“I invested a large some of money. Everytime when I wanted to make a withdrawal there was always something else. When I complied and wanted to make a withdrawal it was all of a sudden rejected because my score is 98. My score was 100 the entire time until I had to make a withdrawal. I had to deposit another large amount for large account activation. I borrowed more money in order to do that and now I am told because my account score is on 98 I cannot withdraw and I need an additional 2 points which is 200K per point. I need my money to be withdrawn as I need to pay allot of people back that I borrowed money from. I am in over my head with debt and am stressed out with this process. This was and still is a very bad and stressed process. Fortunately, I acted quickly and contacted A I X A L T D . C O M a reputable business that assisted me in finding and recovering every penny that these con artists believed they could keep for themselves.”
“TrustedHousesitters is a disgrace. Their customer service, and also the moderators of their forum are appalling. You will be lucky to get a response when you need one and it will be apathetic at best. I was both a sitter (20+ 5 star reviews) but when I attempted to transition to a host and post my house and pet for sitting, it became clear that sitters can be exceptionally entitled and unreliable. In the event you are left in an emergency - either as a sitter or host, you can expect absolutely no support from their customer service. The TrustedHousesitters forum is also only for posting positive discussion about the platform. Anything that is remotely negative is blocked from posting.”
“Camera inside the pet owners's house
Numerous inconveniences not specified during the preliminary interview with pet owners like camera in the house without any information prior to the pet sitting agreement.
Lots of unpleasant surprises overall for pet sitters.
Pet owners do not declare the cameras and hide the inconveniences relating to their house or their animals.
The main problem with this service is that you have no guarantee on anything, that's the price you pay for a free exchange service. It's Russian roulette, 1 out of 2 times it's bad. And if it is bad you can not do anything you must endure the bad conditions until the end of the stay :((((
Even though these bad sits that I experienced had received good evaluations ! We wonder what the evaluations are for.”
“The sitter abandoned an 18 day sit on day 7 whilst we were overseas on holiday. We have 2 dogs and a cat and would have had to cut our holiday short and fly home. Fortunately a friend agreed to step in at short notice. The sitters pretext for going was ludicrous and she was allowed to game the system and leave a poor and highly inaccurate review of us without us being able to leave a review of her behaviour. On examination it turned out that she had abandoned two sits in 2023 making us the third. The company failed to say that they would take action to remove the sitter from their register thus leaving it open for the sitter to continue to let down clients and endanger pets. Do not use this company!”
“Don't be fooled by these faux polite responses from Trusted Housesitters below your reviews; TH is rife with double -standards, and TH customer service are the nastiest and the rudest people who ever drew breath. I'm not the only one who's experienced this.
I ended my time on this website as Homeowner (HO) and sitter, with 47 perfect reviews over 4 years. Here's the truth:
-It is actually illegal to go to another country to petsit even though there's no pay. It's considered work and you can get denied entry if found out.
-You will meet some truly wonderful HOs and sitters if you are lucky. If your luck runs out, you'll realise that...
-TH only cares for the HOs, who are allowed to do and say anything they want to the sitters. Do not expect support from TH if you run into difficulty.
-TH consistently acts against their own terms of service, which carry no actual weight as TH lacks integrity.
-HOs can cancel a sit spontaneously. Sitters can cancel after contacting and being sternly rebuked by Customer Service.
-HOs illegally have visual and audible surveillance of sitters without their knowledge, and this is allowed and supported by TH (regardless of how Terms of service reads).
-HOs can and do impose exploitative and abusive demands during the sit and if a sitter refuses, and customer service will always support the sitter. HOs can be incredibly entitled.
-HOs are actually allowed to charge you money to stay at their homes even though you're taking care of their pets. Read enough postings and you'll find HOs asking for money. Report this to TH and you'll see that this is accurate.
-Sitters constantly and consistently overservice Homeowners and tolerate HO's abuses without reporting it to TH or in reviews.
But don't take my word for it. Try them out, and see for yourself . They're the equivalent of a free-for-all dating service with abhorrent business practices.
