So called i surance coverage for owners

Owner Questions, Advice & Chat
1

Hi,
We had a sitter that was supposed to be from December 3to April 5th, 2024? Looking after our two cats and the house, a new vehicle was also included.

By the beginning of January they left, they were in our private rooms, using our personal items, our bedroom and bathroom, messed up my laptop, dead upon our return. Unplugged our security cameras, The list goes no and on.

We contacted house sitters and were told not to worry as we are insured, we are in Florida our house is in Ontario.

We were stuck, do we fly home and try to find an alternate sitter or what, so we called friends and asked if we paid them could they help us out, so it was arranged, we payed them cash.

Not we are told we get no refund as we were supposed to book another sitter through a different company. We were never told this at first only when we tried, UNSUCCESSFULLY TO OBTAIN A REFUND.
They had no intention of ever giving a refund.

Now come on, we were supposed to find another company, sign up, find a sitter and vet them, and if successful meet and great etc, before returning to Florida, any guess as to how long this is going to take??

So be warned, it is not all milk and honey.

We quit so called TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS.

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2

How well did you vet them? Did you have a video conversation before taking them on?
This is highly unusual and I hope that you reported them to THS so that, if your version is true, the sitters can never get another sit on this site.

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3

That is an if. I wonder why the sitters left.

And I wonder where those cameras were.

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4

@colinabbott member services should have directed you to the T&Cs of the sit plan did they do this ?

As long as you didn’t break the agreement (for instance by having internal camera’s monitoring the inside of the home ) you can make a claim .

Your friends need to provided receipts or written confirmation of the daily rate that you paid them for the service they provided .

There is a limit of 30 nights cover and a limit of a $1500 max so it wouldn’t cover the whole sit

5

Sorry to hear about your troubles. THS are pretty useless when it comes to dealing with problems during a sit and are very quick to back away from any responsibility but as far as I can see in the “no longer called insurance” insurance terms there is no requirement that you use a specific company or any company to replace the sitters and you shoudl be free to use a private individual

  1. If requested by Us, the person caring for the pets must be able to produce written confirmation of the daily amount they have been paid.

This seems like standard insurance company nonsense and I would suggest pushing back.

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6

Hello, @colinabbott Thank you for reaching out to the forum for peer-to-peer support.

The Forum team are really sorry to hear about your experience and have passed your details back to the Membership Services Team.

They have let us know that should any claim not meet all of the requirements in the plan terms then the plan provider will not pay a claim. I can see that you are in touch with the team now so they can help you with any further questions about your specific case.

I can also see that your refund request was already accepted and if you have any more questions about that please get back to the agent that was helping you.

I hope you continue to get support and advice from the Forum community, but it’s good to know that Membership Services is already assisting you with this. If you have any concerns about the outcome they are on hand to help :slight_smile:

7

Hi @Carla,

I understand the rules and regulations, BUT when one is stuck thousands of miles from home and a sitter leaves, plus rather than flying home x 2, PLUS loosing our vacation, the cost of the flights alone is to much, so one is left with only one option, that is to call friends and offer to pay them to take over looking after the house and our two cats.

I did offer to give the address and names of our friends, but nothing was good enough.

Plus we are told that the only way to get a refund was by finding a sitter through an alternate company. LOL

My question is, in the mean time what happens to the cats and house? While we advertise for sitters, wait for replies, vet the sitters, arrange meeting etc, etc. Now how long is this going to take, the house could be robbed, the cats starved to death.
Stupidity is to kind a word.

So we choose asking and arranging with friends to take over to help us out. Plus the fact we were never I formed that we had to hire a sitter through an alternative company.

I really hate asking friends for a receipt being as they are doing us a very big favor and saving our vacation.

One thing we learnt a valuable lesson about house sitters and the insurance that is never intended on paying. NEVER TRUST THEM. they have no intention of paying for anything.

We will never forget this and will do a great job of telling everyone we meet NOT TO TRUST “TRUSTED HOUSE SITTERS”. It’s a con job.

We were in business most of our lives, and our word was our bond, every case was looked at on its own Merritt. BUT WE HAD A FABULAS REPUTATION.

We learned a valuable lesson from this episode in our lives.

We do promise to do a great advertising job for house sitters.

Caroline and Colin

Edited to remove personal details as per the posting term.

