Update:
Customer suport responded, turns out the house sitter is under investigation and had her account suspended. Must have been serious if the sitter went as far to not use her phone # any longer and didn’t even bother to contact us. Looking for a new sitter now. Hoping the previous one doesn’t show up out of nowhere but at least we know we don’t need to feel guilty about a misunderstanding.
Considering this issue was apparently known about by TH management, we wish management had informed us immediately so we could have started the search for new sitters right away. This could have turned into a much worse situation if the sitter never showed up.
Last night I tried to contact my confirmed sitter to confirm if she booked her flight. I messaged her on whatsapp which shows if she received the messages. She never did. I messaged her from another number the next day (this morning) and she didn’t receive the message either. I called the number and it goes straight to voicemail. I signed into the website to message her here as she is still confirmed on the site. I go to our messages and the website says she is “Currently Not Active” and I cannot open her profile anymore. I have no other way to contact her and I don’t have her last name so I can’t search for her anywhere.
We haven’t communicated in over a week but before she was very communicative and had 3 positive reviews on the website and we had a phone call and everything was great. I’m 10 days away from my 5 week trip and now I’m needing to make a decision immediately on what to do here as I have no other way to get in contact with her so I don’t know if she simply just no longer has access to her phone for a myriad of reasons and could even still have the impression she is still coming. She could call/text me from a new phone 9 days from now and show up on her scheduled arrival. Or she decided to not do this trip/sit and blocked all forms of communication and I have been given no way knowing that. Has anyone experienced this issue? Please offer guidance here as I’m waiting on customer support to respond.
So sorry to hear this, seems to be a trend at the moment
Have you actually been able to talk to someone in support or just waiting on an email reply? Support can contact the owner which does sometimes get results quickly. If you go onto the chatbot and ask “speak to a human” you should go direct to support.
I would hate to be in your shoes,
she could turn up as planned or she may be ghosting you, so really hard to know what to do. I do know what I would do! @Carla@Jenny can you help out here at all?
Update:
Customer suport responded, turns out the house sitter is under investigation and had her account suspended. Must have been serious if the sitter went as far to not use her phone # any longer and didn’t even bother to contact us. Looking for a new sitter now. Hoping the previous one doesn’t show up out of nowhere but at least we know we don’t need to feel guilty about a misunderstanding.
OMG! Just as well you reached out to support, what a mess! Happening far too often lately, so much for new rules. Crossing fingers you find a replacement very soon
We’re really sorry to hear about this, and we’re glad to hear that you’ve had a response from Membership Services. Hopefully you can find another sitter, please feel free to come back and update us!
Big thanks to @ziggy for taking the time to tag @Carla and I as well .
It does make you wonder, if THS know this sitter is under investigation why are their future bookings not informed and their listings made available again giving the home hosts as much time as possible to re-book?
@Colin never thought of that and totally agree! Doing as you mentioned could have prevented the HO a lot of stress for the whole situation and in having to relist. Not good.
Indeed, when THS does this, they should inform confirmed sits.
In principle, the HO can see this (like you did, the “Currently Not Active”), but THS should notify owners as soon as they take such measures. You were lucky to check this as early as you did.
One wonders why they prioritize the overlapping dates issue over easy things like this…
@Colin …exactly! I brought this point up on another thread and got piled on by one forum member in particular. But that attacking poster appears to have been banished …
The odd part is the phone application doesn’t say the member’s account is not active. You just can’t click into the profile but it doesn’t say why. I only found that “not active” bit mentioned on the desktop THS website.
Hi @stewartlikeshousesitting
Sorry to hear of your sitter issues. Hope you get another sitter sorted asap.
I wonder if THS takes the approach with suspended HO’s/sitters that they are innocent until they’ve completed a full investigation. Which is fine in principle but not in practice with sits happening all the time.
@Jenny as this problem has been resolved insofar as the HO has found out what happened and is looking for a new sitter, would it not be prudent to close the topic before any unnecessary posts are made? We don’t really need the HO to be put under any further stress by possible unhelpful and ongoing posts. Hasn’t happened yet but Murphy’s Law it will. Time to close it don’t you think
When THS takes the step of suspending membership, they are also blocking the primary channel of communication for upcoming sits. So that affects others. And may cause others some real problems, also when the member was innocent.
So THS should not block messaging while investigating. And THS should not terminate membership without simultaneously informing any confirmed sits.
.