Hi @Kena and welcome.
I can understand your caution, but here’s a question: would you give a copy of your ID to a sitter? And how much would you tell about your life?
Identity theft is a real thing. If you leave me all your documents I could sell your house from under you while you’re away, or apply for a credit card in your name and spend a fortune. You have every right to worry.
On the other hand, so do I. Granted you’re probably taking on more risk than I am, but I don’t know what your intentions are, or whether your dog is going to attack everyone we meet on the street. I just have to trust you.
Communities like THS are built on trust, it’s the currency we rely on. Anyone who abuses it will be quickly found out and expelled, that’s how the system works. And thankfully the number of people actively abusing that trust is extremely low.
So I guess the question for you is whether you want to be part of a community based on trust? A community that seems to work just fine without much in the way of guarantees.
You could insist on seeing a copy of my ID, and I could insist you first provide evidence that you’re GDPR-compliant and have suitable cyber-defenses in place to protect my sensitive data. And I could ask for proof of your ID, property title, and that the pets are properly trained, registered, vaccinated, insured etc. Perhaps you could require me to post a security bond? And I could bill you for every little inconvenience or variation from the agreed sit?
And so on and so on, ad absurdium.
Or we can all start from the assumption that most people are decent and the system works just fine as it is. That’s the approach I take, but I do always insist on a video call before agreeing a sit.
This gives both sides a chance to feel each other out and reassure ourselves that we’re doing the right thing. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter to me what the other person’s legal name is, or what they do for a living. I only care that they’re decent and trustworthy people.
And so far I haven’t been disappointed. This is a great community, I hope you will be part of it.