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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 2.7 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 1st among Service Marketplace sites.
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As far as my experience goes, BARK is a TOTAL waste of money. DO not sign up. If I secure ANY clients I will happily come back and edit my review but I don't see that happening. Heck, even if I receive and ACTUAL response from a potential lead (that I've had to PAY to get nothing from) I'll edit this.
I am a photographer and spent money and I did not even get responses from my quotes even the phone numbers are fake... Do not fall for this scam...
Hi Claude,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site, however we strongly refute your claims made against our business.
We do not have "fake " leads. 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 appreciate that it is frustrating when customers don't respond. We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
FAKE LEADS R Us is what these nasty pieces of work should be called. Bark.com is as crooked as can be, they do nothing for you but take your funds and then lie to prevent having to make good or deliver on their falsehoods, do not trust them, do not give money to these cheats, stay far away from them as there are far more reliable and honest people to deal with than these underhanded rogues, all we got from them was one false fake lead after the other, outright liars through and through.
Hi Malcom,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site, however we strongly refute your claims made against our business.
We did reach out to you to offer a resolution however you did not respond.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I think all the leads are fake, I responded to many leads and got nothing. Feels like this company is like many others, they just take your money and dont care if you do get gigs. They guarantee FULL REFUND if I didnt get a gig in 30 days. I requested my refund and got nothing! Stay away from using Bark!
Hi Andres,
We don't want anyone to have a negative experience using our site, however we strongly refute your claims made against our business.
We do not have "fake " leads. 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 not offer monetary refunds for used credit packs. You may have had a Credit Back Guarantee on your first pack with us which is the offer of credits returned if no work is won - please email us at [email protected] and we can look into this for you.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Not happy with this tool. Bark requires you to purchase credits as you use these credits to reach out to potential clients (or buyers as Bark calls them). Basically a fee to send your details to a buyer. Each buyer is seeking different types of services for help with. So, based on what services buyers are looking for, bark charges you different number/amount of credits. Each credit is worth more than a $1. It will cost you around $25-$45 to reach out to potential client/buyer. And that buyer may get several different quotes. I reached out to 10 potential buyers. I have not received a single follow up email (or call) from any of them. Wasted $297 on this service for nothing.
Sometimes buyers are interested in you. So you do get a notification from Bark saying a certain buyer is interested in you; however, reaching out to those buyers that are interested you also costs you credits. So as you can see, you can easily spend all of your credits in a matter of days. Bark only offers you credits in bulk. So you have to get at least 200 credits. That amounts more than $250 approx.
I am extremely disappointed. Will not use this service again.
Well, I learned my lesson. Please do thorough research before you invest your hard earned dollars, pounds, pesos, euros, rupees, yen, riyals, dirhams, franks, ruble, etc.
Hi Mohammad,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience using our site.
We sell our credits in packs due to our 1 in 5 conversion rate and our aim is to help our professionals achieve a return on investment for their marketing budget. Your starter pack may have also come with our Credit Back Guarantee - please do get in contact so that we can look into this for you.
We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform, and we have also introduced some new features to help professionals to respond to the best leads. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Bark are only interested in your money. I bought credits and they attached them to the wrong account and now saying there's nothing they can do to fix it. Now I'm out of money and missing job opportunities available to us
Hi Debs,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site.
We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
If you are in the US, I highly recommend filing a complaint with the FTC and your state's Office of Attorney General. I do believe this business is scamming people and needs to be shut down. I have received fake and duplicate "leads" over the course of 2 years.
Hi there,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site, however we strongly refute your claims made against our business.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Alternatively for legal matters, please write to our legal address:
40 Eastbourne Terrace,
London,
42 6LG
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
ARK! SUCKS! THIEVING LIARS!
