I had a sitter come, use my car, without my permission, rack up $950 in speeding tickets, damage my faucet, cause a flood, damage my HW floors. And basically despite the fact that I I was premium with additional insurance i was told there was nothing TH could do, I had to file with my own insurance first, no way to get my $ back, and they wouldn’t even give me the HS first name citing privacy laws. He also drank all of the good high end imported and gifted rum and other spirits. Total damage and loss $3-4000 dollars. So what I learned, if something bad happens, there is really nothing they are going to do. They are a platform, you made an arrangment. So beware. I went to the police and they said nothing we can do, you let him into your house. So basically you are A–out if anything goes wrong. Seriously beware!!!
How don’t you know your sitters first name? Did they go by their middle name?
What was the reason THS’s insurance wouldn’t pay out for the damage that was caused.
Not sure about in the US, but in the UK if you can prove you weren’t the driver, then that holds a little more weight with regard to the speeding tickets, and you probably can prove that with the THS platform, flights tickets, hotel confirmations, credit card receipts while you were away, and the fact you went to the police about it. I’m surprised taking someones car isn’t an offence, even if they returned it.
@AbigailDC
The speeding fines should be a police matter as they effectively stole your car, or borrowed without permission at best.
Really sorry to hear of your horrendous experience.
Hi @AbigailDC
So sorry to hear of your troubles with your sitter.
When you communicated with the sitter what did you address them as?
I don’t know which country you are based in but here in the UK taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent (even partners) is a serious offence and could result in jail time.
My most recent hosts had a sitter before me use their car without permission. They reported that to THS and THS kicked the sitter off the platform.
How did you not know their name? I would file a police report as them using your car was theft. That should help clear up the tickets I would hope.
I am really sorry to hear all of this happened. If you opened a formal dispute against this member, I would imagine that with the car issue alone, he would be removed from the platform.
Might not be much comfort since it won’t address all the things he did, but you can help prevent other hosts from dealing with someone like this. A person like this should not be on the site.
And yes you are right that there isn’t very much THS can do in this regard unfortunately. At its core, they are a matching platform, and aren’t personally vetting the sitters who join–save ID verification and background checks for US-based sitters–or vouching for them in any way.
I do think your experience is a very rare sort of occurrence. And that is not to minimize it in any way, but to say that if you were to consider using sitters again, it would be highly unlikely to have something like this happen again.
I am not sure where you are located(I see you quoted the amounts in dollars but that isn’t necessarily US dollars) but isn’t the driver of a vehicle, regardless of who owns it, fully responsible for a speeding ticket since he is the one that committed the violation? Wouldn’t the only place the violation be recorded is on his driving record?
Again I am very sorry and strongly encourage you to open a formal dispute to get him removed.
In the U.S. a speeding ticket is written to the driver not the vehicle. When pulled over you show the police officer your driver’s license, vehicle registration, and insurance coverage. Not having all of these is a violation. In this case, the officer would see that the DL and registration don’t match and likely check if it was a stolen vehicle. But the speeding ticket would be written to the holder of the DL. Only parking tickets are written to the actual vehicle license plates.
Unless the speeding ticket was issued from a photo radar camera, and these are quite common in some parts of the US.
If this is what happened then the HO should (depending on where exactly this occurred) be able to successfully dispute by showing that they were not the person photographed speeding.
Good point! They’re illegal in most states/cities in my region. However, they do usually show the driver and you can contest that you were not the driver. And having a police report will substantiate that. I’ve actually done so and been successful.
In my country speeding tickets is for driver and tickets from speeding camera can (and should) be disputed. I’m sure you can prove you were elsewhere.
I believe the THS-insurance requires that you should use your own insurance first, and the THS-insurance only can cover what you can’t get elsewhere.
Don’t you have some data on the sitter so you could do some detective-work to get the name? Tell-tale-signs in e-mail-adress, a phone-number (number in WhatsApp), social media or other?
Have you tried to ask the sitter and tell him of the cost and that he should reimburse you?
Have you raised a formal Member dispute with THS? You need to use that expression - Members dispute - for them to look into it and possibly give him a warning or kick him off platform.
I’m surprised they were able to use your car without permission……we always put our car keys away from prying eyes and lock our booze up unless we want to share. But of course, you can prove you weren’t the driver of your car and that it was stolen. You must have their phone number surely?
I’m so sorry, that sounds horrible! I’m a HO as well, and always aware something like this is possible, although super rare.
Please do as @KC1102 suggested, and file a formal dispute against them. They really need to be removed. And write an honest review.
As for people wondering about not knowing the first name. If the name the sitter uses on this platform is not their first name, there’s no way of knowing that unless you check their ID. Also not all sitters share their last name automatically.
THS can and should ban that person from holding a THS account and block their information/ID from ever creating another account again.
THS can do a lot more than they let on, to start with, providing the person’s information so the HO can file a police report or small claims court case. If it were something more serious and police got involved they’d have to, so if the OP is going to file a case somewhere they should.
How did the sitter get your car keys?
It’s strange that you didn’t know his name. Did you have a video call before accepting him? Did you meet him at the start of the sit? Did he look after your pets?
Even in cases when they didn’t loan me their cars, I’ve had hosts who left their car keys in the open. They trusted that I wouldn’t steal their cars.
The same thing happened with my most recent hosts, but the sitter before me took their car without permission. Of course, I’ve never done that — most folks wouldn’t. It’s the people who deviate from decent behavior who ruin many things in life, including sits, unfortunately.
I have done all of that, I mean all and more. He blocked me. He is off the site. That doesn’t help me with the 3-4K damage and expenses. For this amount, its not worth the insurance increase on the of the hassle. So I am going to eat the cost, hire an attorney to get THS to give me his full contact and info to track him down, and take him to small claims court. In the meantime, I learned if you let someone into the house, you are screwed. You have little to no legal grounds to stand on. I am just lucky he didn’t do even more damage.
P.S. I have done the formal dispute and all that happened so far is I got a refund for my fee as premium member, and the person was removed from the site. Does nothing to resolve my issues.
Not in DC, I have a police report, I have given proof of hotel, car rental and airlines to prove I was not here, and still, I am responsible. It is the car license, not the driver. They really want to collect their money at all cost.
Alas no, I have proven I was out of town, and the law says its the license not the driver.