HomeAdvisor sold leads on quality it couldn't back and billed a 'free' subscription

HomeAdvisor, the Angi-affiliated home-improvement marketplace, sold leads to service providers on claims about how good those leads were. The FTC said those claims were false: while HomeAdvisor represented that providers would receive leads matching the services they offered and their preferred area, many did not, and the company often quoted job-conversion rates far higher than it could substantiate.

The sales pressure reached into the subscription itself. HomeAdvisor's sales agents misrepresented that the optional one-month mHelpDesk subscription was free — it actually cost $59.99 a month and formed part of an annual membership package that generally ran $287.99 plus a per-lead fee.

In January 2023 the FTC ordered HomeAdvisor to pay up to $7.2 million in redress and to stop the practices. The order set up two funds: payments of up to $30 for providers hurt by the lead misrepresentations, and up to $59.99 for those told the first month of mHelpDesk was free. Marketing that overpromised the product to the people buying it ended up paying for the promises it could not keep.