1 reviews | Active since Mar 2022
Not Worth It for Freelancers on a Budget
I want to share my honest experience with Bark.com to help other freelancers make informed decisions.
Firstly, the advertised pricing is misleading. Bark promotes R1000 for credits, but when the payment is processed, they charge over R1200. There’s no clear explanation for this discrepancy.
Secondly, the quality of leads is highly questionable. I used up all my credits reaching out, following up via email and phone calls—only two leads responded. One of them turned out to be another service provider trying to sell me leads! I reported this to Bark, but no action was taken.
There seems to be no accountability for customers who lie, ghost, or misuse the platform. The current setup heavily favours Bark and the customer, leaving freelancers to absorb the cost of non-responsive or **** leads.
Bark advertises a 30-day money-back guarantee, but when I tried to claim it, I was met with reasons why I didn’t qualify—even though I followed their processes.
My advice? If your budget is tight, avoid Bark. There’s no safety net for your investment. But if losing money on questionable leads isn’t a concern, then it might be worth testing it out.
Transparency, quality control, and better protection for freelancers are urgently needed.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve had a disappointing time on the platform.
Regarding the pricing discrepancy you mentioned—this is likely due to currency conversion fees or additional charges from your payment provider, but we absolutely understand how frustrating that can be and agree this could be clearer during checkout. In terms of lead quality, we do have systems in place to vet incoming requests, but unfortunately, we can’t always control how responsive a customer is after a professional reaches out. That said, we take reports of misuse seriously—if a lead was actually another provider trying to sell to you, we’d want to fully investigate. Please email us at *** with those details so we can take another look.
As for the 30-day money-back guarantee, it has specific conditions professionals need to meet in order to qualify. However, we’re always happy to reassess credit return cases on a one-to-one basis. You can submit a credit return request directly using this link: https://help.bark.com/hc/requests/new?tf_subject=Credit+return+request&ticket_form_id=***.
We’re committed to improving the experience for freelancers, and feedback like yours is crucial to helping us do that.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team
Thank you for sharing your experience. I’m really sorry to hear that you’ve had a disappointing time on the platform.
Regarding the pricing discrepancy you mentioned—this is likely due to currency conversion fees or additional charges from your payment provider, but we absolutely understand how frustrating that can be and agree this could be clearer during checkout. In terms of lead quality, we do have systems in place to vet incoming requests, but unfortunately, we can’t always control how responsive a customer is after a professional reaches out. That said, we take reports of misuse seriously—if a lead was actually another provider trying to sell to you, we’d want to fully investigate. Please email us at *** with those details so we can take another look.
As for the 30-day money-back guarantee, it has specific conditions professionals need to meet in order to qualify. However, we’re always happy to reassess credit return cases on a one-to-one basis. You can submit a credit return request directly using this link: https://help.bark.com/hc/requests/new?tf_subject=Credit+return+request&ticket_form_id=***.
We’re committed to improving the experience for freelancers, and feedback like yours is crucial to helping us do that.
Kind regards,
The Bark Team