Taskers routinely cancel last minute
Taskers keep cancelling last minute and they stay on the site. Even some of the elite taskers cancel 5 minutes before the job. It is an unreliable site and their AI bot is terrible and constantly blames the customer.
TaskRabbit: A Platform Where Good Providers Are Eliminated, and Customers Never Know
I joined TaskRabbit first as a customer, then applied to become a Tasker. I paid for the required background check, passed, and immediately began receiving bookings. Within approximately one month, I earned 21 five-star reviews, with zero complaints…
Quickly rising to near the top of my market across the types of things I’m licensed for.
Then something deeply concerning happened.
A customer booked me for a job… at an address that did not physically exist.
I arrived at the location, only to discover that the street numbers skipped the address provided.
TaskRabbit nevertheless characterized the incident as a failure on my part to communicate with the customer. With a VERY SHORT investigation on my part, I learned the customers first name and last initial (what we are provided) matched the wife of the #1 Tasker in my market, an unlicensed individual that does everything from “moving help” to electric to plumbing to drywall.
The following day, the same suspect customer booked me again. I apologized for not finding the address, and she insisted “It is real, please come”.
Giving the situation the benefit of the doubt, I returned because, maybe I indeed was mistaken, only to encounter the same nonexistent address.
Even more troubling, I subsequently learned that other legitimate, and like me, actually licensed service providers had reportedly experienced nearly identical situations. Fake bookings, all made under similar circumstance.
This raises a serious question: What safeguards does TaskRabbit have against fraudulent bookings being used to sabotage competing Taskers?
In a marketplace where providers compete for visibility and bookings, a system that penalizes Taskers for suspicious or unverifiable customer activity creates an obvious opportunity for abuse.
Despite my excellent record, TaskRabbit subsequently changed my account status, informing me that I could still receive direct bookings but would no longer appear in customer search results.
In practical terms, I was made nearly invisible to new customers.
I attempted to raise these concerns with TaskRabbit support, but encountered little meaningful interest in investigating the circumstances. It seems, they LIKE that taskers are unlicensed. Unlicensed people charge less, and charging less, means you use them more.
The more you book, the more TaskRabbit makes.
There is another issue customers should consider: whether providers advertising specialized services, including electrical work, actually possess the licenses required in their jurisdictions.
A provider’s presence on an app should not be mistaken for independent verification of professional qualifications.
The real losers in this arrangement are the customers. When competent, highly rated providers can disappear from search results without a transparent explanation or meaningful review process, customers lose the ability to make genuinely informed choices among competent providers, and are stuck choosing between the unethical and unlicensed providers who charge less, but who lied to be there.
I also question whether TaskRabbit’s marketplace incentives adequately protect quality and professional qualifications, or whether maximizing booking volume takes precedence over maintaining a fair, trustworthy marketplace.
I cannot establish whether the suspicious bookings were coordinated by competitors, or whether commercial considerations influenced my account restriction.
But the circumstances warrant scrutiny, and TaskRabbit’s apparent unwillingness to meaningfully investigate them is unacceptable.
My warning to customers: Don’t assume the providers TaskRabbit shows you are necessarily the most competent, qualified, or highly regarded. And don’t assume excellent providers are still being given a fair opportunity to appear in search results.
My warning to prospective Taskers: Even 21 consecutive five-star reviews may not protect this portion of your livelihood from questionable customer activity, opaque account restrictions, and an inadequate dispute process.
A trustworthy marketplace should protect both sides of every transaction. Based on my experience, TaskRabbit has failed to demonstrate that commitment.
One star. Not because of one bad booking, but because of what happened when I asked the platform to take suspicious activity seriously.
Quickly rising to near the top of my market across the types of things I’m licensed for.
Then something deeply concerning happened.
A customer booked me for a job… at an address that did not physically exist.
I arrived at the location, only to discover that the street numbers skipped the address provided.
TaskRabbit nevertheless characterized the incident as a failure on my part to communicate with the customer. With a VERY SHORT investigation on my part, I learned the customers first name and last initial (what we are provided) matched the wife of the #1 Tasker in my market, an unlicensed individual that does everything from “moving help” to electric to plumbing to drywall.
The following day, the same suspect customer booked me again. I apologized for not finding the address, and she insisted “It is real, please come”.
Giving the situation the benefit of the doubt, I returned because, maybe I indeed was mistaken, only to encounter the same nonexistent address.
Even more troubling, I subsequently learned that other legitimate, and like me, actually licensed service providers had reportedly experienced nearly identical situations. Fake bookings, all made under similar circumstance.
This raises a serious question: What safeguards does TaskRabbit have against fraudulent bookings being used to sabotage competing Taskers?
In a marketplace where providers compete for visibility and bookings, a system that penalizes Taskers for suspicious or unverifiable customer activity creates an obvious opportunity for abuse.
Despite my excellent record, TaskRabbit subsequently changed my account status, informing me that I could still receive direct bookings but would no longer appear in customer search results.
In practical terms, I was made nearly invisible to new customers.
I attempted to raise these concerns with TaskRabbit support, but encountered little meaningful interest in investigating the circumstances. It seems, they LIKE that taskers are unlicensed. Unlicensed people charge less, and charging less, means you use them more.
The more you book, the more TaskRabbit makes.
There is another issue customers should consider: whether providers advertising specialized services, including electrical work, actually possess the licenses required in their jurisdictions.
