I used Thumbtack to hire a painter for my rental home. I live in San Francisco so I was looking for someone local to paint my home interior in San Francisco without paying high overhead costs. When i searched the site it was helpful I found some great options. I decided to hire Daniel who gave me some references to look at. He had a few candidates of very good quality when I received his references, which meant at face value looked like he wasn't doing anything unethical. But since the candidates were so good, there was a possibility of fraud. So what I liked about Thumbtack's vetting options is that you can get a picture of how serious the candidate is before making any payments (if they're even serious). It also helped us narrow down our search of specific skills we needed. We decided by this point that It's easy to use and I was able to find people to help me with my project. I think it can be difficult to find a good match for your needs. There were several people that I was interested in that didn't have enough jobs to fill their time. If you have a specific project in mind, it's likely you can find someone to help. I hired a photographer to shoot my wedding that was easy to use.