Rover.com Reviews

Booked sitter for extended in home stay for 1 elderly dog and house sit. Three interviews and good ratings even though I found out afterward that two of her great ratings were from her relatives. My wife and I were traveling the Mayo Clinic for her cancer. WE provided extensive details and contact lists to our sitter. Daily pics of dog were imperative. Didn't happen. We can home one week early to find a smoke filled house and over $4000 worth of possessions gone. She had been having boyfriends and family over continuously, house was dirty and dog had lost 7 pounds. When sitter was questioned about smoke she denied that she smoked...thirty minutes later she walked .through our kitchen smoking. When asked about items from our attic which had been brought down she stated they were hers. She then lost it and locked herself in a bedroom, started yelling, crying, cussing and calling everyone obnoxious filthy names. She refused to leave. Thus we called the sheriff and had her trespassed. Some of the items missing were pistols and a rifle. Great concern. We filled out a poiice report of the items missing and they took all the information about who had been in our house...8 people. Fast forward..she has now requested payment from Rover which is insane. Rovers response thus far is that she is an independent contractor. They cannot refuse to pay her. Conclusion she was and is a con in my opinion. Do not hire Veronica through Rover.

Many sitters from which to choose. They will promise you anything. Our situation is looking for reliable overnight house sitters while we are away for more than 5 days. Have (had to) use Rover several times. In each instance the sitters are young people juggling other jobs and lifestyles. Expect they will either have boyfriend's over and / or not spend the amount of time they committed to at your locations. Your pets will be safe enough and certainly not starve to death or be abused. So if you are ok with minimum coverage, then go for it. I think it is expensive and I expect someone who I hire to meet the terms of the agreement. "Out of site out of mind" would seem to be their motto. Definitely recommend a motion activated device at your front door or in your home while you are away so you know exactly what you are paying for.

I had The misfortune of hiring someone through Rover to help me with a brand new puppy. The girl that came was nice and I thought that she did a good job. But, Rover was double and triple booking my appointments and billing me for all of them. They were also creating fictitious appointments and billing me for those. They refuse to give me any of my money back. Refuse to allow me to cancel any future appointments they had generated or that I had generated. And then they kept sending out notices to my dog sitter saying that I was requesting appointments and so she was approving them. That's how they create fictitious appointments. In the end, they managed to scam me of hundreds of dollars. I had to cancel a credit card to get them to quit charging them. Sadly, Wells Fargo called them up and they had told them that I didn't comply with their Cancel policy. You know, from when they refused to allow me to cancel? In the end, they stole hundreds of dollars from me. Further, do you realize that they upload every single text from your phone to their app? They monitor this. And when I made cash pay appointments not related to the site, they charged me for those too. Very shady

These people are irresponsible.

I went to Rover and found a pet sitter in my area, their page indicated the price of $17 for drop in visits. I entered all the requested info, including my address, phone number, email address, etc (thank God I didn't enter my credit card info), and they messaged the sitter. The sitter responded, and then the actual fees popped up on Rover. I was expecting 4 visits at $17 per visit. Instead, they were charging me $23 per visit, plus an extra $7 for my second pet, and a service fee, for a total of $133, which turns into over $33 per visit. This false advertising is disgusting. I don't' know if the pet sitter was any good, because that is about double what I was expecting to pay. The sitter informed me they recently changed their policy, and in addition to the service fee, Rover is basically charging a 20% surcharge on the visit rate. Rover seems like an unethical, greedy company.

I paid for boarding for 18 days. Handed my dog over and 6 hours he was no longer with the boarders, there was a hole in their fence and he had escaped. I had five days of worry and emotional destress. He was exposed to a major highway and could have been killed. He was found on the fifth day and spent the remaining time with a friend. I have asked for a refund and was told they had refunded the money in October. They were not paid until November and the stay was in December. They are responding to me with rubbish. Don't risk your dogs life with rover.

