“If I could give less I would. This bunch of charlatans cannot be trusted at all. They offer a money back guarantee which isn't worth the paper it is written on. I am more than sure that they use people to make your ad live, it happened to me before the end of the 14 day cooling off period, but via a video call this couple said that they couldn't make my departure time, and they were coming from NZ. They were well versed in what to say prior to them dropping that bombshell. I have now read many terrible reviews and only wish that I had done so prior to handing over any money. When you are trying to cancel your subscription, there are masses of pop ups to confuse into re subscribing at a discount for another year. It is a con.”
“I have been a user since 2020. The experience continues to go down hill as the billionaire owner of the company sees record profits. I want to leave now.
The fine print in all the terms basically ensures you don't have any protections-basically if anything goes wrong the fine print covers any costs by telling users that basically if any damages happen= homeowners are encouraged to sue and settle with housesitters and vice versa. The "insurance" for cancelled trips and hotel fees, not to be found. I had an incident where a housesitter canceled and left me stranded in the Canadian wilderness for three days- no help from trusted housesitters. It has been 4 months and I'm still trying to get some money back from the "premium coverage" I had been paying for. The customer service doesn't respond, I have to follow up every couple weeks, I've gotten no where. Such a rip off.”
“Changed. Quality got worse. Almost no sits in certain countries and cities. Most hosts have so many animals, that you cannot take care of all if you are not at least 2-4 people. Apartments and houses are often dirty and you are supposed to clear. Some hosts expect you to take care of their pets 24h, although they themselves spend less than 1h per day. I am cancelling this service as it does not pay off anymore. To expensive and difficult to find a suitable sit.”
“While there are many sits to comb through, Trusted Housesitters is a horrible company. There is absolutely no support. No customer service. The people you sit for are getting away with hundreds of dollars of free pet care and are often times not worth it. The hosts should absolutely tip especially if they know you are sitting for them for just something to do so in reality doing them the favor because you are not needing a place to stay while you travel. No customer service about falsely advertising a pet. I was recently attacked by a cat but never told by the owner that the cat is difficult. Never told the cats habits and difficulties. The neighbors warned me though when I was out walking the dog. I have yet to be able to even chat with customer service at Trusted Housesitters. Then in my review the owners blamed me that their cat just didnt like me. According to the neighbors the cat doesnt like anyone. I am about to stop using Trusted Housesitters.”
“We had an awful experience with a sitter.
A sitter lied to us about arriving and staying at our home. The sitter abandoned the stay and only arrived at our home once we involved Trusted Housesitter’s support.
The incident was reported to Trusted Housesitter’s and Ringdoorbell video footage was provided along with date and time stamped texts. This evidence showed texts from the sitter lying to us saying they were at the home when they actually showed up 36 hours after the sit started. We had evidence of three separate lies with corresponding ring doorbell footage showing the sitter was not at the home for the first 36 hours of the sit. The sitter arrived for the initial walk through and key pick and did not return until 36 hours after the agreed upon start of the sit.
Additionally we provided Trusted Housesitter’s support with ring doorbell footage where the sitter shared home security information with a third party in a very public setting, just meters from an active street and city sidewalk. This security breach could have potentially allowed strangers into our home.
Trusted Housesitter’s has only given this sitter a warning and has not removed the sitter from the site. I am fearful for future pet owners whose furry friends may be abandoned without food, fresh water, and toilet relief for over a day all while being lied to by this sitter that they are there.
Trusted Housesitter’s offered me 6 months of free service, which is appalling when this cost could offset cancelling a dangerous sitter’s account instead.
Additionally trusted Housesitter’s support advised me that in the future I need to provide a full list of not only what a sitter can do but what they can’t do on a sit.
They blamed me for listing the sit dates accurately and listing “staying at the home overnight” as a sitter responsibility. They implied I needed to specifically state “sitter can not arrive 36 hours late” or “sitter can not lie about arriving for the sit when they aren’t there” or “sitter can not lie about staying at the home overnight when they didn’t” or “sitter can not tell a random person where a spare key to the home is located”.
The fact that a homeowner must write out every dangerous situation that a Housesitter isn’t allowed to do puts pets and homeowners in danger. What if a homeowner doesn’t explicitly state that a pet should not be fed bleach or thrown off the roof? What if a homeowner doesn’t tell a sitter not to light the curtains on fire or throw the TV out the window? Is the homeowner partially to blame when they didn’t foresee untrustworthy behavior from a Trusted Housesitter?
Trusted Housesitter’s knowingly keeps untrustworthy and deceptive sitters on their site and does not remove them after dangerous code of conduct violations.”
“I arrived to a disgusting, unsanitary house and had to find a hotel instead. Trusted Housesitters refused to reimburse and could have cared less. I was out an additional $1000. Do not do anything through or with this company. They are a scam.”
“Scam, they don't disclose the full terms of service before you sign up and pay. The terms include you can't host if anyone else is occupying the house so it's useless for many people. Once you pay and ask for a refund, horrible customer service sends you through a bot that gives the runaround and no refund. I had to charge back at the bank.”
“I have had soo many great house and pet sitters from this website. I pay them NOTHING! It's awesome.
Right now there is a black friday savings event. Use code RAF294100 to save 30% AND get 3 months free!”
