We have a confirmed sit for two weeks in August, with prepaid flights based around the sit.
We’ve now been informed by the pet parent that their regular sitter (whom they were initially told was unavailable) is now able to sit. For added context, the PP has had 3 other different sitters on THS, and is also advertising dates in July.
I’m sure we can find a replacement sit, but it’s nevertheless time-consuming and likely to result in a gap at either end due to fixed travel.
I messaged THS, and they agreed this was an unacceptable reason, but nonetheless cancelled the sit so that we can reapply elsewhere. I feel the pet parent has had very little inconvenience, with little to no repercussions.
Am I right in feeling aggrieved, or is this fair enough considering we aren’t their regular sitter?
Hi @Dan! No, that is not ok from the HO. Just like sitters are not supposed to cancel a sit because they found “something better”, neither are HOs supposed to cancel because “someone better” showed up, even if the other party would have plenty of time to find a new sit/sitter.
I recently had a pretty nonchalant last minute cancellation and wrote a polite “that’s very disappointing” message to the owner - which I then didn’t bother sending and instead had THS remove the sit so I could try to sort it out. I wouldn’t want to sit for that owner now anyway and doubt my email would have made them have some kind of epiphany that their commitment should matter. Like in your situation I do really wish there was a way of warning future sitters more directly so that they are careful about making plans when it comes to this owner but besides involving THS and hoping they send a strongly worded email there is little we can actually do besides keeping calm and carrying on.
We think that’s really poor. @CatsAndDog has summed it up perfectly. That’s not an extraordinary circumstance. Did they know you’d booked flights to accommodate their sit? If it was us we’d write a message along the lines of “We are extremely disappointed that you have chosen to cancel our sit for your home and pets at this late stage. We take our sitting commitments very seriously and do not regard “we now have a regular sitter available” as extraordinary circumstances which is what THS stipulates as a valid reason to cancel. We have bought flights upfront in good faith in order to do your sit. Please think carefully about messing future sitters around with thoughtless actions like this.” Or similar. You could be crosser or say you’ll report them if you feel like it. Unfortunately it happens, a better sit will come with nicer HOs. Who knows, you may have dodged a bullet @Dan - we dodged one a couple of years ago that didn’t get a horse licence they needed and so changed their mind (& didn’t tell us). International flights all booked & we had to find out for ourselves a month before. They’re now off the site and we did a great Swiss German road trip and filled it in with 4 other sits. We lost the money but hey Ho. We also reported her for it and THS gave her a warning. #takethemoralhighground
@Dan this happened on our very first sit. It was confirmed and we even drove a few hours to go and meet them face to face beforehand. All parties were happy. And then a month before the sit, they told us their usual sitter became available. I was shattered, especially because it was our first sit in a whole tour. I thought it ended before it started! But hey, we got a fantastic replacement sit for a couple whose sitter cancelled! So there you go. Yes, it’s unfair and it hurts, but that was not the sit for you. Trust you’ll find something even better. Sorry, it is stressful, that’s for sure.
You can just say: “How very unfortunate for us and our plans!” And then move on. Hopefully they get the message. Karma…
You can open a member dispute with THS rather than just contacting them. This may get a more official response from THS as they will have things they wioll have to do as a result ratehr than just sweeping everything away which is what they do if you just contact them.
Personally I would pursue this and insist on sactions for the owner - they have cost you potentially a lot of money for purely selfish reasons and they should not be on the platform.
How would you respond to the pet parent?
I might respond to the owners letting them know I had opened a dispute and was pursuing THS removing them from the platform as a result of their selfish behaviour as it had cost me a lot of money and violated the terms of the service.
Hey
Really sorry to hear that. Not much else to say that other people haven’t already said in regards to how you feel, but wanted to let you know that your reaction is understandable.
While homeowners aren’t entering into any sort of binding agreement to guarantee a sitter accommodation for the dates for which they have booked them, I don’t think they did the right thing here at all. It is one thing if they needed to cancel the trip altogether, but to book a sitter and rescind because they preferred to go with someone else instead is poor form for sure.
I am sure you were disappointed in THS’s response but I think this situation speaks to the limits to which they can involve themselves in these arrangements, and what they can and cannot do about some of the more common problems that arise between HOs and sitters. They can set all sorts of terms and conditions aimed at heading off these issues, but nothing is binding in the sense they can make either party do anything.
