I'm not sure if this is a scam?

( answering this in reverse order ) For drop in visits, walks, or housesitting, it makes much more sense to meet in that person’s neighborhood (as opposed to somewhere else), outside their home so you can walk around with and meet the pets, and then go inside the house if you think it might be a match, so you can see where all the pet supplies are and anything else that you may need to access. Certainly, you can bring a friend with you to the meet and greet, with the understanding that the friend either waits by the vehicle or remains quiet while you have a conversation with the owner. If the pet owner did not find you via rover (found you some other way such as referral, business cards, social media advertising, etc) you can accept cash, check, PayPal, etc. However if the pet owner found you through your profile on Rover, then it must be booked on Rover. You can explain that to not book it on Rover (which cuts out their revenue from bookings for connecting the two parties) is to violate the terms of service and both of you can get your accounts permanently suspended for doing so. If the after explaining it you’re still at an impasse, I wouldn’t recommend accepting payment for connections made through rover. [Is there a reason why pet owner is motivated to violate TOS and have you violate TOS? What else / other problems will be dealt with unethically?]

I am only going to add that you should read all the stories where the potential client wanted to do a OFF Rover deal and things went terribly wrong.

I learned the hard way to keep it through rover. I am out money for service I provided.