I am rather shocked at the false and misleading information on Rover.com sitters' profiles. From "non-smoking household," (the house reeked of cigarette smoke), to "no children" (a 5 y/o and a 13 y/o live in the house), and "number of pets: 2 dogs" (there are 4 dogs and 2 cats in the home. When I mentioned the discrepancy on the sitter's profile with the sitter, they were vague and tried to explain it away as, my husband's military friends stopped by and they were smoking. Or, the sitter does not believe she has to post personal, private information on such a public page. I find it too difficult to try to make safe decisions for my dogs when I have to filter what is true and what is not true from these sitters who do not seem to understand the importance of information they post. Fortunately, I am not stupid and have figured this out early in the game. I will not ever be back.

After being a sitter for 7 years Rover canceled my listing for disagreeing with their meddling in my affairs. I never had a bad review and they cannot produce any. Be especially wary of Robert P. he is a real snake in the grass.

For one thing. I could not enter in my birthdate or availability. I don't think the site is working properly, so I called the non emergency helpline. The customer service lady was extremely rude to me and actually laughed while giving me a false name of Miss Jack. I asked for a last name and she told me they don't give that information so I cannot even report her. I was disconnected and never heard from them. I will not be using them for services. And I hope people see this post and the helpline employees are trained and recorded so management knows how people are being treated!

There is no way to communicate with Rover when there is a problem. The Help page just leads you around in circles. Unable to leave a negative review of a sitter who was unsafe.

Stay away from this company!

I have a one year old Golden Retrevior named Bear, and we signed up for the dog walking service in May 2021. Our dog walker was named Danielle and she provided great service all the way up to this week, when for out of the blue I get this email from Rover. Com saying my services have been cancelled due to non payment for the days of August 16,18,20,23 and 25, 2021. Below is the message I received....

"We’re writing to let you know that your Rover account has been closed due to a violation of our Terms of Service related to unpaid services. Specifically, the service with Danielle for August 16, 18, & 20 (3 days), and 23 & 25 (2 days). Your recurring booking has been cancelled.

While your account is closed at this time, if you would like to continue to use Rover, please respond directly to this message so we can discuss completing payment for services provided. Your account must be paid in full to regain access to your account."

All the best,

--

Rosemarie D.

Rover Support

This had been paid and sent Rosemarie the screen shot of this payment. She does reply back stating thanks and saw it had been paid. She then wants screen shots for all my payments since May 2021, even though their own payment history website under my account shows those payments were paid by my credit card.

All my dog walking services were cancelled that day. Thankfully I was in town and was able to walk Bear and not out of town on business. They just left me high and dry with no dog walks for Bear even though everyone must pay a week in advance. Of course since I paid a week in advance I'm out the money they charged.

I contacted the customer service department several times, but no one responds and they seem to not want the business.

I did check on the internet after this happened and saw many negative reviews out there, so now after reading all of those, I will not be going back to this service for the safety of Bear.

Provided information about the date and services I needed. Respondents could accommodate neither. Site misrepresents its capabilities. Seems to do better at collecting personal information than doing anything else

I can't get my keys back from the sitter. Now i have to rekey my lock and pay $75 for the missing key fob. I reported it several times and was ignored. Don't use them, it's not as ethical as they pretend to be. I'm furious!!

I did an excellent dog sitting task. Rover.com is insisting that I have a Paypal account to get paid. I was once ripped off by paypal and want nothing to do with them. They never mentioned that up front. They requested a w9 which I sent. They now state that they need to verify my w9. I would never submit a false w9.

If I do not get paid I will seek every legal remedy available to me to legally compel Rover.com to pay me what I am owed.

