Are sitters penalized for withdrawing an application?

If I withdraw my application will I get a black mark on my permanent record (-‿•)

Story: A homeowner scheduled and booked me for a sit.

A while later, she wrote me and said that she’s actually going to take her dog with her, and so the sit’s not needed, but she’ll message me directly next time. I invited her to cancel the sit which is currently on the books… but she hasn’t done so.

Problem: This prevents me from appearing as available on the site, which isn’t cool!

Question: Are sitters “penalized” for withdrawing an application? We’ve corresponded a few times but she still hasn’t taken down the sit, but I don’t want to get demerits or other negative marks in the system… assuming that TH management is keeping track of sitter withdrawals vs. homeowner cancelations.

What’s the current official company line here?

If you are still confirmed as her sitter, as far as I know, you cannot withdraw your application from your end @MissChef. Cancelling the sit must come from the owner. Give her a few days then message her again explaining why it is important for her to cancel it from both sides - it could be a red flag against her name for future sitters where no review/feedback has been given by you both. Also you might not want to sit for her the next time if she’s not following the guidelines.

2 Likes

Hi @MissChef I’ll tag @Therese so that she can connect with you when she’s next online.

Francine,
Voluntary Forum Moderator

2 Likes

We’ve had several exchanges over a few weeks… and still nothing.
She said I could still just go there, but there’d be no dog.
Not really interested in driving there if I’m not needed to care for her pet!

Hopefully Therese can sort this out for you where Francine has tagged her.

@MissChef Apologies for the delay in replying. I will email you directly from membership services for the detail so we can help you.

To confirm, homeowners do need to unconfirm the sit on their side. However, if they are not responding, membership services can help, we either write to the homeowner for confirmation or if we can see on the thread of inbox messages, the confirmation of the cancelation, we can unconfirm you on our side.

Should you be in a situation where there is a completed sit on your dashboard, which was actually cancelled, we can remove this, on confirmation from both members. (this sometimes happened during Covid).
I hope this helps clarify.
Kind regards
Therese

5 Likes

I did as Therese suggested. We had a sit booked in early covid time which had to be cancelled (on both ends). The home owners were new and weren’t responding to my request that they cancel the sit on their end so I contacted membership services and they handled it for us.