I know it sometimes seems preferable for them to have firmer rules in place, but I think it would cause a lot of problems, and at the end of the day, the less involvement they have in the process the better. And even if they wanted to set certain policies, they probably couldn’t anyway. You can’t force a HO to go with a particular sitter, you can’t force a sitter to go to a sit to which they agreed to,etc…
Good luck finding another sit! While it is frustrating, it probably worked out for the best. If they did something like this, they may not have been good people to sit for. I believe things happen just as they should, and there is a better opportunity out there for you!
Their terms are binding. They can remove someone from the platform for violating them and cancelling an agreed sittter for such a frivolous reason would seem like a violation. Past experiences seem to indicate that they may rather have the money than good members though.
Yes they can do that. What I meant was they can’t make a sitter or HO do anything in particular. In this instance, they would have no power to tell the HO they must honor the original agreement and use this sitter. And even if they could do something like that, I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing the sit knowing the HO was forced to have me there when they preferred someone else.
Thanks for your insight. I agree there’s nothing ‘binding’ in the contractual sense, but the platform runs on the assumption that both sitters and pet parents will honour their commitment. I take your point about not having firmer rules, but this situation (from both sides) seems to happen quite often and raises the bigger question on cancellations. I’m personally in favour of either 1) an automated 1-star review from THS advising ‘host cancelled prior to sit’ when the cancellation is clearly not within the terms 2) some sort of ‘completed sit’ score as a %, or 3) calendar is automatically blocked for the dates following a cancellation.
Noting cancellations in any way on a sitter’s profile could be very problematic for a number of reasons.
Even the most reliable sitter may have a very legitimate reason to cancel a sit, like a death in the family or developing a serious health problem.
And for people who sit full time or are sitting for an extended period with many bookings ahead, one bout of unexpected illness for example, may require them to cancel numerous sits. To just have number of completed sits vs cancelled sits, percentages, or any other sort of figure without any context would not be helpful in determining whether a sitter is reliable or not.
Imagine someone new to the platform planned a 6 month world tour and has booked a dozen sits but then discovers they need major surgery and needs to cancel all of them…do you think it would be fair for their profile to note they have cancelled 100 percent of their sits?
And as for blocking the ability to book another sit for cancelled dates, that could also be problematic. Let’s say a full time sitter needed to cancel a sit because a family member fell sick and they wanted to find a sit locally to help care for them. This ‘rule’ would prevent them from doing so.
And again, what if someone had to cancel 3 months worth of sits…should they be blocked from booking anything for that long?
I think this is a good example of something that seems like a good idea on the surface to discourage certain behaviors and solve certain problems on the platform, but would have a lot of unintended consequences and create more problems.
This was always my concern when we signed up as a sitter of THS. The sits so far haven’t involved any pre-booked travel costs but the two coming up do, so I decided to pay a little extra to be able to cancel if a HO pulls the rug last minute.
Love the idea for both sitters and pp to have a sit score. It be a great way to know your chances life happens, plans change and I get people need to cancel (I had one cancel on me completely legit she broke her foot) I’m sure there is both ends sitters and pp so be very valuable
Watching this ongoing thread @Dan - if you raise the cancellation to a dispute you’ll protect future sitters if they’re advertising more sits. THS will probably give them a warning about not cancelling without an extraordinary circumstance if they can see more bookings (cash plus potential complaints) and they do mark their profile with a warning flag. (Or they did with ours)
That is highly inconsiderate of the pet parent and absolutely not ok. Membership services will no doubt state to you that they are sorry that this happened to you but at the end of the day will most likely tell you to just apply for other sits. I also doubt they will do anything to the pet parent. All I can tell you is that this happens from time to time. Our family has been sitters for little over a year and in that amount of time, we are currently on our 20th sit. We have completed 100% of the sits we have confirmed but 3 or 4 pet parents have cancelled on us. The first couple of times, I asked membership services to help us and they did not do a thing. The only thing they told me was to just apply to other sits. Now, I know in the back of my head that I need to have a backup plan because it could also happen in the future.
We should be allowed to leave reviews when this happened. I had a HO cancel on me the night before my sit. I had already arrived in town.
On platforms like AirBnB such cancellations automatically appear on a host’s profile. This should happen with all cancellations. At the very least, sitters should be able to warn other sitters through reviews.
Hi @Dan
I’m sorry the HO has chosen to mess you around. I’d report the HO to THS support as they don’t seem to value sitters from THS.
For me they should be removed from the THS platform as they’ll probably mess other THS sitters around.