ACTUALLY MINUS 5 STARS. THIS IS WITHOUT A DOUBT THE WORST COMPANY EVER! DO NOT DO ANY BUSINESS WITN THIS HUGE RUP-OFF SCAMMING LYING INCOMPETENT THIEVES FOR ANY REASON. IT IS TOTALLY NON TRANSPARENT! HIDES BEHIND KIDS THEY HIRE REMOTELY WHO DONT KNOW THEY ARE BEING RIPPED OFF BY BARK! THE COMPANY IS TOTAL CRAP! THEY DO NOT PAY THEIR PTOMOTERS, DO NOT STAND BEHIND ANYTHINV THAT THEY SAY. I WAS A FAN OF THIS COMPANY UNTIL I WORKED FOR THEM AND FOUND OUT FIRST HAND THOS COMPANT IS BAD BAD BAD BUSINESS! STAY AWAY FROM BARK!
Hi Lesley,
We strongly refute your claims made against our business. We did reach out to try and help however you did not respond.
Please email us at [email protected] if you would like to try our platform again.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
DO NOT LOOK FOR BUSINESS AS A CLIENT OR VENDOR FROM THIS COMPANY. THEY CHANGE THEIR POLICIES EVERY TIME YOU CALL IN, CLIENTS DO NOT RETURN CALLS EVEN WHEN BARK TELLS YOU THEY "WOULD LIKE YOU TO CONTACT THEM-THE CLIENT" BIGGEST WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME! STAY AWAY!
Hi Dakota,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site.
We do not change our policies. 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.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
SCAM ALERT! Their staff deleted my profile which I have never requested and that's after I purchased basic pro account with active credits still available. I tried to contacted them but I don't get any response for several days now. I don't know how I can get my money back since I cannot get into my account at all. It's a dangerous business method to take your money and they shut down your profile afterwards. I did not violated any of their rules, in fact I just recently sign up and purchased 100 credits for $160 to contact some prospective clients but no positive response yet. DO NOT FALL INTO THEIR TRAPS!
Hi there,
We reached out to you to discuss this further but you did not respond.
We delete accounts after multiple complaints have been reached from customers and/or agents about a professional's behaviour or work.
Please email us at [email protected] should you wish to discuss this further.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I have spent in total £147.84 for getting only one reply from a customer which have not led to any job. So basically I've sponsored bark and received nothing in return. It's true what other person said that they lure potential buyers with a ridiculously low budget estimates, which mean at best you would earn £2-3 per hour. But the thing is I even didn't get to the stage of discussing the budget, as people just simply not replying to any messages, emails or phone calls. If I would've spent this money on platforms where they charge 20% for completed work, offering, for example, some discounts to clients I would earn at least something or even decent money. Here I've just thrown money for nothing. Their sales team calls promising they improved their service to get you accurate leads and ensuring of 30 to 50% conversion rate. In reality, you're lucky if you get 3% and 0% ROI. The reality is I have now £150 less on my bank account. There is plenty of bad opinions of this service on other sites, especially from photographers and videographers so sellers don't repeat mistakes of others and don't waste your money. I've contacted bark asking for a refund they informed me they don't offer any refunds.
Hi Marcin,
We're sorry to hear you've been unsuccessful so far. Many Sellers are successful from their initial pack purchase, but some take a little longer to get used to how our platform works. This is why we offer a credit back guarantee on the first pack purchased so, if you don't get hired from the first pack, we can help you understand why and let you have another go without spending anything more.
To respond to your comments:
- Low budgets of £2-3/hour. We don't state this anywhere I can find. It's not on our PPC Ads and not on the public pages of our site. Where we do give Buyers an idea of cost when placing a Bark, this always comes from recent quotes to similar Barks in the same area from other professionals, like yourself. It is, of course, possible that the Buyer may ask for that, but we'd always advise them that more often than not you get what you pay for. If you have genuinely seen this pricing from us, then please send details to [email protected] so we can investigate.
- Bark is a pay per response service, not commission based. We do this as we think it's most likely for Sellers to get hired if they can communicate with the Buyer in a way that works for them. For this reason, we provide full contact details on every request. If we adopted a commission-based model, we'd have to ensure all communication was through the platform up to the point of hire - which would mean fewer hires taking place. We don't think this is good for our Sellers, or our business - so we've avoided that approach.
