Thumbtack seems like a scam

Thumbtack is an online service that helps people find handymen, housekeepers, tutors, photographers, wedding planners, and others for temporary employment. Seems like a system with potential, but after using them a few times, I'm going to avoid them like the plague. My guess is that after those SanFan dotcom bros got all that venture capital from Google (100million) and then another $125 million in second round funding... the pressure was on to show huge profits quickly. Looks like they might have had to resort to shady practices to pump up their numbers? 100% of the leads I pad for were fake.

Have any of you looked into any or all of the other alternatives to Thumbtack? Or, heard of another Thumbtack-style service that doesn't appear to be engaging in shady backend biz practice?