The second problem was trust. I’ve been burned before by hiring companies based on Internet reviews. A lot of businesses seem to optimize for low-cost labor and throughput. The person who actually shows up has little incentive to care about quality, craftsmanship, or attention to detail.

Worst part is that even if YOU are willing to pay more to really have it done well, only thing that is going to happen is that you will be ripped off, as you mention that company you find will just pocket your money and get you someone not up to par for the job.

I am so annoyed by that fact.

And this is why I'm irritated whenever a comment just thoughtlessly answer "Just raise your offer bro". There might be some transaction barriers that make paying a service no longer worth it, one of them is the amount of fraud like you mentioned, another is societal problem that reduces people's competency as a whole so competent people becomes too few to search.