After a house sit cancelled with less then 12 hours before arrival because of 4 family members staying behind in the property and the HO expecting us to be ok with that over New Yearās Eve, we now had another one cancelled with less then 24 hours notice, a sit arranged months ago, with no phone number provided and the promised welcome pack never arrivingā¦.. we thought better send a message to re confirm arrival time, only then to be told , oh we are not feeling very well, we are going to have to cancel, which didnāt happen , blocking us from trying to book another sit last minute,
Scandalous behaviour , with no apology from HO or THS, after more then 25 sits , this will be the end of itā
It would be nice if THS implemented some sort of consequences for last minute cancelations by hosts or sitters. At the very least some sort of record of it happening that would be visible when their profiles are viewed by prospective sitters/hosts.
As things currently stand there are no repercussions to discourage such selfish behavior on the part of some members or to warn future members of such patterns.
That really is quite unusual in my experience. Did you report the first owners to THS? If not you really should have as they broke the terms and conditions, not having a valid reason for cancelling.
In the second case I donāt understand why you didnāt ensure you got their telephone number from them. Did you have a video call?
This sure has me scaredā¦ And them not even properly cancelling you! THS can do that, but if I was not in dire need of repalcement sit, I would just let the sit run its course and leave a factual review. Because there is no consequences for last minute cancellers!
Since the HO hasnāt cancelled (we are going to have to cancel, which didnāt happen , blocking us from trying to book another sit last minute,) there is currently a sit. So a review could be left.
Ok, the sit isnāt officially canceled. The host follows a forum suggestion, leaves a review. The host then receives a message that the sitter left a review and they can see it after they leave their review. They ultimately see the scathing review and what will they do next?
They will contact THS and request the review for a sit that never took place be removed and their request will most likely be granted.
Meanwhile this sitter is blocked from applying for other sits during the entire duration of the non-canceled sit.
Even if youāre quitting, please write a factual review and let other sitters know that these hosts flaked only after you asked last minute. And they didnāt cancel to unblock you from applying for other sits. That should warn other sitters off them going forward.
@idocsteve When you mention some āsort of recordā of cancelationsā¦
I donāt know what exactly goes on within THS but our sitter canceled on us two weeks before our sit was to begin this month. As the homeowner, we went to officially cancel the sit on the THS platform and at one point was prompted to give a reason. So we selected āsitter canceled.ā
But the review would say just that: āHOs cancelled at the last minute because they āWerenāt feeling wellā They did not cancel officially, so we were unable to re-book.ā
I donāt know if more people have made this observation but for years we have received a few invitations from HO to sit for them each month, I would say 2-3 a month usually, however over recent months it has completely exploded, we now receive 3/4 invitations per week, it seems that the HO ās are absolutely desperate and canāt find any sitters for their pets. Wonder how big the impact of the fees is for many of the short sits
I would love to see the numbers of HOās who just have to cancel their plans because of it. I canāt say that I am surprised by these developments.
Our recent experiences of THS are so negative that we will just use our long list of repeat sits for future use and let our membership expire in the spring, many of our HO customers are doing the same.
Hmmm. I have not heard of that before. In fact, there have been complaints that it isnāt tracked. Makes me query whether it is another recent(unannounced) change. Can some other owners who have had to hit the cancel button (because only HOs can) recall if they were prompted to cite a reason? And if you had to hit cancel, was that recently?