One last thing: please do not ever let yourself be dependent on TH for sitters, housing or support. When you come across a truly vile situation with sitters HOs or TH customer service, have money set aside for a sitter or a hotel, and be prepared to leave the company.
All the best to you!”
“bought a membership from Spain. During the year I upgraded twice for various reasons. I live in Spain. Upon renewal they closed my account and asked me to renegotiate my membetship. Fair enough. However, they then went ahead and deducted a full membership from my UK bank account and did not tell me. They could provide no evidence of me pressing the auto renewal button three times!
I said I would renew on the basic membership but they refused. Just toook the premium membership from me.”
“I will add a negative review - from a potential host's point of view. Trusted Housesitters has a 14-day guarantee. We signed up, paid the fee, and listed a property within the period.
We immediately got a potential sitter, but before we "accepted" the offer, he withdrew because he got a better offer off-platform. After that, we got a few more applications but none were serious.
One person withdrew when she realized that the service wasn't going to pay her. Another just never responded to our messages on the platform. And so forth.
When I contacted Trusted Housesitters for a refund, it turns out I was TOO patient. They refused to refund my money because I hadn't given up on them quickly enough. You have to decide if you're "in" within the 14 days. After that, even if you get no serious applicants, Trusted Housesitters keeps your money and you have to deal with your petsitting needs another way.
I strongly recommend that people stay away from this service unless you have a primo house and location that will attract lots of sitters, and money to burn just in case the few that are around aren't interested.”
“My neighbor had a Trusted Housesitters family watch their pet while they were on vacation. The family sitting their dog and home brought along their own dog, who was a non-stop high-pitched barker. We live in townhomes, and the level of noise disturbance was incredibly annoying and distracting. Additionally, one of the sitters, who stayed off and on at the home (that's another story) complained to me that the dog they were sitting was too high energy. I wonder how the homeowners will feel once they return and I share this information with them. Trusted Housesitters needs to provide more tools and more honest and up to date reviews to insure the person who needs a pet sitter is able to properly vet the prospective sitters. And that starts with Trusted Housesitters allowing reviewers to edit reviews on their web page. There's no reason not to allow an edit, it's not rocket science. The only reason not to allow an edit is to hide the truth from others who read the reviews.”
“They leave malicious reviews up even when there is evidence proving the review is a lie. Our dog was letting starving half the day and they didn’t take any action against the sitter.”
“ATTENTION nous sommes allés garder un chien en Floride et avons été filmé à notre insu par un pervers, il avait mis un AirTag pour nous tracer et à fait rentrer des amis à lui dans la maison quand nous nous absentions, ces gens ont touché / volé nos affaires et le site leur donne raison car ce sont des américains et que nous sommes français (le site est américain) faites très attention si vous n’êtes pas américain et qu’il vous arrive quelque chose même si vous payez l’abonnement le plus cher, le site prendra partie des hôtes !!!”
“The customer settings regarding on how to find a sit e.g saving sit opportunities and getting notified are terrible. I have to be on the app 24/7 in order to get a sit. I never got any sit, because everybody seems to be constantly reviewing. Also you can not prompt weather you just wann sit in Europe and you have to scroll through whole America and Australia in order to find a European sit.”
“THS will not remove reviews even when you provide emails, videos, and text chains that prove the reviewer is lying brazenly and demonstrably. For pet-sitters on THS, make sure you understand that you have no rights and THS will not protect you when a HO exploits your already free labor.”
“This site is a bit of a scam so buyer beware. You purchase the premium membership. Your petsitter for your chickens is a no show and you have to pay for 3 weeks of care at the very last minute. You have the best membership and they come back and tell you it will not pay for any cost associated with the sitter not showing even though you have the plan that pays in these types of circumstances. Read the fine print and shame on them for not covering when their pet sitter through their site is a no show!”
“I couldn’t give a lower star.They have misleading policies as to what an upgraded membership entails .Information only available once you purchase it.
If I had the time to complain to credit card company I would .
They don’t stand by the policies on their website .
Had some good sitters and some bad ones ,the platform is expensive for what it offers.
