Nope they can’t but if they can see your profile and are still keen it’s pretty easy to find someone on social or Linked In. It also says by intention, buyer beware!
I had the opposite problem. A sitter who told lies and stole money she found in the house (she would have been looking very thoroughly to have found it). I gave a fair review. I simply describing what I found on return (after the sitter had left 2 days early). I reported every thing to TH and the sitter was given an Official Warning and will be watched in future. Oddly enough, the next HO gave the Sitter a five star review.
THat sounds appalling. I am a HO and would always ensure any sitter had what they need to be comfortable.
Just tell the truth. I did. The sitter left me a bad review and I still have a nasty feeling about the entire affair. I really resented being called a drunk and having my home described as “bug ridden”. It has made me dubious about accepting total strangers in my home again. That said. I have had 5 years of lovely people helping out with my cats.
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This is awful and so unfortunate @ADF
Contact THS and request that a full investigation is launched.
If you have evidence, then this appalling behaviour has consequence for the HO and they can be banned from the site.
Review the Ts & Cs, confirm where they were in breach, and contact the THS customer support with evidence. Customer Support is truly wonderful & ever so helpful.
@ADF Have you responded to this HO review? A well written factual response will ensure that this punitive review doesn’t affect you.
There is an area in the UK that I monitor for sits. Both the HO and the Sitter wrote nasty reviews. The HO claimed that the sitter had mental health issues. Highly inappropriate unless she evaluated the person formally in a medical office. The sitters response was not measured and controlled. I would not sit for this HO or hire this sitter. I reported the reviews to THS but they remained. I noticed that the HO posted again and the sit did not get filled.
Just write the review to be factual and non emotional. Consider it a chance to leave an impression of you. We’ll all see right through the HOs review.
Kudos to you for putting the pets needs first in the awful situation. Pets are traumatized by moving to a new home. You did the right thing.
TH needs to do more. Low reviews, especially those libelous, are severely damaging to the pet sitter. There needs to be more focus on emotional and physical impacts to sitters. We work for free after all, in some cases these are not equal exchanges making it even worse.
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I have now responded after stewing on it all for a few days. I kept it short and sweet, said it was upsetting to receive a wholly unfair and inaccurate review especially since we’d stayed under challenging circumstances for the sake of the animals etc and that we hoped prospective home owners would see from our other glowing reviews that this one is an anomaly and not a true reflection on us as sitters.
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Thank you. We have raised it with them and they’re investigating. We’ve sent screenshots of our communications which prove at least two things the home owner put in her review are untruthful. What has complicated our situation is that this owner had effectively emigrated and so left us dealing with her friend, her pet sitter and her tenants, all of whom were concerned the house was disgusting and her behaviour to her pets unacceptable. THS unfortunately won’t take third party statements into account so they’re not allowed to vouch for us.
That’s great. Certainly fair to mention a few specific facts if you want to. But it’s easy to see who is off balance and who is not in these situations. I’d continue to try to have it removed. I’m so sorry you had this experience.
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I look forward to learning of the results of the THS review. I know firsthand how emotionally devastating this is to our hearts and souls. Hope for improved THS response times and sitter support.
We did eventually get a satisfactory outcome from the investigation by customer support. The home owner was removed from the platform and we were offered some free month’s membership. The review was removed so we can now apply for sits without having to explain or be reminded of this unpleasant situation.
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I haven’t read every word of the responses, so someone else may have said this, but I wanted to thank you for taking care of the animals, despite the fact that you had every right to leave on the spot. They, too, were in a very precarious situation.
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I haven’t read all your replies so sorry if somebody else has said this. As I replied in another thread, everybody these days expects a 5 star review for an OK service. This seems to have started with Amazon and is now ubiquitous. A friend of ours gave a four-star review on Airbnb and received an abusive phone call by way of thanks. The only solution seems to be to give everybody 5 stars all the time, which makes the whole system useless which is why I don’t take much notice of star ratings any longer.
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OMG. That is worse than bad. I don’t think I could have stayed. I’d have taken photo evidence and got out of there asap. I stayed at a home once that on the whole looked ok. It was only when the HO had gone and I was moving things into the kitchen I realised how dirty it was. And I mean dirty. Top obviously not wiped. Door with drips and stains. The sink bunged up with cat hair and grime. Etc etc. it was too late to say any thing and fortunately I was only there for a weekend so I spent 2-3 hours cleaning kitchen before I could use it. The rest of the house was just dusty, the sort where you can tell it’s not been done for awhile. I can’t fathom these people out how you would want to leave your house like this when you have guests. She went to toilet before she left and as she opened door I saw her look down the toilet. So when she left I looked to see what she was looking at and it had poo or down the side etc. I mean she saw this and still thought it was ok to leave it for me. lol!!!
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@Stilgoingstrong that’s disgusting- especially the toilet. Yuck! I hope you mentioned/will mention lack of cleanliness in your review.
My mother taught me - if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all. So my review was ok but it was more obvious what I didn’t say and that would hopefully let sitter realise there may be a problem. I only gave 4 stars too. Losing one for cleanliness.
I don’t agree with the idea that if you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything. The whole point of reviews is to let future sitters know what to expect. If you don’t specifically mention the problems with the sit, others are forced to guess why there are only 4 stars. I read such a review a few minutes ago - sitter gave 4 stars but wrote a positive review. How am I supposed to know what went wrong? Was it cleanliness? communication? location? pet behaviour???
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Gotta say I agree with this. My most likely conclusion for a positive 4* review is that you’re a person who very rarely/never gives out top marks which isn’t what you’re going for by sticking your neck out and leaving a less than perfect review for a sit with major issues