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From the business
Bark is an online marketplace that connects customers with local and online professionals.
We take the hassle out of finding the right professional for any job. Whether you’re looking for a cleaner in Nottingham, a web design in Boston or a personal trainer in Auckland - with over 2000 professional services in 8 countries, you’re bound to find the perfect professional for your project on Bark. Simply tell us what you need and will send you a list of professionals - for free!
Need new customers? We’ve helped thousands of businesses of all sizes keep find new clients. We’re passionate about helping businesses of all sizes find customers for life.
Life’s better with Bark.
Bark Reviews Summary
Bark has a rating of 2.2 stars from 1,644 reviews, indicating that most customers are generally dissatisfied with their purchases. Reviewers dissatisfied with Bark most frequently mention customer service, phone number and potential clients. Bark ranks 9th among Service Marketplace sites.
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Ok honestly I thought I would give this a go despite reading bad reviews, I have spent £1596. 63 on leads over the last two months I've gotten in £1950 paid for work not a lot of profit
The problem with bark is it SHOULD work but people are horrible when they can hide. Like the people who reach out to my full 100%profile (it's a bark thing) for a quote then don't answer the phone or respond to the email after me spending up to £28.00 on an aerial photography lead, this is soul destroying or the examples of people I phoned ten minutes after the bark has gone live, and the jobs went already yeah someone else is doing it for me sorry I forgot to cancel the bark.
Do you get a refund of your bark credits no, no you don't because the phone was answered and the person who requested the bark has no culpability.
Credits! That's another thing you buy credits with hard cash and you bid for jobs using credits each credit cost £1.20 so you get the bark and have to spend 28 credits to answer it that's actually £33.60 to spend on a job no-one will pay you more than £250 for and even if you can get that much just bid with pounds credits is a crap system trying to disguise what people are actually spending. And its a lot
What is a job worth?, this is another thing wrong with bark they have a suggestion of most people pay £? For this, that is way under what I would charge as a photographer this section sets up a race to the bottom if people read that and set up a request they expect to pay a figure no-one wants to work for, that figure just makes suppliers angry and we then have to defend our craft
Overall its been a fair experiment I'm a good salesman and can talk people into things on the phone if you are weak in this department you will not make money I knew I would break even I even hoped it could work but it can if you add up my time and petrol and another expense BARK.COM hasn't made me a penny so ill leave
If you are going to go ahead be warned its not a great model it could be so much better if you only paid for jobs you won but that would be too much to ask from bark i think
Craig Lonie
Most of the leads on Bark are very low quality. Either tire kickers, businesses with little to no budget or bots/intentionally misleading requests. And for that you'll pay more than a useless lead is worth.
If that sounds good to you, have at it.
Hi Alison,
Im sorry to hear that you have had such a poor experience with Bark.
Every request is posted by the customer themselves on our website and they provide their own contact details and the job requirements in order to find professionals. Every customer is different though, they will be at different stages in the process and some might have a budget they are working too. As a lead generation platform, our job is to provide you with the means to contact potential customers.
We would certainly be interested in learning more about your experience with Bark though and take any suggestions on board. Additionally, our customer success team will be happy to offer some advice and tips to help.
You can contact our team by phone or email: [email protected]
Kind regards
The Bark Team
EDIT Jan. 27,2020: It is very likely Bark has been inflating their ratings on this site with FAKE REVIEWS. If you look back from 2018 until Dec. 2019, reviews skew negative, and there aren't very many of them. From Dec. 2019 until at least today -- a period of just over two months -- DOZENS of very positive reviews were posted to this site. So it's one of two things. Either a) Bark has experienced a tremendous upswell in client/customer goodwill over the last two months, or b) it's something else. Wonder which? -- I would also like to add that Bark.com messaged me regarding my review below. They apologized and asked for the email address that was receiving the unwanted messages, and any websites where my email address may be listed, which are definitely questions a legit company would ask! Unless they're not!
