I’m pretty unnerved myself. Especially considering how many sitters are single traveling females, a very vulnerable group already.
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After reading your comment about accessibility to interior photos and travel dates, I browsed active listings until I found one that used a photo of the house as the cover photo. I used Google image and found the same home on a real estate site, including the address. So I now know where they live and when they will be away. They have a doggy door for easy access but the dogs are crated when left home alone. They prefer a single female sitter and offered to leave a Hyundai Tucson for the sitter’s use. The garage is not available so the car will be parked in the driveway when the sitter is home. This listing reads like a welcome guide for bad guys. It would be beneficial if THS provided guidelines for maintaining safety in mind while creating listings.
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How many times has this been raised before? Should we tag in the admins? This is a full blown data breach and an invite for all kinds of bad things towards TH members.
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That right there; In under five minutes, you’ve got the address, travel dates, a vehicle, and confirmation the house will be empty or potentially with a solo female tourist staying and sleeping there. It isn’t just risky, it’s reckless
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So now I’ve gone down the rabbit hole and found a few more (its been a slow day at work), they all offer different details but looking at the listing with a lens of opportunity, there is a lot of information, like who has outdoor cameras.
Using Google maps, you can see which homes are situated deep in a neighborhood and which are closer to major streets or back to open space, railroad tracks or alleys. On Zillow you can check to see if neighboring homes are for sale, possibly vacant.
I would like to think the platform is not being used this way, but it would not take long for someone to find some easy targets.
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It would be nice if only paid subscribers had access to view profiles instead of all of the general public. There should be some sort of prompt that reads “join to view profiles” when a non subscriber try to view profiles on THS.
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If criminals plan to use THS this way I don’t think paying the joining fee to access the information would put them off from becoming members .
Also if they joined as a host there would be no verification check by THS.
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Take the example of my original post. The paywall is at least a deterrent for some.
I agree it’s not an entire solution either.
There need to be background checks for everyone who even signs up to the platform, and things need to be very UNvisible before you are a registered user. Ideally there would also be some sort of in-person onboarding too, this would help with many other issues from this forum.
Instead these things are being let go for the sake of “advertising” and TH appearing as an abundant database.
Again I ask—how many times has this been brought up before and why aren’t TH mods responding? If nothing else, it’s a lawsuit waiting to happen?
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For those that think these things don’t happen…they do. And even without the situations you’re suggesting, this is also enough for identity theft and other issues.
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THS Member services don’t read the forum. To raise these issues with them you can send an e-mail to
Support@trustedhousesitters.com
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Strange, they were reading my other recent post and adding it to my complaint file before I even asked…
Hello everyone,
I just wanted to confirm that we’re aware of this post, and that we’ve passed it over to the wider Trusted Housesitters team. It was actually passed over last week, apologies that this wasn’t confirmed at the time.
I’ve asked if it’s possible to get more information or a response from the team, and I’ll post again if/when that happens.
Jenny
(edited for clarity!)
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I’m not so sure about that. There are a lot of no fee sites that make the criming even easier, so the fee may in fact help limit the number of scammers. There are several sites that get fees from freelancers but not customers, for instance. The freelancer often find attempts to scam them. The fact that THS charges a fee to both sitters and homeowners is helpful. There is a lot more they could do and putting everyone’s information out there certainly isn’t helpful.
I just realized that my ths profile is public (not my social media profiles those are absolutely not public) and I’m about to delete everything that might id me in it. But i shouldn’t have to - there is no reason that our profiles should be visible to non-members. Or to anyone we haven’t applied to, in fact.
THS makes promises in its privacy policy it is not keeping.
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@Flattop8432 yes, our profiles are available to anyone. I very much agree that it shouldn’t be that way. THS should only allow paid members to access profiles. I removed a lot of info from my profile, it’s very minimal now. I just put all the information in the detailed application letter that I send when applying to sits.
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I might do the same. I remember when I first signed up I was very wary and had minimal info on it…over the years my name was outed anyway via reviews and I kept doing longer and more international sits so I added more and more info before applying to the next one….now I want to remove it all, idk.
I’ve already disconnected my AirBnb and will be changing pictures, names and other things.
I’m genuinely considering leaving the platform as well.
Beyond just paying members I would prefer to have a second privacy filter where limited info is available until you actually apply to a sit and connect. Only then would the full profile reveal itself. Til then only paying members can see the basics and before that everything should be LOCKED.
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Yes, sitter profiles and homeowner listings can easily be found by non-members. Both are used as part of THS’s recruitment with “free” memberships that allow access to the information. There also might be more information that you think contained within your profile that could lead someone to your social media even without a last name.
Personally, I really wish the policy was different and only paid members had access. I wish that people couldn’t just share a listing with nonmembers for instance or publish it anywhere. I wash that sitter photos and profiles were not available so that nosy neighbors or coworkers could discover your petsitting secrets. I don’t see THS changing this policy without a lawsuit or legislation, however.
You might consider cutting some personal information from your profile, however, given that your photo could be linked to other social media that has your photos, that might be a tough one.
It would be very easy for ANYONE to find enough information in most profiles – a first name, an age, a profession, some location information and maybe the name of a partner, to then find something else online that could lead to more information and something else. I am old. I find it shocking that I have to explain this to younger people who grew up as digital natives.
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