I have had the worst experience with one of Rover's sitters, Carla B. She works in the States (Atlanta, GA) and Canada (west coast and Ontario), so be aware if you come across her name. 2 things to be aware of, she is a CON ARTIST pretending to be a pet sitter, she abandoned my pets after 1 day of sitting (which was when I was already out of the country so was helpless) and she fakes an emergency to end the job. First she wanted to use the rover website, but as we started talking, she indicated she wanted cash, This is called diverting. Do not pay anyone cash, go through the web site all the time to protect yourself. Use the texting system not whatsapp or email to communicate with the sitter because that's your proof should something go awry with the job, and Also, take a copy of their Identification to confirm the name, address and legitimacy of the person working. it cost me a lot of money to replace her at the last moment when she said that I had 10 minutes to find another sitter, I'm not kidding either! she really said that, I was totally screwed and spent 2 days while in airports trying to get a sitter while my pets were unattended at home without food or water. Also she took the money and RAN!!! $700 down the drain, plus the fees for the replacement sitter. Always ALWAYS pay through the website, if the sitter leaves early, the sitter is responsible for the cost of the next sitter. Know your rights when using this website.

My healthy 14-month old puppy died while under the care of a Rover pet sitter. It was through that devastating event that I got to know Rover better.

Rover does not see it as their job to regulate pet sitters that use their platform. While their Terms of Service say that pet owners and sitters have to be in compliance with applicable laws, they don’t do any homework to make sure that’s being followed. Even if you call them and tell them a specific sitter is operating unlawfully (according to your local animal laws), they’ll just tell you they don’t enforce compliance. I was told that the fact that the pet sitter I hired was breaking the law was irrelevant to their “investigation” of the sitter’s role in my dog’s death.

An easy safety feature Rover could adopt to prevent negligent pet sitting practices would be to limit how many clients their sitters can take on per day. For now, they let sitters take on as many as possible. At the end of the day, that benefits them and the sitters financially. The pet sitter that was “caring” for my pet was watching 8 other dogs the day he died. No wonder her ability to responsibly care for him was compromised.

Another easy safety feature would be to require ALL pet sitters to come up with a safety plan. This way, sitters at least have to give it some thought. For now, this is optional, so pet sitters can get right down to business.

Pet owners also need to be aware that Rover won’t cover necropsies. When I got a call from Rover after my dog died, they said they’d help me cover “aftercare” expenses. What sort of aftercare does a dead dog need? They later clarified they meant burial expenses, but their word choice let me to believe my $1,000 necropsy would be covered.

Pet owners: if you use Rover, just know you’re getting the short end of the stick. Online services like this do very little to ensure your pet’s safety, especially compared to privately owned boarding services, which actually require that their employees go through training. In the end, my puppy is dead and it’s business as usual for the sitter and Rover. I wish these weren't my last memories of my pup.

Rover is a terrible service. Their platform is so confusing - you can hardly see if the services have been booked. Cancelling a service is even harder. You have to confirm through a representative via email and they act like they don't understand, making you repeat yourself over and over again that you don't need the service. I also know that they take a large percentage away from the pet sitter/walker, so they end up getting very little pay and pet owners end up paying inflated prices. Horrible idea with an even worse platform/customer service.

Its a site you can use to find a sitter.... Its your job to read up on the sitter and vet them for your fur baby!! We found the best sitter for our baby who is shy (not scared just shy) she was the best she let us in her home and we booked a play date just to get a feel, she was so good and my dog got along with her dog... she has lots of good feedback and we love her... its not fair that you don't do your homework and something is wrong. you have to think of rover as a yellow pages for dog sitters its a way to hookup with local pet sitters and yes they take the money upfront but that's to ensure that the sitters are paid and they get a fee for the hookup.. I asked a lot of questions and my sitter was on the same page she meet our needs... if you need a sitter then Rover is a way to find one!

The website is difficult to use, has an extensive questionnaire for you to fill in as a first step. The site times out before you can find all the information they ask for. Perhaps not so bad, but my suspicions were aroused when a booking fee was required before I was allowed to contact the dog boarder. This made me wonder how much of a scam this outfit is.

Just saw on the local news these companies don't do official background checks. They also cover up liabilities by having people sign disclaimers after insurance payouts.

Why would you let your dog stay with a stranger?