(ORIGINAL REVIEW from Oct. 2019 :) Bark trawls the web for email addresses that appear to pertain to "businesses," then spams their owners with completely irrelevant "offers." I co-manage a not-for-profit studio space. We provide services to the public, not to clients. Bark.com emailed me 13 times in the past two months. They are literally asking a room in a warehouse if they want to provide magicians for children's birthdays. Utterly unreal.
Hi Brian,
We are sorry to see that the leads we have sent you were irrelevant.
If you are still receiving our emails you can reply to any of them and we will make sure you don't receive any more emails from us, alternatively, there is an unsubscribe link you can hit at the bottom of our emails. Also at the bottom of every email is manage lead preferences, clicking this will help us ensure that we send you through relevant leads in the event we aren't.
Our team reach out to new businesses like yours, when we receive requests for certain services in certain locations where we need more professionals to satisfy demand. It does sound like they got it wrong on this occasion, so please accept our apologies.
We offer you the ability to contact your first lead completely free.
If you have any questions please don't hesitate to contact our team by phone or email.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Can someone tell me where I can complain to get my money back. Tried to approach a client which does not even exist and lost my credit.
Hi,
In cases where customers provide incorrect contact details, we have you covered and will issue credits spent back to your account.
Our friendly customer success team will be able to help and are available to talk to 7 days a week. Please contact them by phone or by email at [email protected].
Kind regards
The Bark Team
Just look below this review and see that Banjamin A, Alta W., Johanna S, Muffy W., and many many more agree. I will ALWAYS check reviews in the future before being so stupid!
Hi Tony,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with using our platform.
We did reach out to you to try and help however we did not hear from you.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
The leads are not real, looks like a total scam to me. Not a single job came through.
Names and project locations are repetitive.
Hi Benjamin,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience using our platform, however we strongly refute your claims.
We did reach out to you to try and help however we did not hear from you.
All leads are screened by an automated system, and we have a credit return policy which covers any contact details which are not working. We feel this is the fairest system we can have as we are not a commission based system that guarantees work, and only provide contact details for enquiries placed with us.
We are always working to improve our leads - for example we are currently trialling text verification - however we have some great features you can utilise from your account to help you respond to the most convertible leads.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help you with your account.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Please do not waste your time with this service. They are a complete fraud. The leads are suspect to say the least and some of the numbers provided don't actually work.
Hi Alta,
Sorry to hear you've had some issues with some customer's details.
Customers provide their own details when they post requests and we are all only human. So mistakes do happen.
Unforneutnetly due to the sheer volume of requests we get daily, we rely on a system to vet our leads, it's not flawless and this does mean from time to time leads slip through the cracks. In the event customers have provided numbers that don't work or alternatively provided the wrong details, our team is on hand to help.
Contact our customer success team either by phone or email: [email protected], we will investigate and look to return credits spent.
Kind regards
The Bark Team
Firstly I must say that if you don't know how to speak to potential clients, this will never work for you. We have only been on the site for a short time but it looks promising. We have had 3 legit, paying clients already from the site.
My one constructive criticism is that the tokens to apply for jobs are expensive, so you really need to sift through the projects to find only the highest quality prospects.
Hi Vincent,
Thank you for the review.
We're thrilled that using Bark is working out for your business.
Pricing each request correctly is a key part of our business and we work hard to ensure the price of our leads reflects the value of the jobs you are pitching for – with smaller jobs costing less to respond to than larger ones. There are many ways to use Bark but we completely agree being choosey about which leads you to respond to can certainly result in great results and being able to do this is one of the great things about Bark.
Keep up the good work and stick with us. There has never been a better time to be part of Bark.com, since the launch of our new website we've got a lot of exciting new features in development that will hopefully help you secure even more business and make life easier.
Kind regards
The Bark Team
The clever approach on their part is that they answer the phone the first time you call and then never again!
