Hello Fellow HOwners,
I just had a terrible experience with a 20 reviewed 5 star sitters. They never once initiated updates on my pet, broke things in my home and said that they were broken when they got there. Which is definitely not true. I gave them a bad review and as retaliation, they gave me a bad review. THS once told me that the sitters do not see my review until they complete theirs. Obviously this is not the case. They encouraged me to leave an honest review even if it was not all positive. Which I did thinking that they would not see it and in turn just leave a review not based on my review. Now with their scathing, untrue review of me, I am worried that sitters will not want to sit for me. Any advise?
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The reviews are blind and you can’t see the review of the other until you have submitted yours. So it can’t have been a retaliation of your review but might have been caused by the sit and your interaction.
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If this was a recent sit, then it is true the sitters did not see your review until you both had completed the reviews. So whatever review they left was what they were going to leave based on their experience - or possibly a pre-emptive retaliatory review if they knew your review of them was going to be bad.
You can leave a response that will show up on your page, but take careful consideration before posting it - short, non-defensive, and devoid of emotion is the goal.
Sorry that was a nightmare sit!
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The sitters should not have been able to see your review before they wrote theirs, unless there was some glitch in the system. Normally neither side can see the other’s review until both have submitted reviews.
If you asked the sitters about the broken items and any other concerns, the sitters probably wrote the negative review in anticipation of a bad one from you, not because they had actually seen your review.
Your best option is to write a factual, unemotional, reply to their review. If they agreed to send you updates every day, for example, and didn’t do that, please mention it. If you didn’t discuss updates with them before the sit, then make sure you set expectations in advance in future.
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No, it was obvious that they had written their review based on what I said. On some of the other posts on this site, others said that THS have not yet implimented this change yet, but I thought that they had. Therefore, they denied what I said and even said that I was a man hater! Strange people.
Hello @slotowngal I’m sorry that you had this terrible experience.
Regarding the review system, unless we’re dealing with a glitch in the app (which would be very unlikely, as nothing like this has ever been reported, at least not that I’ve seen in the forum), I believe these sitters tried to be clever. Instead of replying to your review, they simply left a review that aligns with what they thought you would say. Quite cunning on their part, and it allows them to avoid sounding defensive or making excuses replying to your review.
I believe your best option in this case, as has been recommended countless times in the forum, is to let a few days pass to cool off and avoid mixing in emotions. Then, respond by stating your point of view factually, without sounding angry or offended.
This way, it will allow potential sitters to draw their own conclusions about what happened (there’s nothing you can do about how they choose to judge it), and they’ll likely bring up the topic during the initial video call, giving you the chance to establish a transparent relationship with new sitters regarding this case.
In the future, you’ll have received new reviews, and this will just be a story from the past.
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Are you sure you mean the review and not the “response” which is shows up directly below your review. Sitters can respond to your review. If the sitter left a review for you, you can respond to their review.
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If you decide to follow up by answering, follow advice from Skylos and others - cool off first and answer factually.
An answer that is very emotional, confrontational and such can come across as off putting and a red flag for other members that can’t really know what happened. Sometimes the best and hardest can be to just leave it.
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The others are right, they couldn’t have wrote it in retaliation.
All is not lost! We’re sitters, whenever we see a negative review on an owners profile, we read BOTH reviews to get a full image, so that’s what they said about you, AND what you said about them on their page. A lot of sitters on the forum do the same.
If the sitters review of you looks like they are compiling a list in defense of whatever they’re expecting your review to say about them, WE CAN TELL, it speaks volumes. We’ve sat for quite a number that have had the odd bad review, they’re lovely people. We can see when a sitter is covering-their-own-backside.
Just an idea, but if they’ve got 20 x 5* reviews it sounds strange, so could the partner be new, ie do both of their names appear in their previous reviews?
A couple of questions, that you haven’t mentioned:-
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Did you actually ask them for updates? If not, they didn’t actually do anything wrong on that front, so don’t blame them for that.
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You don’t mention how many previous sitters have you had before, or how many reviews have you got so far? Because if you already have a number of reviews yourself, then one bad review will have less of an impact in the grand scale of things.
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