Hi there @KimKosteck, I know exactly what you’re referring to. It happens all to often unfortunately. To be completely honest, I think it would be safe to say that at least half or maybe even more of the leads I receive are like this. Like you said, even if the customer chooses let’s say 4 pros for their job request and you are the only pro that responds back to them but you can’t get them to respond back, even after sending them several messages. In my opinion, those “customers” were actually just “tire kickers” that got bored and simply wanted to get a response from someone and they never intended to actually hire someone to do a job for them. Thumbtack needs to figure out a way to weed through these so called customers by verifying that the lead is legitimate before sending the request to pros so they can be paid for the lead. I don’t think it’s fair to send bad leads to pros and expect them to pay for leads that will never be anything but more wasted time and money for the pro for having to send the so called customer several messages trying to get them to respond when they never intended to ever pay anyone to do a job for them. Thumbtack also doesn’t want to refund leads for the empty ghost leads. What Thumbtack must not realize or don’t care about is that it costs the pros a lot more than just the original cost of the lead. Our time is money and when we have to waste it by sending several messages for absolutely no reason it ends up costing a lot more than they think. Thumbtack needs to refund those leads hassle free because I know they can see everything about the lead, how many pros were contacted, how many replied, and if the customer replied to any of their messages, to if anyone was ever hired. If no one was hired and/or they cancelled the job, then all pros that paid should be refunded whether they asked for a refund or not. That’s the fair way of handling job requests that lead to nowhere. I wish you luck in your future ghost leads and I hope Thumbtack will finally realize the amount of money they actually cost pros and do something to fix the issue. ... View more

360 Security and Automation LLC based out of Denham Springs, Louisiana. My recommendation to other pros is to have a legal legitimate business and always stay on top of your game. You can’t be a tire kicker and expect to be among the elite Thumbtack Top Pros. You must work hard, be a perfectionist in your line of work, treat potential customers with the utmost respect, take a lot of time to complete your profile thoroughly, complete dedication to whatever it is you do, be competitive with your pricing, and never give up. Being competitive on Thumbtack is not an easy thing to do because there are lots of “pros” on here that don’t actually have a legitimate and legal company and are doing jobs for half of the amount the job is really worth and it’s very frustrating to try to compete with people that don’t have any operational costs that are involved with running a business because they don’t actually have a legitimate legal business. Good luck! ... View more