- We don't refund. As stated above, we return credits for a 2nd chance if you don't get hired first time. We also return credits where it would not have been possible to contact the Buyer - for example if the email address bounces (we test this before the Bark is issued, so it's very rare), the phone number doesn't ring, of the phone number is for the wrong person. It is true that we don't provide a refund if a Seller is unsuccessful in securing the business - but neither does any other advertising platform (Google, Bing, Yellow Pages, Radio, TV, Newspaper etc.). We consider this entirely fair and reasonable and are clear at the point of purchase that we will return credits if a user isn't hired first time round.
- Poor return on investment - We generally find this is where Sellers aren't following our response tips. They may, for example, have no reviews, not have a profile picture, have spelling and/or grammar errors in their response, respond slowly, not give a quote etc. When Sellers follow our guidelines, we know they get hired something like 1 in 3 to 1 in 5 times they respond. It often takes a while to get used to this way of working though, as it's not the same as someone coming to your website and contacting you specifically. The best Sellers make themselves stand out, and get hired more as a result.
If you haven't done so already, I'd invite you to ask for your credits back under the Credit Back Guarantee, then ask the Support team for some tips to help you get hired. We're sure this will work for you and that we'll be able to change your mind on Bark.com.
If you cant afford £300.00 on leads, then you probably are a very small business and shouldn't be using anything other than cold calling or rely in word of mouth.
It works if you know how to use it. I have had 8 leads convert into £4000. 00 recurring monthly revenue.It has it's flaws, as does any form of lead generating but you need to be selective and patient.
Thanks Robert - that's great to hear. We'd love to know what would get us that 5th star on your review so please feel free to feed back to the Support team, who will pass your comments on and help us improve the platform.
We have a range of pack sizes available, so for some industries, it may be £300 to get started, but for others, it will be much cheaper. We generally sell a package of c. 10 responses, based on the categories chosen at signup so new users can get a feel for the platform.
Bark.com is a complete SCAM and waste of money! You receive a notification to advise someone is interested in your services and interested in using your business, 10/10 times you will contact these people and get NOTHING back! Ignored phone calls/emails/texts NOTHING. I have wasted hundreds on this site because I am growing a business and it seems like a fantastic idea, WRONG! Its awful! You have to pay SO much money for tokens in order to contact people and like I stated before, you will not receive a response. I bought these issues up to bark.com and they basically told me that it is MY business thats the issue! I have a 5* business rating with HAPPY and returning customers who love me and my services, they did not resolve any of my issues they simply insulted me. AWFUL website AWFUL customer service. Just a complete JOKE! And im sure ANY of the positive reviews above 1 star on here are FAKE and employees of Bark.com writing it themseleves!
Hi Zoe,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site, however we strongly refute your claims made against our business.
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.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I run a dog walking business and just received a referral from Bark for a potential client. I paid £35 for the credits to see the customers details. When I called the woman did not want to engage a permanent dog walker at all! Bark were not a bit interested that time wasters use their platform and make no attempt to police this. Have asked for a refund. Save your self time and money!
Hi there,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have success with us. however this is unfortunately the nature of an open lead generation platform such as ours.
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 cannot provide monetary refunds for used credit packs as we cannot retrieve the marketing we have carried out for your business. We do have a general 1 in 5 conversion rate so we are confident that professionals will achieve a return on investment with us.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
After getting a profile, I watched to see what leads came in. There were very few quality leads. I seen a couple I might have bid on, but they want you to spend over $200 to buy a package. I don't know anything about this company and they want me to $235. I looked at the refer category on there site and they give them 40% off on the package of credits. They only want o give me 20%. I email them and ask them for the 40% off and I will try them. This is the response i got."Unfortunately we don't have a way of giving you 40% off, the reason for the difference is to incentivise newer customers". I wrote back That makes no sense. I haven't even bid on job yet because the 20% off isn't enough for me to try it. Technically I am a new customer, but if Bark can't see that than cancel my
Account. I will stick and recommend Thumbtack.
They replied "As requested, we have deleted your Bark.com profile.
We are sorry to see you leave, and wish you all the best for the future.
