I agree about people being privacy-conscious @buttercup and no, you did not say “all” but “many”. Sadly with the way the world is, the technology available and so much done online, our privacy is getting less and less.
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This is exactly what I just said in a post yesterday. That we are seeing more and more people lieing, and telling homeowners they have to pay. These people need to be warned 1 time, then if they do it again they need to be permanently banned from THS. I do not know why THS is clearly stating this . If it were clearly stated we wouldn’t be having so many homeowners posting questions about this very topic. When a person joins and pays for service they are required to do a background check. If I can remember in think you also have to provide a copy of your license. Or an ID. If this is being talked about every day then it’s obvious something is not working. Who are these sitters ? What age group are they? Any seasoned sitter knows better. Its getting to the point where homeowners are not longer going to give sisters who are new a chance without several reviews. Thats how I see these. And all the good sitters book up fast because they are good and honest. They don’t pull this crap. If it’s not new sitters a big SHAME ON YOU! Most sitters are really caring and do the right thing. How big does the statement NO MONEY EXCHANGE, NO MONEY TO BE PAID, THIS IS AN EVEN EXCHANGE! is this ever going to stop? Like most suggestions tell this homeowner to raise a DISPUTE. magic word.
My external references were checked (last year, Canada), but via email, so easy to mess with.
Thank you to everyone who has responded.
There are lots of things going on here. I don’t expect someone to use a different name, photo or address where they live - or should explain that they don’t have a permanent address. This person claimed to live nearby. We don’t know if that true or not. Repeated attempts to meet her before the first housesit were delayed - this should have been a sign, but, again, my friend was doing this for the first time. She wanted the woman to come to the house but she refused. When they did finally meet it was in the parking lot of some business in the same county. I always do a Zoom call with sitters and ask them to come the day before so we can go over everything. I want to know who is coming into my home. I have never heard of anyone offering to let someone drive their car - that’s a whole other liability. Or cover transportation. Asking to be paid is definitely not part of the process. My friend is a bit naive and a little too trusting. So, I hope she follows up with THS and gets some resolution.
The woman is a realtor and I have no idea what was used. But not something that we would have access to. It’s
Sitters shouldn’t ask for money. However, it does seem there are a lot of new sitters (and new HOs) that don’t understand how THS works. Some sitters join thinking it’s like Rover.
But I’m curious on the info your friend had on the sitter. Is it just from the profile or did the sitter give her info after confirmation that wasn’t correct? Our profiles only have our first name and many people go by nicknames and would likely use their preferred name on their profile. Also, our profile doesn’t say where we live. When we complete the profile it asks where we are located, not where we live. I’m from the US, but I spent 7 months in Europe last year, so I was not located in the US for most of the year.
I don’t know if this sitter just didn’t know the rules or if they were trying to get away with asking for money since your friend is new. I hope you friend has better experiences in the future. There are lots of great sitters on THS.
It would be great if THS did a better job with onboarding new members since there seems to be a lot of confusion from new sitters and new HOs lately.
Hello!
I just wanted to confirm that in a situation where a sitter asks an HO for money, if it’s reported to THS, the member receives one warning, and if it happens again, they’re removed from the platform.
@AreYouThatWoman - If your friend contacts us with a member dispute, please ask them to add any details they have around being told that this wasn’t an urgent issue. If you had contacted the urgent line on the member’s behalf, this may be why, but if the member contacted the line directly, we would have expected this to be picked up by the team.
Jenny
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Really… did they actually e-mail “hey did you write this reference?” Interesting, because I sure don’t recall hearing anything was checked when I joined several years ago. Good if they’ve changed it, a step in the right direction, but yes – far too easy to mess with if it’s only via e-mail.
Yes they received a form to complete by email.