact information.

Unfortunately, you may have not received the memo. Private Investigations/Private Investigator professionals are not excluded from the Thumbtack numbers. As previously stated above, my primary phone number as well as other that were added to be able to call customers has been blocked since this program was instituted back around the 2nd week of September. Each time I attempted to call back a client seeking my investigative services, the call was blocked and I wasn't given an opportunity to put in my company's access code.

Arvin, I can only assume that you are confused. If "Private Investigation is one of the services excluded from Thumbtack numbers due to the sensitive nature of client conversations. "; how would we contact these customers? Since you've taken away the customers actually phone number, our only option (other than the email hidden on the create invoice/estimate page) is to use the Thumbtack Fake numbers that block me/my phone from calling customer but us AI to record audio and text conversation via a transcript violating privacy and confidentiality. So I can only assume you misspoke or maybe I misunderstood. Please let me know.

I've been going back and forth with support over the last few weeks and after provided a screen video record of what happens when I call the the Thumbtack fake numbers, they've been silent on the matter. No resolution has been provided and my request for a refund has not been addressed. There's probably 50+ leads that I've received since then, so asking for a refund as if it was a duplicate request isn't applicable. Your systems failed and you charged me for leads that your system prevented me from contacting. I can share the Thumbtack support individuals that I've communicated thus far if you believe that would make a difference. I've cc'd a second support person yet customer service doesn't seem important the problems are deeply rooted.

Please let me know if and what date these fake numbers are no longer being used for private investigation customers. Also, if you can determine why I'm still being forced to contact client via the Thumbtack fake numbers while other Investigators are not.

I've done my part. Provided all the evidence you required. I followed up with a status two weeks later and its been another 2 weeks or more without any reply to my refund request. Is it too difficult for someone in Thumbtack to contact me directly?

Thank you for taking time to read our replies and for attempting to address our concerns.

Thank you Arvin.

I already figured out the problem and was forced to purchase the cheapest phone possible just because Thumbtack doesn't realize that the vast majority of phones on planet earth have caller ID block. lol Why would average people want to have caller ID block on their phones? It's clear that very little thought nor serious concern for the privacy rights of the Thumbtack Professionals was taken into considering before throwing your fake phone number/prevent client data collection/violate privacy right system.

It's been months since this issue first showed up in August and after months of hearing nothing, a quick Google AI search resolved the problem while I waited months to learn what someone at thumbtack should have known and taken the necessary steps to inform the Thumbtack Professionals in advance that they would have to unblock their phone numbers/give up their privacy in order to contact potential customers.

Maybe Thumbtack knew in advance and decided to avoid conflict by claiming ignorance.

Nonetheless, I'm glad you figured it out. Hopefully, others were learn from my experience and consider other options.

Looking forward to your reply regarding my refund request for leads since August,

Best regards,

Claude

Good morning Arvin,

No worries. I will await a status on the pending refund requests.

Please note: The requested refunds were for only the Thumbtack leads that I wasn't provided a refund for during the last 3+ months up until the time that I was forced to purchase a different phone.

I hope you understand that in order to protect my privacy and the integrity of current & future investigation cases, purchasing a new phone and creating an additional expense was necessary due to Thumbtack implementation of fake client phone numbers. Requiring licensed private investigators to unblock their phones and forcing us to consent to recording private phone conversations where sensitive details such as social security numbers and other extremely private and protected information is discussed is a problem I hope Thumbtack management quickly resolves.

Licensed Private Investigators shouldn't have to give up our privacy, the customers privacy and willingly expose sensitive information in order to speak to them about their investigative needs. There should be an option to Opt out of recording private communication in order to avoid Thumbtacks AI system from recording and storing this private information. An option to Opt for unblocking private numbers should also be addressed. At the very least, you should let the Pros and customers know in ADVANCE that unblocking their phone numbers is required before using the service and communication between customer and pro is allowed.

Looking forward to your reply and your insight on whether Thumbtack as any plans of addressing these privacy violations.

Thank you sir!