How You're Getting Scammed on Thumbtack.com

Thumbtack.com is a pretty crappy site, borderline scam.  Why?

Advertisers/contractors will send fake bids to use up your ad budget so when legitimate leads come in, guess what?  You've already spent your money on fake ones.  It's 2007's click fraud on Google all over again, only 9 years later, and with another web site that is looking to cash in on every small business's inability to see past these digital scams perpetuated by Google and its parent company Alphabet.  Google Capital, incidentally, invested in Thumbtack.com, funny they now show at the top of most organic search results, right?

But what is really discouraging about Thumbtack is the way in which the traffic that was once generated by Craigslist's service section ads, is now going to Thumbtack, by the way of Google and Craigslist's incompetence in relying on automation that has pissed off a lot of their users who now go to other sites to look for service quotes.

As a test, 3 years ago, if you ran ads in a service section on Craigslist, you'd get a few calls a day.  Now, you're lucky if you get one a day or even a week on Craigslist (compounded by their desire to auto-flag almost everyone that posts a new ad).

So what can you do?  How are some fighting back against this injustice?

1) Some are sending spammy links to thumbtack.com for your relevant keywords so Google's automated system kicks in and knocks them down.  This is referred to as "negative SEO", you can use the power of algorithms to work in your favor, and against monopolies which seek to dominate search results with low quality lead services (rather than directories like the yellow pages that democratized contractors).

2) Others are sending emails to Thumbtack complaining about the lack of any review for incoming leads.  SMS verification required, you think?  Right now, any dipshit in India can send you 50 requests for jobs that don't actually exist using programs such as Hide My Ass.  Thumbtack profits off these scammers, while you suffer.  That's bullshit!  Keep complaining, and voice your concerns not just with your emails, but with your wallet.  Don't bid on leads that haven't been verified to be REAL PEOPLE in the city you are servicing.

3) Click on their google ads all day, and all night long.  Use HMA and random agent spoofer on firefox (disable canvas ID and webgl so they can't track you via your browser fingerprint), or instead of HMA, use your phone's hotspot, go in and out of airplane mode for a new IP each time.

Oh, which reminds me, Google is also profiting off click fraud.

File a class action lawsuit against Alphabet for the 35% in income they've probably generated off bogus clicks from proxy services (which they should never have been billing for) and not only will you destroy their stock price if you win (because 35% of google's ad revenue is a lot of money, and a lot of refunds), you will help to take down a corporate monopoly and ensure a wider range of competitors take their place that put your interests ahead of a corporations' profit mongering.