I’ve just finished a sit that was good in many respects, but had one major communication error and some other unfortunate things that just happened and were taken care of. They let me know at the end of the sit that they’d write me a review in a couple of days.
I’ve spent a couple of days writing my own review, making sure I worded it in the best way possible. In the meantime, I got a notice that they had finished their review.
I’ve just posted mine, only to see that theirs only says, “review to follow shortly.” All 5 stars across categories, but no text.
I mean, does that not sound like a dirty underhanded way to avoid reviewing me until I’ve done my review first? I remember the days of retaliatory reviews and I’m not willing to go back to that! Surely there’s not a tip on the homeowner’s side to do this?? I am beyond appalled. If I felt they had poor communication before, this is downright sneaky.
I mean, what do they plan to do? Reply to my review and leave it there? I don’t think they can reply to their own review. I’m officially flabbergasted.
I’ve contacted THS via a feedback form, but I don’t expect much help in that quarter. How do I escalate something to a member dispute?
I just saw looked at that on your sitter page and my only thought was, “oh, an HO who doesn’t understand how reviews work”. It most decidedly does not “sound like a dirty underhanded way to avoid reviewing me until I’ve done my review first?”
LET IT GO.
Their imaginary retaliatory review does not exist. If it comes to exist in the future, you can deal with it then. For now, what you have is an across-the-board five star review.
Which is a good thing. Celebrate that, and move on. All is well.
I wouldn’t read anything in. I’ve never seen “Review to follow shortly” before and don’t know if that is a system thing or something your sitter wrote in. Maybe if you get a human through member services they can explain what happened. My understanding is that reviews are blind, they can’t be changed once written, and you can’t see the review until 2 weeks have passed or both parties have published reviews. So my guess is, whatever the homeowner’s intention, they won’t be able to change what is there and what is there gives you five stars in every category. You’re good.
As for your review, I’m a bit confused by some aspects. You took off for communication as they’d change the dates and didn’t notify you till right before the sit started that makes sense and it sounds like they made up for it in some way so you noted the communication issue but didn’t take points off for the overall sit. Fair enough, but you wrote some other stuff that was a little confusing.
I don’t see why you would think there was anything to dispute. Bear in mind that it is not too late for the homeowners to respond to your review of them, and nothing turns off future homeowners more than drama.
I have now cycled through to your review of the sit (versus just their review) and it raised a major red flag for me that would preclude me considering you as a sitter if I were an HO: “they paid me well over double what they would have had to pay a boarder had I backed out completely.”
This is a mutual exchange, not a paid service. Why was money changing hands? I feel compelled to ping @jenny on this one as I feel it is a disservice to the THS model to allow reviews that mention payment. It muddies the waters for everyone.
Once a review is posted, that’s it, it’s final. Membership Services generally don’t jump in to assist or change reviews and don’t give second chances.
Because they offered. They shorted me a month of housing and I had to scramble to find alternatives, so I took it. I agree THS should be an exchange service, but in this case, they offered to pay for their mistake.
It’s possible that they intend to come back and elaborate but do not realise that they cannot edit their review. If this is the case then it’s unfortunate but you could perhaps encourage them to reply to your review.
I’m surprised to see payment mentioned and although you have explained this in another comment on this post it’s very off putting to see it mentioned in your review without any context. I don’t think you have done yourself any favours by writing this review it’s all a bit confusing.
I also see, in your profile, that you are offering additional services for a negotiable fee. I’m not sure that this is within THS guidelines 
perhaps it is, I would love to know.
Mentioning paid services in profile or suggesting them to HO’s during applications or sits I believe is against THS ToS, @Jenny is this allowed? Ty!
That was very kind of them as they didn’t “owe” you payment as THS is a membership platform not pay to play per interaction platform. They were well within their ability to say “oops, sorry. Let’s go through ths insurance then…”
As a sitter and HO, their kidness was awesome to see. I hope it has been appreciated as as such, as no one in this platform owes anyone anything. We have been on the sitter’s end of wrong dates and also on the HO end of putting wrong dates up or having to cancel for the unexpected death of a pet and now quadruple check but grace and understanding are really gifts on both sides
Very surprised to see that you mentioned being paid, surely you know that’s strictly against the rules, and would be a red flag for some HO. And then moaning about not enough toilet paper……. It comes across as being a bit petty. Reviews can’t be changed once written, sounds like they didn’t realise that.
It is hard to understand why you seem to assume in your listing that you can eat the food of the host. The normal approach would be spices and oil if nothing else is stated either way. I wonder if it is some kind of misinterpretation of THS.
The hosts are obviously unaware that they can’t edit or add anything to the review now that it’s been submitted .
A 5 star review with “review to follow shortly” can do no harm. To be honest, I think your own review might. As other have said, you assume you should be provided with toilet paper for the whole stay and find it worth mentioning in your review. There are also other petty issues mentioned, which sound even more petty when you admit you were paid more than double the amount they would have had to pay for boarding.
@sbwade To be honest I think your review is way too long, with too many minor details mentioned. To a future HO you may well come across as overly complicated and too detail orientated. If the stay was overall good I would never bother to mention details like minimal soap or not enough TP in a review- every sit is different & many HOs don’t provide enough TP for the whole stay etc & they are not obliged to either. And broadcasting that you got paid on a non-paying exchange site does not look good. You explain the reason here on the forum but not in the review which is confusing to readers.
The mix up date was indeed a big issue, worth complaining about, but I’m really surprised that in all those 10 months this major error was not noticed much earlier by either side!
I don’t think the host was trying to be sneaky and avoid reviewing you. I actually think they wanted to reassure you asap that you were a 5* sitter but perhaps wanted to take a little more time on a thoughtful review. In which case they, unfortunately, didn’t realise they only get one chance at it..
I would now just take the 5* review as is and put this experience behind you. It’ll soon be buried under your next reviews.
They have only had a few sitters so far. I bet they have received applications that say, interested in this sit will write more later. From reading this forum I have learned that some people do that to get in their request before the 5 slots are filled. They probably thought this is what they can also do. I think I read you told them you wrote your review and maybe they felt a little pressured to get one up for you. They probably are still thinking about how they felt about the whole experience with you and what they want to say. There is a learning curve here and now they know it doesn’t work like that and they can only respond to what your review says.
To me. Write not right I have to stop looking at these posts before my morning coffee. Being ADD (self diagnosed) with your mind wondering and always thinking about a few things at once always results in words being spelled the way your thoughts are thinking about at the moment. TMI and this forum should let you edit and delete your own post if you want.
Good insight. Bet you’re right.
Truly, these HOs probably messed up their own review! Too bad, but they gave @sbwade 5 stars, so that’s good for the sitter.
This does sound like a complex sit in some ways, and after reading the past reviews, yeah, can’t say we’d choose that sit.
The mention of payment is troublesome. Perhaps the admins can advise on that.
But I do want to say that we’ve had @sbwade sit for us a while ago and she is a conscientious, caring, and intelligent person and sitter. We feel bad she’s had this bump in her sitter’s travels.
@anon89364872 you should be able to edit by clicking the little pencil image at the bottom of your own comment.
Have your other ‘clients’ offered payment as well..is there a particular reason you call them that? Just curious since I’ve only seen that term used in posts about payment here