You get a "free" fake client who explains that they are "not ready yet" (and they never will be) and the next leads you buy will explain that "it was a mistake" or "a friend made the call for me, I don't want it" and then you look at the BBB complaints and they are like these ones here: TERRIBLE.
Hi Johanna,
Thanks for your review.
We are a lead generation company, so our goal is to provide you with the contact details to contact customers. Unfortunately, it is up to the buyers who they engage with, how they engage or hire to carry out the work. That said, in a situation where there are issues with leads, please contact our customer success team who are there to help.
We want professionals to succeed, which is why we offer new users our 'Starter Pack' of credits with our 'Get Hired Guarantee'. And why we recently launched a new website and why the team are constantly releasing new features to help professionals secure more business through us.
If you are willing to give us another chance, contact our customer success team by phone or Email: [email protected] and let's see if we can turn it around with a little help from us.
This company is a complete fraud, they claim to have legit leads and only give to 5 people but that is not true. Many of these leads within minutes of being placed online have full voicemails and one even was trying to scam me. Another was what I thought was a local United States phone number and turned out to be overseas and I got a BILL for $57 on my Verizon bill.
Also the auto top-off you account with twice of what you paid in the beginning.
TOTAL FRAUD!
BEWARE DO NOT USE>
Hi Jeff,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with using our platform, however we strongly refute the claims you have made against our company.
We did reach out to you to try and help however we did not hear from you.
All leads are screened by an automated system, and we have a credit return policy which covers any contact details which are not working. We feel this is the fairest system we can have as we are not a commission based system that guarantees work, and only provide contact details for enquiries placed with us.
We do only sell leads to 5 professionals on our site, however we cannot control a customer choosing to place requests additionally elsewhere.
We introduced Auto Top Up so that professionals never need miss out on a lead. When purchasing packs of credits there is a tick box visible under Buy Now that allows you to turn off our Auto Top Up function on purchase. You can also turn this off/on in the My Credits section of the account at any time.
If you would like further information or help, please email us at [email protected].
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Although my investment has been relatively low ($600), I have been hired through Bark nearly 8 times, and have made a substantial amount of profit doing wedding photography. I am going to however say that leads generated by Bark are questionable. I have learned which ones to respond to, and stay away from the ones that look repetitive and robotic. Some of the names of the people who are placed requesting Bark are also repetitive. The more leads they send you( usually when your low on credits) the more likely the leads have to be sifted through. I am also a monthly subscriber to their Elite pro membership, and that seems to also have helped generate some good leads.
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the review.
We're are very happy to hear you've been hired 8 times and successfully growing your business.
I completely understand what you're saying with regards to the leads. The requests sometimes can appear to be similar just looking at the brief, the reason is that when we take a customers request, they typically select from drop-down answers, which helps us and professionals get a better understanding of the job requirements and then use open text boxes to allow them to provide additional information about job specifics. In the event, customers don't provide additional information, there is usually some similarities.
That said, location and the customer's name will always be different and since the release of our new site, professionals can now partially view the contact details provided, giving you more insight about each lead before making a decision to respond to it.
Don't forget our customer success team is always on hand to talk by phone or email if you have any questions.
Keep up the great work!
Kind regards
The Bark Team
I cannot believe that this place. They screw you on your initial sign up to get a taste of their "Service" and then decide to screw you over again when you don't want them anymore but want to use up your credits.
DO NOT DO NOT DO NOT use this place its a legal scamming company for any seller. And to any buyer using the site you will get good rates on services but beware shady people undermine each other and undercut servicing just to make a deal with you. YOU ARE NOT GETTING GENUINE SERVICE.
I wish I could find a way to get this place to go into the ground because it is the only place it truly belongs. Pathetic and robbing small business startups for the sake of their pockets.
Hi Dustin,
We're sorry to hear of this negative experience, however we strongly refute the claims you have made against our business. We did reach out to you but you did not respond to our resolution.
We screen all leads and have a 24/7 Customer Success Team available to help professionals manage their account. We also have a Credit Return Policy for any leads that have incorrect details.