A provider’s presence on an app should not be mistaken for independent verification of professional qualifications.
The real losers in this arrangement are the customers. When competent, highly rated providers can disappear from search results without a transparent explanation or meaningful review process, customers lose the ability to make genuinely informed choices among competent providers, and are stuck choosing between the unethical and unlicensed providers who charge less, but who lied to be there.
I also question whether TaskRabbit’s marketplace incentives adequately protect quality and professional qualifications, or whether maximizing booking volume takes precedence over maintaining a fair, trustworthy marketplace.
I cannot establish whether the suspicious bookings were coordinated by competitors, or whether commercial considerations influenced my account restriction.
But the circumstances warrant scrutiny, and TaskRabbit’s apparent unwillingness to meaningfully investigate them is unacceptable.
My warning to customers: Don’t assume the providers TaskRabbit shows you are necessarily the most competent, qualified, or highly regarded. And don’t assume excellent providers are still being given a fair opportunity to appear in search results.
My warning to prospective Taskers: Even 21 consecutive five-star reviews may not protect this portion of your livelihood from questionable customer activity, opaque account restrictions, and an inadequate dispute process.
A trustworthy marketplace should protect both sides of every transaction. Based on my experience, TaskRabbit has failed to demonstrate that commitment.
One star. Not because of one bad booking, but because of what happened when I asked the platform to take suspicious activity seriously.
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Gets a lot of cancellations
I’ve been trying to schedule with cleaners for weeks but I schedule and then they cancel. Not sure why they all cancel. Are they too far or something else? And why matching with the same cleaner when the same cleaner cancels on me?
So so
Furniture assembly was good painting is kind of pricey.
Unreliable workers/bad policies
Booked someone to organize my apartment, we agreed on a time, they never showed after 45 mins of me waiting on them. When I called Task Rabbit customer service and told them my situation about the person I hired being over 40 mins late.. they tried to say they were going to charge ME a cancel fee for the person being over 45 mins late to the agreed task time??? I had to literally fight about not being charged given the Tasker never shown, was very late Tasker I hired kept telling me they were 10 mins away yet 10 mins would go by and nothing. I tried to call no answer, I finally was over waiting on them and asked to cancel after almost an hour went by. Had to fight customer service to not charge me a fee?? Which is crazy! I have used this app 10+ times to hire workers and I’ll never use it again after this horrible experience.
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GARBAGE
This app is trash you won’t find a job here save your money
Not great
You have to pay and make an appointment just to get a quote or speak to the person. No thanks.
Shady contractors
Booked 10+ task via this app so I have a reasonably good view of the contractor landscape. Half the contractors on this app are quite shady with last-minute cancellations and retrading about hourly prices once they are in your apartment a reasonably frequent occurrence. This app gives you reasonably decent access to the contractors for the task you need, but don’t expect too many top notch tradesman and more of the opportunistically buccaneering type…
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Doesn’t service Phoenix?
Doesn’t service Phoenix or any other major Arizona cities
Horrible
Movers cancelled the day of my move. Now I’m scrambling to get a different company that is actually reliable and professional. 0/5 stars
No Accountability for Workers
A common thing in my city is that the workers will accept a task, then cancel right before or no show the task. They will extensively communicate with you about the job, then accept it only to cancel without saying anything. It is not just me. Then Task rabbit themselves won’t hold those people accountable by giving them strikes or eventually kicking them off the platform when it becomes an issue with the same worker for so many people. Go to Angie’s list or something better.
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App simply does not work
App does not allow you to click on profile to login to your account. Everything has to be done through a web browser. Assuming this is a bug but until it’s fixed app is not usable
unable to use
i needed some assistance with furniture assembly, got through the questions and found someone who had good reviews. the app or browser wouldn’t let me login. i reset my password 2 times and still it wouldn’t work. had to source from another website
Confusing charges
App keeps showing task completed when it’s not, and doesn’t tell you how much did you get charged, only showing £0 in receipt which was not correct. Mixture of people, some are good and some just bad. My electrician accidentally drilled the hole too deep that it penetrated to the other side of the wall! Still got charged £90
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Unreliable
Every cleaner cancels day-of, reschedules, and/or shows up late all the time.
Very poor system
They take your money and tell you your booking is “confirmed” but really all it does is request the person involved. So often things get cancelled and then leave you without anything and unable to book at the last moment.
Used to be great
Taskers cancel or adjust the start of the appointment time at the last minute, or confirm the appointment and then say the price in their profile isn’t the price they actually charge (how does that even work??). Customer service is non existent. You’ll have endless rounds with an AI bot and no one will ever reply to your emails. The services this app is meant to provide aren’t anywhere near consistent or reliable. And if you cancel on a task, you will be financially penalized. However, every task who has canceled or made up pricing or shown up late all had perfect ratings. So the app isn’t presenting an honest perspective of each tasker profile if they chronically cancel or adjust pricing in the chat.
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Shady platform - don’t recommend
This company has been going downhill. Real sinking ship and only care about themselves and how much they can get as opposed to high quality craftsmanship from seasoned contractors. Would rate lower if I could
What is a COI?
Please tell me what it is? Do I need it?
Booked gaskets just don’t show up can’t leave them a review. Horrible app service.
Booked gaskets just don’t show up can’t leave them a review. Horrible app service.
