Darragh G

Systemic lead quality failures, copy-paste complaint responses, and no accountability — over 25 disputes ignored

Complaint: I am the Director of a professional catering business that has been using Bark.com as a lead generation platform. Over a single reporting period we have purchased more than 25 leads and have experienced a consistent, systemic pattern of failures that has cost our business significant time, money, and resource. Lead quality failures experienced: Customers who had already appointed another supplier before we made contact, yet the lead remained live and marked as urgent on the platform Customers who confirmed within minutes of our outreach that their event was cancelled or that they had made alternative arrangements Leads marked as both "urgent" and "planning and researching" simultaneously — two directly contradictory designations used to sell the lead and then deny the refund A lead where the customer was recorded as being in Midrand when she was in fact based in Rustenburg, North West Province — a different province entirely, confirmed by her own company website and a direct telephone call Leads with bounced email addresses Leads with landline-only contact numbers, preventing WhatsApp contact A funeral catering lead for up to 199 guests, marked "ready to hire now", contacted six times across email, WhatsApp, and telephone over nine days — with zero response Approximately 90% of leads purchased on this account have produced no engagement whatsoever across any channel Bark's complaints process: Every single dispute — regardless of the specific circumstances, the evidence provided, or the arguments raised — has been met with the same copy-paste template response. The same paragraph has been sent across more than 25 tickets. In one instance, a response was addressed to "Hello The" — confirming the ticket had not been read at all. Where credits have been returned, it has only been after multiple rounds of formal escalation, detailed written arguments, and explicit threats of external complaints. Bark's own written responses have acknowledged that lead quality errors occur, that planning-stage leads carry low conversion likelihood, and that the urgent designation reflects customer-reported time sensitivity — yet these same acknowledgements have been used to deny refunds on tickets where the facts are identical to those where refunds were approved. The core issue: Bark charges suppliers for introductions. Bark charges no one else in this transaction. When a lead fails — regardless of the reason — Bark keeps the credits. There is no accountability, no genuine quality standard, and no functioning complaints process. Suppliers bear 100% of the financial risk of every failed lead while Bark profits from the volume regardless of outcome. We have spent more time and resource disputing failed leads than converting genuine ones. That is not a sustainable platform and it is not what was sold to us. What we are requesting: A senior review of all open disputes on this account, a consolidated response addressing each case on its merits, and credit returns where the evidence clearly supports them. All disputes have been logged under internal escalation ticket 21634477. We have also filed a detailed review on Trustpilot and are engaging relevant consumer protection bodies.