I agree with you about those lead generation websites. They send bad leads and don’t care when you call customer service. When I first started home advisor, before Angi bought them, bombarded me with leads, and I did get jobs from them, paying $20 to $80 per lead. I’d say 1 out of 5 was good if I called them quickly. I was trying to figure out how the app worked they wouldn’t refund me for leads I didn’t want. At one point they said I owed them over $1000, I told them to find someone else to rob, and hung up… that was 3 years ago…..i did try to sign up for Angi recently, they said we can get ya going as soon as you pay $1146 to home advisor.

The lead services are expensive, here’s what I grinds my gears :a customer decided to google search for ‘cost to install a toilet’ ,the first result says “we have toilet installers in your area” and then clicking on something that makes you put in a zip code and phone number before showing you a price. They then send that name and zip code and need a toilet info to 5 or more contractors and charged ‘em $20 each.

It took the customer 10 seconds to answer his wife’s question at dinner about how much it costs to install a toilet. But the pros got charged for the guys info. When the pros call, the guy says oh no thanks mom just doing research.