To discuss anything further, please email us at [email protected].
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
These guys are shady, be careful. I clicked to not receive emails and they still spammed me multiple times daily. I emailed them to stop spamming me and they deactivated my entire account. So basically unless you want to get spammed all day, you need to disable your account.If you have to receive spam just to use a service that's shady to me.
Hi Charles,
We're sorry to hear that you have received unwanted emails. We did reach out to you but you did not respond to our resolution.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
They stole my money by "automatically topping up" my credits which I never signed up for.
They refused to give a refund after clearly stating "guaranteed return or money back".
Rip off.
Don't waste your money.
Hi Matt,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience with us, but we refute the claims you have made against our business. We reached out to you to try and resolve some of your issues but you did not respond.
Our Credit Back Guarantee/Get Hired Guarantee is not the offer of a monetary refund if leads from a starter pack are not converted - it is the offer of the credit return - and this is stipulated on our website. This is because we are an online marketing platform (B2B) that wants to help businesses achieve a return on investment - and on average professionals achieve a 1 in 5 conversion rate with us.
We would be happy to help you get the most from our platform, please email us at [email protected].
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Bark.com conned me out of at least £400. With their fake clients. I got the occasional question to keep my hopes up, but nothing more. I want my money back. Or I will sue them!
Hi Amye,
We do not want customers to have a negative experience with us, however we strongly refute the claims you have made against our business. We reached out to you to try and resolve some of your issues but you did not respond.
All our leads are screened by an automated system, and we have a credit return policy which covers any contact details which are not working. We feel this is the fairest system we can have as we are not a commission based system that guarantees work, and only provide contact details for enquiries placed with us. We also earn no commission or funds from repeat business.
We are an online marketing platform (B2B) that wants to help businesses achieve a return on investment - and on average professionals achieve a 1 in 5 conversion rate with us.
We would be happy to help you get the most from our platform, please email us at [email protected].
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I have been on Bark.com for a while now, and find that u can not possibly make money on this site as we pay for nothing really. Some people I have discovered on this site r not real.
I found this out from some numbers I called for the job, and found these people who answered did not know what I was talking about, in fact, some of them did not even know bark.com.
Some notifications I got, that had just come in. The so called customer answered only to state that they had a DJ already. Now with my understanding on this, how is it that as soon a new notification comes in, the job has gone. I have never seen speed as fast as that in my life.
That to me is differently a scam. I was called by bark.com to try and convince me to pay more money to something I never made money out of lol. A total joke i tell u.
I told the lady that I might as well go to a casino to gamble, as i might get lucky there more then at bark. She said if I pay the money, she would make sure i get the credits back that i never got a job for.
So, Like a fool, I believed her, only to discover that there r people already complaining about the same thing I am talking about here on the net, and I had sent a number of emails asking for my credits back which was promised to me, and would u believe it?
Now when I call them to find out what is happening? I find that no body answers the phone on both numbers. So when I researched more? I found loads of people that r not happy with bark.com at all. All I know is if they carry on scamming people here? They will make such a bad name for themselves, they will have to shut down or something as there r allot of angry people out there.
Hi Ken,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with some leads. We did reach out to you to try and resolve your issue but you did not respond.
We can assure you that all our leads are screened by an automated system, and we have a credit return policy which covers any contact details which are not working. Please email us at [email protected].
We also have a Credit Back Guarantee/Get Hired Guarantee which you may be eligible for so please do get in contact with us.
