Hi, I received my first direct request to sit for a family. Unfortunately, I wasn’t available for the dates.
My question is, can a member direct message me for a sit in the future they have not created? Or are all sits created first? For example, they want a meet and greet for a sit, but there is no advertised sit.
If the answer is yes, they can, can a member create a fake profile will ill intent of asking me to meet up with them at their house? Or is the reality that anyone can potentially create a fake sit/profile, and I just need to be aware of this?
Ive been on many sits before on another platform but this just came into my head.
@Slowttaveller it’s not unusual to receive an invitation to sit directly from a host - they can’t contact you unless they have listed dates.
Hosts can create a private invitation just sent to you , but this also would have the dates of the sit .
You can see if a host is new to the platform- their listing has a “New” label .
Also if there are no reviews from previous sitters .
Hosts do not have their ID verified.
If something seems off / inappropriate / creepy about a particular invitation - you can contact the Urgent Support Phone Line which is a 24/7 phone number .
They would have to pay an awful lot of money to become a member to do so, so it’s very unlikely that will happen. It would be far easier if a bad person just created a fake facebook profile instead.
ALL of the owners we’ve sat for have been lovely people, friendly and down to earth. We return to sit for a lot of them too.
We have a lot of chats about future dates that aren’t on THS, that’s normal.
Also sometimes an owner will organise their dates around our availability, which is fantastic for us, but obviously those types of things happen when you have a number of reviews.
@Slowttaveller Do this family have any reviews from previous sitters or are they new? This could give you some idea about them. Do they actually have a listing and what do you think about it? Would it appeal to you? When would they be wanting a meet and greet? Remember, you are not being paid so if it is going to cost you financially and time-wise for this, then you do not have to agree.
As others have said, members, whether owners or sitters, have to pay their membership before being able to create a listing or profile. I can’t imagine there would be too many creating a fake profile/listing where they have had to pay to do it.
On another note, how do we set up an unavailability calender on THS? I am booked out until November and am able to show my dates available/unavailable on other platforms.
It sounds like you are asking “what If” questions which is fine. A pet parent requested a sit and you were unavailable which is not a hypothetical. The other scenarios are and got me to think how grateful I am to TH for charging the fee to PP that they do. That would eliminate all your scenarios. I was active on another platform for years that did not charge hosts so they could attract as many as they can. I traveled many places in the world with them with mostly great experiences. I then planned to travel halfway around the world to a host with no reviews. After several emails with this person I had suspicions this was a fake profile. I contacted the company who investigated and declared he was and the profile was removed. I don’t think if he had to pay for his profile this would happen.
The calendar system is slightly flawed, pop calendar into the spy glass at on the forum and you’ll see why. So we don’t complete it, in short, it makes us look busy when we’re free, and vice-versa, and ‘looks’ different on a mobile to a desktop. Unless an owner reads the key (which they don’t think of doing on a calendar), then they’d never know.
Don’t bother, it’s clunky, next to useless and I don’t think it’s used by many. Why not put in your profile toward the top something like “thanks for looking, I’m fully booked until November 2025”, or similar?
I have been asked back to do a sit at least four times now by the homeowners. When I did the first set I created a WhatsApp chat between the three of us, so that I could send them pet pictures every day. We just continue that chat and when they need me to sit again, they send it in the WhatsApp group, we agree a date and then they set it up as a private invitation in THS so that we are all covered. I probably wouldn’t go back and sit without it going through THS.
