Review for sitter cancellation

Hi Nelson,

You definitely should give a call to Rover's Customer Support line, I agree that the sitter should commit to whether or not they have to cancel and do so if the stay has been fully booked and executed by both parties. In that case Rover Customer Support would be able to help you find the right course of action and they would make sure you were then set up with a reliable sitter. I do agree with Karen R. in that you seem to have had a few bad luck incidents with sitters but that doesn't mean that all have that mind set. While I am biased since I am a sitter myself, I also came to find this service by being a pup parent needing someone to watch my dog Maverick- and have had amazing experiences on both sides of the Dog sitting. Hopefully this incident won't spoil your outlook on using Rover in the Future.

I can understand the frusteration of contacting sitters that appear available and then have them decline your request, one thing you have to keep in mind is that the summer time is an especially busy time with people going on vacations and needing dog sitting services, so sitters get multiple requests for the same time frames. Until an actual request is booked sitters are shown as available so it could have been a situation where they were already speaking with someone on a request for those dates. Obviously I can't speak directly for those sitters you interacted with, but personally in that case I make sure I let the owner know I am currently going through the Meet and Greet process with another potential client or that I already have a request for those dates but will keep them updated on the outcome.

Something you might want to look into and see if it is available in your area is the Rover Premier service- these are Rover Sitters that do not have a full time position elsewhere (a lot of the Rover Sitters I know use Dog Sitting as a supplement to their full time job) and Rover has fully vetted their applications, visited and approved their house, and will actually help you find a sitter that is right for you. I hope this helps!

Thanks, Meaghan

I agree. This is my first time using Rover and my experience so far has been worse than negative. I spent nearly 10 hours already searching and speaking with people already and my impression is that they are just extremely unreliable and treat you as a transaction. I think 90% of "available" sitters actually weren't, and the ones that were always agreed to something that they didn't end up committing to. I felt this way before I finally found someone, who, after speaking with her over a call, booking with her, and feeling relieved to have finally ended this process, cancelled a couple days later. She used a blanket reason and didn't sound sorry at all.

The truth is, Rover could easily add some feature to their site that allows users to review the sitter or indicate cancellations, but they don't because they don't want to lose any potential business and turn customers away. Just think about how unreliable their providers must be that they feel they need to hide this information. You are correct that this is a common sense element of any business but I've realized Rover is no better than other online provider sites that care about their profits and not about best practices and the very users that put money in their pockets. They want to encourage people to book and in the event a sitter initiated booking takes place, they just pass that inconvenience on to the clients. Rover could care less about them.

This also encourage sitters to cancel appointments that are not in their best interest. If they find a better offer, more dogs, or simply would rather go on vacation because they were unable to maximize their earnings, they will just book now, cancel later. Rover claims sitter initiated cancellations impacts their placement in search results, yet the person who just cancelled on me still appears on first page of results. Yikes.