Our company has now moved to being 24/7 which should mean you should be able to get through to our now larger Customer Success Team - please go to www.bark.com for the phone number for your country.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
This note is in addition to my previous note. First, Bark sent me one free potential client. The client's name and phone number were on Google search so I figured he was legit. He claimed he'll pay for my hypnosis services, but I never heard from him again. I paid the $66 Bark wanted for 10 potential leads and over the next few weeks, I got 8 that were within the perimeters of the type of clients I was looking for. Now here's the rub. None of them could be found on Google search, not their names or phone numbers. So I didn't call them. I emailed them instead and never got a reply. This alone leads me to believe that Bark might be a legit company but the potential clients might be typing in fake information just to screw around. Maybe I should call the potential clients making not calling them my mistake and not Bark's. Bark will give me 10 additional free clients if I don't get at least one client out of the first 10 that I paid for. We'll see. I have 2 more clients that don't respond first. Personally, I'm old school. I believe the only real way to get clients is to go door to door and introduce yourself with a business card and a possible flyer with features and benefits. As for my $66 investment, I follow my dad's advice from way back in the 70's. He said "If you've saved enough money that you don't really need and you're going to piss it away (like at Vegas, on an expensive meal out when Burger King would've done just fine), then invest it instead. And if your investment didn't pay off, then what do you care? You were going to piss it away anyway." No truer words were ever spoken.
Hi Johnathan,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with some leads.
We screen all of our leads through an automated system however we do have a credit return policy for any leads later shown to have incorrect information.
To report any leads to us please email us at [email protected]. We will always return the credits and shut the leads down found to have incorrect information.
If you have any questions or need further support, please just let us know.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I have been attempting to use Bark for over 8 months now with my consulting firm. In the third month or so I began to suspect that all the leads were not kosher as I had so many bad phone numbers.
I also have a catering company registered with them under a different email address and have gotten only three referrals for but all three were humans who wanted my services so I persevered.
The long short of it is, three weeks ago, I was referred to myself as Katie states my name as Kat) from my own catering company to me as Kat at my coaching company. I know this because I purchased the referral and moments later found myself leaving a message for myself on my other business line.
Bark has yet to respond to a single request for credit or refund and I have no choice but to cancel and slither away and complain to you. VERY DISHEARTENING AND EXPENSIVE.
Hi there Kat,
We're sorry to hear that you have had a disheartening experience with us, and this is not what we want at all.
We are an open public platform, and whilst we do have a screening process it is mainly automated, and so we rely on our professionals to inform us of any issues in order for us to try to rectify them. Please do email us at [email protected] and we will be happy to see if we can help.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
The final straw was getting into a text conversation with a robot. Instantly, I was like "yep, I got robbed."
Hi Bryce,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with some leads.
We do screen all of our leads through an automated system however we do have a credit return policy for any leads later shown to have incorrect information after they have gone through this automated system.
To report any leads to us please email us at [email protected]. We will always return the credits and shut the leads down found to have incorrect information.
If you have any questions or need further support, please just let us know.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I would highly recommend businesses keeping their money for other more legitimate lead generation opportunities. I have my doubts that Bark.com leads are even real- and even if some are, their advertising practices are completely dishonest and the customer service is literally the worst I have ever experienced. I've been LAUGHED AT by one representative and they've tried to have my poor reviews taken down on several websites-- which just shows how much they have something to hide. Definitely do not use this company!
Hi Khaleelah,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience using our platform and Customer Success Team.
We strive to provide the best leads and service we can for professionals, and we did attempt to speak with you to help but we received no response to our request.
If you have any questions or need further support, please just let us know at [email protected].
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
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- SmartCustomer’s sole mission is to increase online transparency for buyers and businesses
- SmartCustomer has helped over 200M buyers make better purchasing decisions online
- Suspicious reviews are flagged by our algorithms, moderators, and community members
Hi Craig,
We're sorry to hear that you have had issues with using our platform.
We did reach out to you to try and help however we did not hear from you.
All leads are screened by an automated system, and we have a credit return policy which covers any contact details which are not working. We feel this is the fairest system we can have as we are not a commission based system that guarantees work, and only provide contact details for enquiries placed with us.
We are always working to improve our leads - for example we are currently trialling text verification - however we have some great features you can utilise from your account to help you respond to the most convertible leads.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'll be happy to help.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team