“There is no customer service, no phone numbers, no human to speak with, no website. It is a total scam and I have lost 300 for a " premium subscription".”
“Hello, Everything went wrong! difficult website and a lot of energy, time and twice paying for a membership. Nothing happens, no sits, no nothing. When you ask the customer services Why they send open sits and as soon you want to reply they are reviewing or already got annother sit, is still unanswered. I asked the same question in the community forum and that was more or less the same. I believe the forum is also runned by themselfs, because after ea few hours they closed the forum! I believe it is a scam, with lots of members for sits but a lot less pet owners on the side. All the time, effort and money is not worth at all to even bodder. Not my cup of tea.”
“Awful and incredibly aggressive toward Housesitters. I regret recommending it to friends because one immediately commented about censorship and overly stringent/controlling measures. I did not feel they had my best interest in mind and felt increasingly uncomfortable as a "Sarah M" proceeded to inform me that asking for assistance with transportation costs is in "violation of our code of conduct and could jeopardize your membership with us". For any additional transportation costs or special requirements; i.e. if a sitter had to drive a pet to the vet or was asked to drive a pet for a daily one hour hike with an additional hour and a half commute+prep time, one would assume they would be compensated. Unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case here. Any attempts to come up with a flexible solution is aggressively blocked.”
“My pet sitter Annaliese May from NZ was a total user and left my house dirty. I was also informed from neighbours she had a guy stay over after i specifically said no one is to stay. She broke a couple of things, used up pantry items, body wash and laundry wash after I her asked to replace “staples”. Had permission to use my car but left it sandy and no petrol top up. Not even a thank you. A total user.
My problem with Trusted House sitters is she had already removed her account before I could leave a review the next day. Seems like she knew she did the wrong thing? This means she can do this again. I’ve discussed this with the company and they can’t do anything. I suggested they don’t let anyone who uses their site to close their account until reviews are done. Maybe a couple of days? But they can’t do that either. Therefore they’re not a Trusted site.”
“They took 129 out of my account today and I don’t want to be a sitter! I hate animals and criminals who take my money. I’m on benefits for god sakes! I wanted to talk to a real person not a virtual assistant!!!!”
“Beware of trustedhousesitters.com
They tried to take 149.00 euros without me ever asking for their services.
I am thinking of reporting them to The Guardian too.
Avoid using them. They are crooks!!!
Elise Floriana Carla Leto”
“They market this service as a way to travel the world --- but you can't tell the truth about what you're doing. You have to say you're visiting friends or a tourist. When you are going across borders house sitting is illegal.
You can read about this on Reddit. There is nothing about this on the Trusted House Sitters website because they delete everything negative. People get turned away at the border. Then there is nobody to look after your pets. The sitter has to fly home immediately at their own expense.”
“So the real issue with THS is their customer service reviews are so bad and they do not seem to care. They have been promoting their service as a freebie for all which is totally wrong - this pays a huge disservice to pet owners, pet sitters and the pets themselves. Pet Sitting is absolutely not a freeload. That's while happily collecting subscription fees with no guarantees from them. If there every was a company who deserved a kick up the *ss it is this lot. I just signed up with trustmypetsitter.com as an alternative and they are already blowing THS out of the water. No membership fees and they run with the same model as Air Bnb - its free to list and you only pay if you are successful.”
“Somebody published a review in our profile with business sensitive information about my partner. Specially, the location of my partner with times and dates during the last 4-5 weeks which could compromise her business. We asked to TustedHousesitters to remove at least that paragraph, but they declined. They quickly MISS-judged us of just willing to remove a negative comment instead of thinking how this private information made public on their website could affect my partner's business. Their attention was very un-respectful and we felt treated like children with a total condescendency.
Awful service, these people that pretrends being aware of your privacy but they actually do not care at the end of the day. I wish there would be another similar app that could run some competition to TrustedHousesitters, if there would be, then they would respect users more properly.
By the way, we pay them yearly a suscription of £200. We are now happy to stop this as they do not respect our privacy.”
“I do not recommend this website!
I've been with the website for a year and had 3 different people stay in my house to mind my cat. I had no issue with the first 2 sitters but the last one stole 600 euros worth of goods. We did not notice this straight away and left her a good review since the house and cat seemed ok at first.
We noticed the theft 3 weeks after the sit and THS won't let us update the review to warn other people that this person should not be trusted in anybody's house. This means she is probably still sitting for other people and continuing to steal while THS is well aware of the issue (proofs have been sent to them).
They do not always carry a proper background check. They only do this for US-based sitters.
Also, the insurance is a scam. They:
- Will ask you to go through your insurance first
- Won't reimburse anything below $1000
- Will ask you to pay $250 excess in the event you claim for something over $1000
- Do not cover identity theft
If you're considering using this website, I highly recommend you read the fine prints and "trusted house sitters horror stories" you can find on the web before you make your decision.”
“Literally the only thing that Trusted house sitters were good at was taking my joining fee and then one year later after I had cancelled my sub. helping themselves to another unauthorised $100 from my account. Boo. I have had success in finding house sitters quite regularly on another website but with these guys, I have never even had one enquiry. Total rip off. Avoid.”
