Get Paid to Run Errands and Do Odd Jobs

There are a few sites I’ve come across recently that will pay you to run errands and do odd jobs. The fact is that there are people out there who need things done for them but have no time to get these things done themselves (or are simply unable to for whatever reason) and also people who desperately need to pick up cash here and there on the side. The websites I’m about to share with you act as the middle man, allowing this kind of work to be outsourced and bringing both of these groups of people together. Before you sign up for any of these, please read about my safety concerns with these sites below.

Task Rabbit seems to be the most popular so far. You can sign up here to be a “Task Rabbit” and bid on jobs that people needing services done post. Just a few examples of things you might help other people do are household chores, pick up dry cleaning, get groceries, assembly and repair, cooking, spring cleaning, and more. There are even some computer-type tasks posted sometimes like data entry and usability testing. The person who has the lowest bidding amount on the job will get it, and payment will be made either in three days after the work is done or whenever the requester marks the job as complete, whichever comes first. Task Rabbit is only available in certain areas. At the time of this posting, the cities where Task Rabbit is recruiting include Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Dallas, LA & the OC, New York City, Portland, Seattle, and the San Francisco Bay area. You can put your name in to be notified when you can sign up in  your town. Signing up to be a task rabbit involves submitting to a background check and completing a video interview.

Agent Anything is very similar to Task Rabbit, but you cannot sign up for this one unless you are a college student, and they will verify your identity through your school before you can begin work. I actually did a review of Agent Anything back in November if you would like to read it. If you’re in college and want to pick up some extra money doing odd jobs for people, it sounds like a good site, but unfortunately Agent Anything is a little more geographically limited than Task Rabbit at present. It is most widespread in New York.

As mentioned above, Task Rabbit seems to be the most popular option here so far, but I think you can expect these kinds of sites to grow in popularity so don’t be surprised to see more and more  jobs posted on the other two as time goes on and for Task Rabbit to start popping up in several other cities. I also expect that there will be a lot of other sites like this coming out of the woodwork before long.

Safety Concerns

I cannot end this post without expressing my concerns with security regarding these kinds of sites when the job calls for you to actually meet the other person. Whenever you are meeting a stranger in person, you’ve simply got to be careful. This is the only thing that worries me with these services. I think most of these have feedback options where you can see if anyone has done work for a person before and how it went, so for sure notice that. I know I would personally feel more comfortable doing odd jobs for someone who had good feedback that other workers had met before with no issues. And this works both ways if you are posting a job on a site like this — you need to be able to feel safe using the worker you hire. That is why some of these sites implement the background check.

Just my two cents, but I wouldn’t sign up to meet a stranger alone and I’d for sure stay away from job postings that sound weird like “pay someone to have dinner with me” or anything like that. If I were picking up someone’s groceries or dry cleaning for them, I’d probably want to meet them with it in public. I know there have been some bad experiences with Craigslist postings in the news. Bottom line — be careful when meeting a stranger and if possible don’t do it alone!

Have you ever tried out these sites? What was your experience? Do you know of any other that are similar worth mentioning?