We confirmed a 3 week sit in December for April. Had a convo with the sitter where she explained 2 questionable reviews. This week I went to her current reviews and there are several more not good reviews of her and like before she “trash talked” the owners. Now I’m feeling very uncomfortable and would like to cancel the sit. Can I???
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@T-T
Yes , of course if you have a good reason you can cancel a sitter. Is there a common theme to the reviews ? You now have more (negative) information that wasn’t available when you confirmed the sit , so that’s a legitimate reason for a cancellation .
I suggest that you explain in writing (through THS )the reason why you are cancelling ( Due to the consistent bad reviews from previous sits including xx recent reviews since our sit was confirmed we are declining your application to be our sitter ) rather than no explanation or “we’ve changed our mind” which is not a valid reason for cancelling.
One (or even two) bad review in amongst many great reviews may indicate an issue with the hosts.
However, a run of bad reviews indicates that sitter isn’t taking on board the feedback that they have received from previous sits.
If ,as it seems , this sitter is intending to sit full time , they need to take on board the feedback they’ve got from reviews and make changes .
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Get in touch with THS membership services and explain. See whether they’ll handle the cancellation for you, since the sitter misrepresented herself to you, as her newer reviews have shown.
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That is certainly a legitimate reason to cancel. The whole point of the reviews is helping hosts feel confident they are choosing a capable sitter who will take good care of their home and pets. She clearly isn’t one of these people.
There is a possibility she could raise a complaint against you, because technically according to the terms and conditions, hosts and sitters are only supposed to cancel sits when it is absolutely necessary.
However, I don’t think this is strictly enforced, especially since there are lots of legitimate reasons to cancel sits that don’t involve dire emergencies like illness or a death in the family. Also I can’t imagine THS would pressure a host to accept a sitter with bad reviews and penalize them for not doing so.
But if I were a sitter with a lot of crappy feedback, I probably wouldn’t want to call attention to myself and wouldn’t get THS involved.
And a bit off topic, and I’m not looking to open up a discussion about it, but I couldn’t help but point out that this scenario is a perfect example of why cancellation stats would not be a good idea.
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That sounds like far too many. It would be quite exceptional.
When you cancel via THS, you can also ask if this sitter had done sits recently where she had not gotten a review. I suspect that they can see that information.
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As other members have said, you certainly can cancel this sitter because her reviews are giving you bad vibes about her plus she “trashed” past owners. If you click on the photo of the owners who gave the reviews, you can check whether she left them reviews and what they were like. This will also give you more of an idea about her.
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I agree with Maggie8k that it is a good idea to contact support and run it by member services. Then they can cover your back instead of coming across as a flaky host that doesn’t keep agreements. Also good advice from Silversitters to be truthful about reason. It is possible to be honest in a nice way.
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Hi @T-T, welcome to the forum.
I agree with everyone here:
- More than reasonable grounds for cancellation.
- Better through THS.
- Better to be honest with sitters about the motive.
We would appreciate some feedback.
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As others have said - you would probably be better of discussing it with member services first. Hosts cancelling “for no good reason” is a thing (and as much a breach of terms as if a sitter does it). So it would then cover your back to have a stamp of approval from THS, so to speak. Or else in the worst case scenario you might get a member dispute raised and a warning to be kicked off.
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I agree that stats on hosts or sitters’ pages would not be a good idea. It’s useless data without an explanation. However, THS currently doesn’t track cancellations in any way. They only have records of “disputes.” IMO, even if they left the system as it is where technically the host has to cancel, they should automatically send some kind of form to BOTH parties checking if they both have the same understanding of the cancellation, and THS should internally “track” the cancellations.
That way they could root out sitters who cancel frivolously and leave hosts in the lurch AND hosts who cancel carelessly for example because two weeks before a sit a nephew says he’ll do it. It would even help in situations where say a host starts cancelling a lot because of an elderly pet’s illnesses, and maybe someone from customer service needs to let the host know this strategy isn’t working. Or maybe a sitter also has something going on that causes too many cancellations even for a legit reason.
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Yes, I suggested getting in touch with THS membership services first, because you want to cover yourself. Plus, in this case, you’ve seen how the sitter has replied to previous hosts’ reviews — doesn’t sound like a reasonable person. You don’t want to get caught up in nastiness with this sitter. Let THS membership services be your buffer.
When dealing with various folks, some can be reasoned with, some will be collaborative even when things go off and you can correct together. But when you see others who aren’t reasonable, who keep repeating bad behavior, trying the nice-guy approach won’t tend to work and you can easily get ensnared unnecessarily in their drama. No point. Get THS to help if possible.
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@T-T
If you do decide to contact THS member services please do report back to the forum on their advice and the support offered to you .
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I finally figured out on the Chat box to ask for a “live person”. Their advice was to let the person know ASAP I was going to cancel but wouldn’t do it for me. I made sure the msg was kept in case a complaint was filed, but no need because the sitter agreed to unconfirmed. Thank you so much to everyone who responded and gave advice. Now I need to decide whether to put the listing it out there again.
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@T-T
It’s great that you have found a solution and it’s mutually agreed between you and the sitter ( you will still have to cancel it as a sitter does have access to unconfirm a confirmed sit )
Please do re-list and give another sitter a chance …
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Glad you were able to cancel that sitter without drama. And glad you knew to check her reviews before her actually starting your sit. It’s a good idea for other hosts to consider.
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