I agree search is really pretty useless. Fingers crossed.
ugh that’s horrible. This HO should be booted off the site.
“Slipping through the net”
I don’t believe there IS a net, and the help pages don’t make it too easy to find the e-mail to report – they want all to be filtered through the chat bot I guess. (Then I even lost a page with that on it.)
Anyway, just trying to report another. 2 photos of pet, no photos of actual living space at all – just screenshots (with duplicates) of the condo company’s advertising page. ![]()
[Edit: “Frankie” made me go around twice with the same questions before the report “stuck”.
]
Support@trustedhousesitters.com
To report listings.
@Mark_B After reading a recent post about a listing without pets, I did a search under that category today (March 19). There were 10 listings. One had zero photos. Four (I quickly read them) have pets to be cared for. I realize they may not be first-time listings, but this is still unacceptable, showing a lack of quality control and inaccurate listings.
Many of us have asked for a report/flag option directly built into the listing. Given the company’s current setup for reporting, it discourages many from reporting. My guess is the company is intentionally avoiding this request for an in-listing option, primarily because they would not have the staffing to handle the influx of reports. Another reason why the explanation given for the booking fee is just defensive marketing lingo, in my opinion.
@Snowbird Agree 100%.
There’s another thread on this topic and as you already observed, THS continues to ignore the request for a “report button".
They don’t seem interested in quality control.
Just quantity. $$
Agree also. Accept all the listings, maybe spot-check a few, probably most of the ones that are incomplete won’t get reported, money in the bank.
If there are nearly 10,000 listings worldwide, it’s not really surprising that there aren’t enough staff to check them all. You’d think, as “smart” as software is supposed to be these days, that it wouldn’t be all that hard to create an algorithm that requires certain photos to be uploaded in certain places, i.e. this space for kitchen photo, this space for bedroom photo, in order for the listing to be complete and go live. Heck, how many random little online forms require you to fill in Every Single Little Box before the “submit” button works.
But I’m not a programmer; what do I know ![]()
@Snowbird I have “no pets” saved as a favourite search and regularly get alerts showing the listings with pets in that are supposed to have none. So while I’m having a morning cuppa in the sunshine I reported those 4 (out of 11) listings incorrectly listed as “no pets, a couple of them also had no responsibilities listed. No pets & no responsibilities, sweet! Of course in reality that won’t be true.
I emailed the links to THS support, not to help them do their job that they claim they always do but to hopefully get a “how did we do?” survey.
@Crookie I noticed how many had no responsibilities as well. I now only report listings where I feel a naive person’s safety might be at risk. Other than that, I do enough volunteer work in my life already, for far more worthy causes.
There’s no pet responsibilities section for the hosts to complete as they have not marked their pets in their listing. This also means the pet category for both host and sitter will not appear in reviews - and it’s the pet/s that are important!
@temba Thanks for those details. As I’m not an owner on the site, I have no way of knowing what are mandatory fields for an owner, with or without pets.
THS marketing assures owners that: “While most members with a pet parent membership do have pets, lots of people are simply looking for sitters to stay in their homes, keeping them clean, safe and secure while they’re away.”
Surely specifics of those responsibilities should be shown in a responsibilities section? ![]()
Ironically, I just went on the website as though I was thinking of becoming a member. When the system asked me to check off what type of pets I had, there wasn’t an option to show ‘none’. The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand’s doing. ![]()
Indeed – why on earth not??? I have plants. There are specific responsibilities there. Others may need mail picked up. Or whatever.
So is there no “responsibilities” section at all for pet-less sits? I’m not an owner member either.
@Snowbird I’ve only just been reading reviews for a listing where the cat is included and there are responsibilities for it. HOWEVER, there is NO pet category to rate on either the sitter’s or host’s review! There were 3 past sitters for this listing, all this year, and none covered the pet category!! Have checked another cat only listing and it’s the same for it. It would seem that the new, improved pet section is not recognising listings with only cats!
@Jenny or @Mark_B This is a serious issue re the reviewing system. It would be appreciated if you could raise it with the relevant team. Thank you!
Hi @temba
I’ve shared your feedback with the team.
If I hear anything back, I’ll let you know!
Jenny
Thanks @Jenny for doing this. I can DM you one of the listings to forward to the team if you would like.
Yes please @temba - an example would be great to pass along!
Will do now (I hope!)
I’ve noticed increasing inconsistency in the pet and responsibilities sections since the recent changes. Example include a listing that mentions a dog and 4 cats in the text, there are photos under “meet the pets” of 4 cats (no dog) and in the Responsibilities section only 2 cats are listed with the time they can be left and whether medication is required. It’s possible that they forgot to add the dog properly, but surely if there are photos of 4 pets in meet the pets, they should all appear in responsibilities?
Confusing enough for me not to even consider applying.
I’ve seen quite a few other sits like this, where it really wasn’t clear how many pets there actually were. This should be the most important section and really needs to be accurate.
Yep, I feel like applying sometimes just to say “ I don’t want this sit but sort out your listing.” THS is never gonna add the report button, because damn, I’d be banging it all the time. THS, (@Mark_B ) if you want to start paying me to catch those listing, I’m up for the job ![]()
I know, right?
I’d be happy to get paid to troll THS listings to ensure they are legit and adhere to THS terms.![]()