6 Reasons Thumbtack Leads Get Refunded (And What Evidence to Submit)

Thumbtack does refund bad leads — but only when your dispute clearly matches one of their approved reasons and you back it up with evidence. Vague complaints like "this lead was bad" get denied. Specific, evidenced disputes get approved. Here are the six reasons that actually work, and what to attach to each one.

The customer's address falls outside the service area you configured in your Thumbtack profile. This is one of the easiest disputes to win because it's a factual, checkable claim.

What to submit: a screenshot of the lead's listed address or zip code next to a screenshot of your profile's configured service radius. If the distance is close, include the actual mileage from a maps screenshot.

You paid for the lead, reached out, and got silence — no reply to calls, texts, or messages through the Thumbtack platform.

What to submit: screenshots of your outreach attempts with visible timestamps (call log, text thread, or in-app messages) showing at least two to three contact attempts over several days with no response.

The lead was spam, a competitor testing prices, or someone with no real intention of hiring. This one requires the most care — Thumbtack wants specifics, not a suspicion.

What to submit: the conversation itself. If the customer admits they were "just checking prices," got quotes from ten people, or the phone number/profile looks clearly fake, screenshot that exact exchange.

The customer had already hired someone else before you were ever charged for the lead.

What to submit: a message from the customer stating they already hired someone, with a timestamp that predates or coincides with when you were charged.

The customer's stated budget doesn't come close to covering your minimum project cost — a mismatch that should have been filtered before the lead reached you.

What to submit: the message where the customer states their budget, alongside a note of your posted minimum or a quote you sent that clearly exceeds it.

The request is for something outside what you actually provide — a plumber getting an electrical job, for example.

What to submit: the original request text showing the mismatched service category, next to your profile page showing the services you're actually listed for.

The single biggest reason disputes fail isn't a bad case — it's a badly written one. Thumbtack support reads hundreds of these a day. A rambling, emotional complaint with no clear reason or evidence gets a form-letter denial. A dispute that opens with the exact refund reason, states the facts in two or three sentences, and references attached evidence gets read properly and approved far more often.

This is exactly the gap RefundMyLead closes: upload your screenshots or a call recording, and the AI matches your case to the right reason and writes the letter in the structure Thumbtack support actually responds to — in under a minute.