I believe this issue may be down to the THS messaging.
My understanding is that when an application is declined - the system sends you a message that says
“Sorry xx has chosen another sitter” ( even if they haven’t at that stage chosen another sitter) .
Then when the listing is unpaused , if you have it saved as a favourite, you received a notification- making it look as if you can reapply .
Perhaps giving the impression that the sitter they chose hasn’t accepted and the homeowner is still looking .
Unless an applicant receives a personal message from homeowner which says “ please DO NOT RE-APPLY” a sitter might think that they still have a chance of being chosen.
Happy to be corrected if these are not the automatic messages that get sent out to everyone. This is just from my experience and from reading the forum.
The threads that Silversitters points out do indeed seem to point to bot behaviour, where there’s just an auto-re-apply process playing out as soon as a spot opens up.
@Lpatterson - if I’m not mistaken, we haven’t heard yet what messages you received from this person. E.g. 5 times an empty message? 5 times the exact same generic message?
if so, that could be strong indications of bot behaviour
This has to be a bot. It is outrageous that TH knows about this problem and does nothing to prevent it. The 5 app rule is ridiculous. Every HO I have talked to finds it utterly repulsive. What can members, on both sides, do about it? Since the Forum will not even acknowledge our opinions and/or concerns about this subject, what is our recourse?
Yes, I’ve had to decline the same person more than once for the same sit. I figured it was another case of the person wanting to come to our area and not realizing it was the same sit because they didn’t bother to read anything before applying. They asked questions in what seemed to be a “canned” application that were answered had they read the title, or the first paragraph, or the summary, or looked at the cover photo.
I’ve considered whether it might be worth applying to open sits I can’t do this time but would very much like to do in future, explaining the issue, and immediately withdrawing so as not to take up one of their slots. Now they’re in my inbox, so I can communicate with them about future sits and ask them to invite me. But the new inbox, now in beta, only allows you to keep 20 past conversations, so if that’s what’s coming, it would prevent that, too, unless in that original withdrawn application, I also ask them to contact me via text so that we have one anothers’ contact info. But as a HO too, I’m not sure what I’d make of that…would it feel creepy? It might.
I made a temporary application and explained that I couldn’t make their current sit dates, but wondered whether the hosts might like me to sit later. I said I’d cancel my current application, since it wasn’t real. They replied that they had other plans later in the year and asked to chat. We did and they not only offered me one sit, which I accepted, they’ve since been in touch each time they’ve wanted to add travel.
Note: Their sit had gotten applications, but wasn’t on the verge of five applications. If it had been, I wouldn’t have applied and taken up the last slot.
Are you saying that in the future it’s possible to access only the last 20 conversations in total in one’s THS inbox? That would be very weird. E.g. there’s HOs that I sat for in the past (9 years) who I may want to be in touch again. There’s HOs I’ve been in touch with, who may want to invite me for a future sit. Etc. That definitely exceeds 20 contacts