8

This seems to be where the issue is. There’s nothing in therequirements you list that says the owner has to book another sitter through a company.

“Alternative Pet Care” means boarding the pet in a licensed kennel or cattery, or paying someone to look after the pet at the Pet Parent’s home.

So is this a hidden requirement? Are there any other requirements noit listed on the THS website? Where do we get a full copy of these requirements?

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9

Hello @colinabbott Thank you for getting back to me.

It sounds like such a stressful experience for you. I passed your details back on to the Membership Services Team as they are best placed to help you. The Forum team are limited in what we can do as claims are not part of our department. Please go back to Membership Services and they will be happy to answer any more questions.

@cawosey Thank you for looking out for the OP. I am sorry if there was any confusion about the pet sitter needing to come from a company, they don’t need to come from a pet-sitting company but they do need to be a paid sitter with receipts showing proof of payment. There are no hidden terms, all of the terms can be found here

We can’t really go into specifics about the OP’s case on the Forum, but as mentioned if any of the cancellation plan requirements are not met, especially in the section of things that the plan will not pay out under, then the plan provider will not pay a claim.

I am aware it can be hard to understand what is happening without knowing all of the details of a claim. The Membership Services team have full details of the claim and is best placed to help the OP, but your peer-to-peer support is exactly what the forum is about. Thank you and have a lovely weekend :slight_smile:

10

Hi Carla,
I don’t mean for you to take the brunt for the company, but you are the conduit, passing on concerns…
I haven’t had to use the insurance, but I worry about it.
I’m confused by this stuff about a carrier, since the recent memo made it sound like THS was self funding this and it isn’t “insurance”.
It feels a little iffy. And I do think people paying the premium need to know they are paying for something. And some people are reluctant to jjoin because of cancellations.
It would seem to me at the very least, member services should be walking people through a difficult situation so they won’t have to fly home.
It wouldn’t be hard to develop protocals and train customer support workers to help members through a process of filing a claim and figure out local services they could contact and problem solve so they could sort stuff out remotely. I’d imagine sometimes petparents could be panicked and want to rush back but a lot can be arranged from a distance. It might even make sense for THS to reach out to some local THS sitters and see if anyone is interested in taking on a paid gig or a local sit in return for membership extension. Or even take it on the sit on an emergency basis until things can be worked out.
These incidents might be few and far between, but they make the whole thing look risky.

11

Is there a THS YT channel where instructional videos can be loaded- I use YT a lot as a support mechanism for various services/equipment/systems.

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12

I don’t know if they have a channel. I know they have videos but it’s more promotional. I absolutely agree that they could use instructional videos to help members get more out of the experience. Troubleshooting. Video-Chat, What to do if…,

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13

Video meeting is a must, pictures of their home and vehicle inside and out.
We had a disaster, broken cut glasses, when they left, they left the dishwasher running, TV programing messed up, used all my $10.00 car wash vouchers, never again.

Edited to remove personal information

14

@colinabbott are you saying that you want pictures of the sitters home and vehicle ? Or a video when they leave your home at the end of a sit ?

15

Just a note, we were told not to worry as we are insured, LOL.
No such thing, rather than wrecking our vacation we decided to pay a friend to look after our cats, another friend to make certain the house was not wrecked as the sitters, only stay a fraction of the sit.
Check our new car for damage etc.
A total nightmare.
Never again

16

We were ripped off by House Sitters, not one penny of help, it cost us a lot to sort this mess out, plus broken items in the house.

17

We paid a friend $1,000.00 plus extras, a second friend to over see the sitters departure, theater tickets dinners etc, as a way of saying thank you.
All in all it cost us quite a lot.
And zero from House Sitters,
We had just recently renewed our membership, which we canceled, and after all this and zero help, they were only going to give us a pro rated refund.

18

Read our past posts. Please

19

The 9nly camera in the house was only pointed at the front door, this was pointed out to them as a security measure as we have a large collection of art. We even showed them the camera and it’s view.
They never complained until well after, then they started messing with the camera and allarm system.

20

Hi @colinabbott

There seems to be a bit of a conflict between the information you’ve provided here and with what’s documented via yourself and Membership Services, and because we can’t divulge the specifics of your case here, I think it’s best we close this discussion to new replies.

I would recommend getting back in touch with Membership Services directly should have any further comments or questions regarding how your case has been handled.

Thanks to those who popped on to give OP some support.

Jenny

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