Anyone ever used 99 Designs?

It's one of those new-fangled "crowd sourcing" design services where you can pay a few hundred bucks to host a design contest for, say, a logo, and designers will submit their entries and then you select a few and you get a few revisions and then eventually you pick a winner and they get the bucks. 
 
Their "silver" logo design package is $500. You submit a few details about what you're looking for and hopefully the contestants will actually listen to your requirements and design something great around it. Or maybe not. Here's the dilemma. If you offer a "guaranteed prize," you're going to get more designers and maybe the better quality ones, but there is no money-back guarantee. You're paying the $500 no matter what, even if all of the submitted designs are crap. If you need the money-back guarantee, you're not offering a guaranteed prize and so it's likely that fewer designers will want to take part (and they're likely to be the less experienced ones). 
 
I'm looking for a new company logo and I've been browsing a few "pro" logo designer's websites and I have to say, I'm always a little disappointed by their portfolios. It seems like everyone has this generic style these days and all of their designs look the same. Maybe it's a consequence of them all using Illustrator and all utilizing the same techniques. So I figure maybe if I go with 99 Designs, maybe I'll end up with something a little more unique simply by virtue of the number of designers who are let loose on the project. 
 
Then again, I'm kind of a little uncomfortable with this whole crowd sourcing idea. While it sounds kind of cool for the customer, I can't help but feel bad for the designers who put loads of work into a contest but end up with diddly squat. Yeah I know, that's the nature of the game, but I'm quite soft in the head, so there it is. 
 
Thought(s)? 

Oh yeah, and you have to hope they didn't use any copyright images in their logo.
 

Graphic design has about as much perceived value as music or photography these days. I studied it 1976-80 but went a different route after college. My good friend Tim has been a logo designer for the last 35 years, working all over the world (Intel Inside and Logitech were just 2 of his), now he struggles to find decent paid work.
 
Time was, designers would be paid just to pitch for work, but that's long, long gone.

jamesg1213
Graphic design has about as much perceived value as music or photography these days. I studied it 1976-80 but went a different route after college. My good friend Tim has been a logo designer for the last 35 years, working all over the world (Intel Inside and Logitech were just 2 of his), now he struggles to find decent paid work.
 
Time was, designers would be paid just to pitch for work, but that's long, long gone.

I think to make money out of it these days you have to do the whole kit and kaboodle - logos, web design, business cards, GUI's, postcards, leaflets, t-shirts etc.  One of the reasons why 99 Designs is becoming so popular with amateur designers is that there is the chance the company you design a logo for will want to continue to work with you for their additional branding needs. Once a business has gotten a logo they love, they're going to want to retain some kind of aesthetic coherence across the rest of their company designs. And if the designer is successful at that then they're going to get more work through word of mouth. So it might be a good way for amateur designers to get a foothold (and some kind of portfolio going). 

I like that song
 
99 Designs on the wall, take one down, pass it around.... etc.

sharke
I guess I have no idea what I'm looking for in a logo other than some speculative descriptive words. 

"Some speculative descriptive words?" Sounds to me like you're getting the term "logo" confused with your company's slogan, motto or tagline!
 

 
In this example, the logo is the top part and the slogan, or tagline is the bottom part.

craigb

sharke
I guess I have no idea what I'm looking for in a logo other than some speculative descriptive words. 

"Some speculative descriptive words?" Sounds to me like you're getting the term "logo" confused with your company's slogan, motto or tagline!
 
In this example, the logo is the top part and the slogan, or tagline is the bottom part.

Maybe I'm wrong but I took sharke's "some speculative descriptive words" to mean he could probably only offer "some speculative descriptive words" about a logo he'd want as he has no idea of what he actually wants.
 

We paid $250 for the Coffee House Band logo with four free revisions.

 
 
I just flushed away a massive log.

The last time I needed a logo, I started with the company name, Forereach. One common meaning is to describe part of a dog's gait. The other, and the reason I selected it for a consulting business, is: to gain on or get ahead, even while taking in sail (or, as Google defines it: Movement to windward when hove-to under sail). Once I had the company name, that suggested a sailing motif for a logo.
 
I hired a young designer in the Phoenix area and paid her $50/hour for her work, not including several meetings. I started by searching the web for sailing logos and found a couple to use to base my description to her of what I wanted. I also ran the drafts past my brother, who is an experienced sailor. He made a couple of very important contributions with regard to keeping the logo "real", that is, that a seasoned sailor would see it and feel comfortable, that things are as they should be (main sail alignment to the (invisible) mast and spinnaker being the most important).
 
I paid her $637.50 (about 6 years ago), plus another $112.50 six months later for some additional work (KEY reason to have your own designer!). She provided me with flat and 3D versions in 4 resolutions, as well as camera-ready copy for business cards. Here are a couple of examples (keep things simple!):
 
EDIT: Looking for an alternative to Google Photos (which gives an apparently unusable share link).
 

 
Good luck!

Don't know what to say about the photos not showing up. I uploaded them to Google Photos and then linked to them, like I've been doing for awhile. What do you see? Any text/message pop up when you mouse over?

I immediately imagined two logo approaches when you first posted about this.  One with a guy facing you and, in front of him, spread out, are five dogs being walked (i.e., coming at you as you look at the logo).  The other was of a dog on a treadmill.  No bones, no paw prints. Heh.

Didn't know about the packs.  I'd have a dog walking the human instead.

Could probably pass as the next Olympics logo that!