I’m using this forum to air my issue with other members because I don’t know about anyone else but I am literally pulling teeth here trying to deal with Trusted Housesitters customer support. I remember when I first joined, I could make a phone call and talk to a nice person and have any issue resolved immediately. Then we switched to Live chat speaking with Frankie AI bot and if you’re lucky, you may get to text with a real person though there seems to be an understaffing issue cos now it may take days to resolve. Call me old fashioned… I like to speak to an actual person!
I completed a 5 week sit in Hawaii which ended Sat Jan 20th. I was busy traveling for the next few weeks and received my reminder on Thursday 1st telling me I had 3 days to complete my review. On Saturday 4th I sat down to write my review knowing my window was coming to an end the next day. I wrote the review and submitted it and immediately got error report… try later. I tried again… same thing so I switched to a different device… same problem. So I immediately tried to contact customer support and spent the whole evening trying to connect with someone though I mostly got Frankie. Then finally I got an agent and she asked for a photo of error message which I provided and then we got cut off (this happens frequently on live chat). At this point it was early morning UK time so I get an email saying this and that the review window is closed. Hawaii is 10 hours behind The United Kingdom. If THS wants to operate as an international company, they really need to take this into consideration and not penalise members just because your system cannot deal with international time zones.
The next day I reached out again several times. As always it took ages to connect. I did with 3 agents over the day and explained my dilemma cos as far as I’m concerned, I did nothing wrong. I was submitting my review within the required time frame. This time the replies felt like I was being gaslighted. I was told I missed the boat cos THS operates on UK time. I’m sorry but do people agree this is not good enough. I wrote my review within the time frame so why am I being told this is my problem? No… this is a THS technical issue and it needs to be sorted and we as members should not be treated this way. Completely unacceptable behaviour from customer support particularly given the high annual fees we pay.
*Agents names removed for privacy on a public forum
Had the same situation. Wrote a review and THS system wouldn’t accept it. I wondered if the system wouldn’t accept do to where the company is based. They need to get their website and tech up to 2024 working standards. Currently it’s about 15 years behind.
As a personal rule, I never leave anything that has to be submitted online to the last minute (from paying bills to writing THS reviews). Websites can act up all the time. However, I agree that THS website is having problems more than usual and the team’s responses often fall short of expectations.
I understand why THS recently changed the policy to submitting reviews by 2 weeks similar to how Airbnb operate. Absolutely fine. However Airbnb is an international company with a computer system that can recognise international times zones. If THS wants to copy this policy, then they need to up their game and their system. THAT is the issue here.
Hello @Una I’m sorry to read that you missed out on leaving a review.
As it’s a new system I wanted to pass on your feedback to the team, so they can have a look into it for you.
For reference the review window is open for 14 days starting from the day after your sit finishes (so in your case it opened on the 21st of January 2024) you then have 14 days to leave your review which would be until the 3rd of February 2024. Email reminders are sent throughout the 14 days, so I have asked the team to check on these for you as well.
There is also lots of information on this thread which might help with further questions.
When I hear back from the team I will update you further
I did not miss out on leaving a review Carla. I was completing the review within the correct time frame. I received an error response when I submitted cos it was past midnight in the Uk. I was unaware that your outdated system that does not recognize international time zones. I am in Hawaii which is 10 hours behind.
This needs to be fixed please. I really would like to leave a review cos I was there for 5 weeks.
Thanks for helping me out with this unfortunate issue.
Thank you Carla… I appreciate the apology. This issue has taken up alot of my time and energy. I think the most frustrating thing for me has been lack of communication with THS and the lack of willingness to take responsibility for your new system which is flawed and needs to be fixed.
