The first time I confirmed a sit, I got a message that asked if I want to send a personal message to the other applicants (along with the decline notice from THS) and I said yes and wrote a note. But I noticed that my message did not show up in my message thread with any of the other sitters. I happen to get a nice reply from one of the sitters after she received the decline notice and I messaged her back and asked her if she received my personal note (I thought that maybe it just didn’t show up in the message thread or that it was only sent via email or something), but alas she didn’t receive it at all, in any form. Needless to say, I was upset to find out that the declined sitters did not get my personal message, just an impersonal auto-decline. I wrote them all messages after the fact and now I do so for every applicant every time I confirm another sitter. Is this a system glitch or “it’s me, hi I’m the problem, it’s me”? Has anyone else had this problem or is everyone blissfully unaware of their inadvertent rudeness? 
Is THS aware of it and working on a fix or…?
THS probably is aware of this, because it has been raised on the forum for years again and again.
I circumvent it by telling the sitters I am going to confirm, that I first want to decline the other applicants personally, before I hit the confirm button in order to prevent them being taken aback by this short and rude automated message. I have a letter prepared for this and I quickly fill in the applicant’s names and send them out.
Unfortunately most HOs probably don’t know about this.
Hello,as Pawtastic,
I write a message to say that I have chosen another petsitter for this time
I send my message and then I refuse the application,
always difficult to do that for me, choose, refuse, people
Me too. I always feel guilty.
I get the same thing as a sitter and I’ve learnt that so do other HOs.
It even occurs when HOs send me an invitation.
Looks like there is no message. I used to decline these as a matter of policy. Thinking if there is no note, they are just sending me a blanket invite, which puts me off.
But now if I just get an unsolicited or unexpected invitation, with no note, I give them the benefit of the doubt and ask if they sent a note and mention that if they did, I didn’t receive it. They come back and say they did indeed send a note. But I don’t seem to ever receive them.
Big glitch in system in each direction. Unlikely to be fixed by THS, unfortunately. Just creates extra work for members and greater confusion all round.