If you do change your mind, please let us know and we will be more than happy to reactivate your profile for you.
Kind Regards,
Chris
How am I not a new customer? I didn't bid on any jobs, but they would rather lose a customer over a few bucks. I have thousands with Thumbtack. But they are too stupid to see giving me a discount to try Barf would be profitable to them. Good Riddance Barf!
Hi Mike,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site. We did reach out to you to resolve this but did not hear from you.
Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help resolve this issue.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I was a service provider. I sent them their minimum fee to start service. At first they sent me requests for service but soon the requests stopped coming. Several months later I discovered that there was an "active" request that they had not sent me any info about.
As I was then discontinuing my business because of slow holiday season demand (the reason for my visiting their site) I was surprised to see an "active" request.
Since they did NOT provide me the services I paid for I asked for a refund of my balance. They steadfastly refused to do so. They maintained that they "did" send me several requests in the preceding several months but they obviously did not. IF they sent the requests to me their systems did not actually send them to me but their systems said they did. Their systems do NOT work right.
Looking at their rating I can see I am not the only one who is greatly unhappy.
DO NOT SEND THEM ANY MONEY unless it is money you can afford to lose. Based on past experience, only about 1 out of 10 requests actually turn into a booking. Some categories are likely even less. This can severely cut into your income as they charge an arm and a leg (and sometimes two arms and two legs) to respond to each request with never a guaratee you will ever hear from the requester again (likely not in most cases).
Hi Wayne,
We're sorry to hear that you had issues receiving our leads. We did reach out to you to resolve this but did not hear from you.
We cannot provide monetary refunds for used credit packs as we cannot retrieve the marketing we have already carried out on the behalf of your business.
Please email us at [email protected] for any further information or help.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
My brief experience with this lead provider has not been positive nor has it been in any way productive or successful. The leads provided seem to be fake half of the time as when you accept a lead and try to reach out to the potential client, you more often than not get no replies. They also cunningly setup your card details to automatically to payments when replying to leads and your credits have been used. On top of that the pricing of the credits to purchase the leads are quite expensive. On top of all that their customer service is poor and don't want to take ownership when things go wrong.
My advice would be to stay well clear from them and save your money. Attending business networking events may be productive and successful.
Hi Rumi,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had a positive experience.
We do not have "fake " leads. 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.
Our pricing is set using multiple factors - the monetary value of the job, heat of the lead and the cost to us to provide it. We monitor our prices regularly to keep them as competitive as possible and have a 1 in 5 conversion rate across all professions.
We have some great new features which have improved out platform since you last used us - please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I am a professional photographer and mostly when trying to contact prospective clients I get ghosted all the time! The only leads I bid on now is when I get a email saying a client has found me on Bark and would like me to contact them. When I attempt to contact them, NOTHING. Ghosted again! Will stop using Bark now.
Hi Jeffery,
We're sorry to hear that you did not have a positive experience using our site. We did reach out to you to resolve this but did not hear from you.
We appreciate that it is frustrating when customers don't respond. We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
I have bought a 80 credits to find some customers in external wall insulations And nobody didn't respond but one for my phone, emails, messinesses I think that even the people who sometimes give you a call are scammers because they aren't interested to show the house to prepare a quote what its impossible without itDo not use it this website you lose your money and you wont find any customer
Hi Sebastian,
We don't like to hear that any professional has had a negative experience using our platform. We did reach out to you to resolve this but did not hear from you.
We appreciate that it is frustrating when customers don't respond. We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
It's so obvious! What more can be said! Glad I checked them bf shelving out any money. I've marked them as junk mail. Don't waste time and money on anything like this.
Hi Carol,
We help professionals achieve on average a 1 in 5 conversion rate across the board and many service providers tell us that they get 80-95% of their work from our site.
We are confident that we can help your business grow, so please do email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
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HI there Lesley,
We're sorry to hear that you have not had success on our platform.
We appreciate that it is frustrating when customers don't respond. We generally find that responding to the most detailed leads quickly is the key to success on out platform. Please email us at [email protected] and we'd be happy to help you make the most of our platform.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team