Heard good things about their competition.”
“Trusted Housesitters had excellent sitters with lots of positive reviews and references. They unexpectedly mandated Americans submit their most private information for third party background checks. TH was implored to grandfather in those "tried and true " sitters but they refused. As a result they lost me and presumably many others. I now read countless stories about nightmare experiences from homeowners since. I wouldn't use them as a homeowner or as a sitter at this point. They are clearly not trustworthy any longer. Look elsewhere if you want to find responsible, reliable, honest sitters.”
“This company is a scam, when i joined there were at least 30 listed sitters in my area. I put a request for 3 weeks out to test the system. No one got back to me so I reached out to 5 individuals within 10 miles of my address. Only one replied and said she only wanted to sit for people in other parts of the country. The housesitters are using this app for vacations not to help with a safe environment for them and the pets. I am so disapointed and will stay with the kennel in town.”
“Trusted Housesitters is an ABSOLUTE nightmare. BEWARE!!
I had one sitter ruin my house because she didn't take my dogs outside. I even paid for my dog walker to come daily to help. I received a call from my dog walker that my house was covered in urine and feces. The sitter then called to tell me she had to cancel the sit -- I was out of the country at this time, and I had no way to get back. When I had to cancel my trip, at exorbitant expense to return early only to find that she had left my home without cleaning up any of the excrement. The original 1936 wood floors in my home were permanently ruined. I filed an insurance claim TWO YEARS AGO -- and even though it was accepted -- they still have NOT paid it out! I have followed up in writing (repeatedly), on the phone (repeatedly), and via their chat (repeatedly) for TWO YEARS, and I'm met with continual silence or agents who can't help and zero follow up from the company. This is now legally actionable as a bad faith insurance action....
BUT WAIT -- that's not even the worst part --
Fast forward -- I thought that would be a rare exception to hire a "trusted housekeeper" who would be so neglectful. Boy was I wrong. Shame on me...... I needed someone to watch my home and the endangered parrot I was fostering for a local rescue organization for only 36 hours. Not even two whole days. One the first evening, I get a phone call from the sitter that she "just found the parrot dead". The parrot didn't have any health problems, but birds can hide things. SHe just had "no idea what could possibly have happened". I asked her to facetime me -- there as blood on the cage. I knew she was lying. Because the bird is endangered, we did a necropsy. The bird had two punctured lungs, and a punctured spleen, had bite marks consistent with canine on both sides of its body. The bird died by asphyxiating on its own blood, in pain and scared. She continued to lie and lie and lie. Did she bring a dog into the house?? Why wouldn't she tell me the truth?? No response. She went so far as to say someone must have broken into my home, brought in a random dog, took nothing, broke nothing, but killed the bird and then left. "Are you telling me that you think my house was burglarized while you were staying there? Do you realize I will now have to get the police involved -- and do you realize that they will need to question you on the details??" The vet concluded that the bird was killed outside of the cage and then systematically placed to make it appear as if it had died of natural causes.
I contacted Trusted Housesitters. I gave them the police report and also the necropsy report. They refused to take off her profile from the site because "she couldn't be reached for questioning". They let her continue to sit for multiple other people with direct knowledge and evidence of violation of their policie, the law and also many ethical considerations. They didn't remove her for well over a year after I threatened legal action against the site. THEY HAD DIRECT KNOWLEDGE OF VIOLATIONS AND ANIMAL DEATHS AND CONTINUED TO ALLOW HER TO SIT FOR OTHERS. Had those peoples' animals been harmed or injured, Trusted Housesitters would have also been responsible.
SHAME ON YOU TRUSTED HOUSESITTERS. You have no safety standards and yet you willingly take money from your subscribers. You owe those who pay you and the community at large to have basic ethical business practices. Either through sheer incompetence or intentional neglect, you are failing the entire platform.”
“I did a sit and left house spotless.nut elderly woman was awful and left terrible untried review which they said I cannot so so anything about despite having videos to.prove she's lying. Now witj a 1 star review I wasted my money to travel using it as whose going to allow.a.1 star review in their home. Disgraceful.”
