Misrepresentations by owners, has anyone experienced similar combination of outright lying?

I just had a horrible time with a woman who lied. She said she had ONE dog and when I got to her creepy house she had NINE dogs and two cats! She booked me for two drop ins, and said she would only pay for one dog. I was super stunned and overwhelmed so after giving it some thought I alerted Rover, who canceled the stays. This woman found me on Facebook and harassed me until I blocked her.

Now, I keep getting requests from "clients" who then decide they do not want my services, and their profile goes inactive. Honestly I think it is her trying to ruin my search ranking as she threatened to "tell everyone about how unethical" I am!

Be careful out there...

I had a person attempt to book a 7 night stay for 3 dogs (her home). As I was preparing to set up the meet and greet so that I could assess whether it would be a fit, she messaged me that she actually had a 4th dog (a chihuahua mix) that would be no problem and was far easier than the other 3 to manage. She wanted me to either stay over night for 7 nights or visit 4x a day (I specifically state I only do drop in visits - no overnight stays). In the end, the pricing she wanted was far lower than I would take the sitting job for so it was not a fit. I thought 3 dogs would be my max for drop in visits (that's what I advertise - not overnight stays) but then she added the 4th - I mean, how do you forget to mention you have a 4th dog yet provide such detailed info on the other 3? Really....

Wow! What a horrible experience. Good thing you did have a M&G and wisely didn't accept the booking.

I have never had such an outright misrepresentation (using diplomatic language). Most often, the owner's definition of house broken and mine might not be the same, so I've had to be more explicit in my profile (which most don't read BTW) about pee pad training not being acceptable.

In your scenario I almost wonder if the description might have been for another dog they had. Why would anyone enter puppy info when that generally incurs a higher fee? It really makes no sense. That monster dog reminds me of one I've seen at my groomer's a couple of times, a terribly spoiled Yorkie who barks nonstop when in the cage but continually harasses/mounts other dogs when allowed to be on the floor. A lose-lose situation.

But getting back to your overall concern, Rover does not in anyway prescreen or do any kind of checks on owners or their pets. If you read the Terms of Service, Rover absolves itself from any responsibility because it is merely a platform and shifts it onto owners and sitters to ascertain the appropriateness of each other. I kid you not. Read the TOS.

Good luck if you decide to stay!

I’m currently sitting a dog who is pretty sweet, but he’s very stinky, waaaay heavier than indicated, and violently lunged at a few dogs in our walks. I barely managed to restrain him and badly hurt my hand. He is potty trained and doesn’t go on the furniture, but my house stinks and he clearly hasn’t been groomed in months. The owner had falsely indicated that he is friendly with other dogs (and then requested I keep him away from other animals). It was also a very last-minute booking (1 hour between booking and drop off). I just started out on Rover and think I will only do boarding for smaller dogs and always request a M&G beforehand, if I decide to stay on the app. The possibility of how much there is that can go wrong is really making me anxious.

I had just experienced a terrible boarding experience for two small dogs. First able, there was a misrepresentation saying their dogs are “house-trained”, one of their little boys said to my face that the dogs are not house-trained when they dropped the dogs in my house, the mom immediately corrected “no, they are house-trained” which later I discovered it’s a lie. Both dogs peed all over my place - door mats, floor, area rugs in the living room and my bedroom, 2nd, the owner didn’t bring poop bag which made me wonder: if you don’t have poop bags then how would you pick up their poops or you never did! 3rd, the smaller one barks all the time even when I said no to her face. Last and the worst, their sons behaved badly when they were in my house - touching my stuffs without asking, opening my fridge, lied on my couch with shoes and they even tried to open the door of my roommate’s room while I was talking to the mom! The father was standing there barely stopping them! It had caused me a big stress and I ended had to throw my area rug away. The owner gave me a $20 tip, but compared to the stress and loss, I would rather they’ve been truthful on the profile.

To prevent this in the future, I would definitely do M&G before booking, and I hope it would help.

I had one misrepresented pet and a very sketchy owner that I worked with one time and it was my worst Rover experience. Fortunately every other experience has been great and I've had several repeat clients and even some solid referrals, so I won't let one bad experience ruin them all but I did learn from that crazy situation. Fortunately things ended up 'okay' in the situation overall, but it was less than ideal. Always trust your gut when something seems off!

I’ve had a few bad apples- got some now which is what brought me here to search for assistance. My favorite was a woman who said her dog was a year old (so as not to incur a higher puppy charge)- actually I had it listed on my profile at the time that I didn’t even accept puppies…he was about six months old, still wasn’t potty trained, was flea infested, he didn’t have a collar or leash, and she didn’t bring him any dog food! This was when I was brand new and my prices were lower and I took her last minute booking without a meet n greet. She tried to book me about ten times after that and because I was non confrontational about the issues she figured we didn’t care all that much about the situation. She finally stopped asking us to watch her dog. I have three dogs here now that I have watched before, one not at the same time as the other two, and the two older ones it was several years ago. The two older ones are 14 and 15 and the four year old is deaf and a very stubborn bulldog. I’ve had them since yesterday morning and I’ve cleaned up 7 piles of poop and 8 piles of pee. I’ve been home with them every second, have a doggy door they will use to come in but not go out, they fight me to go out, and they make sure to use the bathroom when I’m not looking. Only good thing about them is they’re low energy. Never again!! My best advice to you is to raise your rates. Raise them higher than the lowest people in your area and you will get better quality of guests. I had locked rates for these three from years past and I’ve learned a good lesson.

I agreed to watch one cat, sight unseen, who the owner described as very friendly and quick to warm up to strangers. She said she'd just need to sniff me and we'd be good. As soon as I went into the house, the cat appeared from the back rooms, clearly unhappy. She beelined over to me and started yowling, hissing, thrashing her tail, and body-slamming my legs. When I moved away from the front door, she got worse. The owner had put her food, plates, and treats on the tv stand, close to the door, but even crossing that distance upset the cat so much, it made me nervous. Giving her treats helped, but only until she finished eating them. Playing with her with her cat toy (on a looooong string) distracted her for a while, but she never really calmed down. And I absolutely couldn't go any further into the house than the tv stand. I described her behavior to her owner, because it was so different from what I'd expected that I was concerned, but according to the owner, that was normal for her cat. I think she knew exactly how her cat would react to my visits, because she told me to just stack the empty, dirty cat food cans by the sofa and she'd take care of them when she got home. Who knows what would've happened if I'd tried to go rinse them out in the kitchen and throw them in the garbage. No hard feelings, I just wish I'd had a chance to discuss her behavior with the owner ahead of time, so I could've been prepared.

I had a situation once where the 2 dogs I was sitting for weren't misrepresented as the OP described, but one of them was CONSTANTLY marking his territory in my house. I called Rover, but they didn't do anything to help. I called the owner to ask if it was normal and she didn't help either. Needless to say, I would recognize the dogs again and NOT book them. I had another booking where one of the dogs was perfectly behaved. This dog's "sister" had SEVERE separation anxiety. The owner really had no clue, but she said anytime a person took care of her dogs it was in her home. So, whenever I was out of viewing of the one dog, she would whine NONSTOP at the front door. I've watched this pair a few times and she's no better.

I've been actively using Rover for over a year now and have never had anything like that. At worst, maybe someone just didn't realize how much their dog weighed and so they selected medium sized and they're really a large dog. That's definitely not the standard experience that you had!