I had a bad experience as a TaskRabbit buyer. There was a dispute between me and the task worker as to whether the task was complete. The worker went ahead and marked the task as complete and TaskRabbit deducted my credit card. The dispute resolution process was a convoluted and manual process which I didn't have time for (which is why I was using TaskRabbit in the first place). It wasn't a huge amount of money so I let it slide.
I can see why TaskRabbit might be biased towards paying for the task automatically after the agreement has been entered, the alternative would be to make it easy for the buyer to screw the workers over, but it seems like they probably need an easier dispute process or they'll lose the buyers, I know I'm not using them again. I guess the worker ratings is supposed to help with this but I couldn't quickly figure out how to rate the worker and TaskRabbbit didn't make it easy by sending me an email about it or something like that, so I just gave up.
At Airtasker (an Australian competitor) we take the approach that it'ds an open marketplace and both sides need to confirm that the task is complete before money exchanges hands. We've found it's very, very rare that the buyer will "screw over" the runner.
Also it seems much easier for us to scale up new runners than it is to get more task posters.
It's super fun working for a startup that is focused on real-world interactions. Situations like the one you describe are difficult to deal with and definitely highlight the value of good community management and customer service. It's a shame that TaskRabbit let you down. Maybe in the future if Airtasker expands to the US you can give us a try :P
Disclaimer: if it wasn't obvious I work for Airtasker.
I can see why TaskRabbit might be biased towards paying for the task automatically after the agreement has been entered, the alternative would be to make it easy for the buyer to screw the workers over, but it seems like they probably need an easier dispute process or they'll lose the buyers, I know I'm not using them again. I guess the worker ratings is supposed to help with this but I couldn't quickly figure out how to rate the worker and TaskRabbbit didn't make it easy by sending me an email about it or something like that, so I just gave up.