Rover.com | Pet SittingReviews of rover.com

This was my first and last time using the app. We hired this sitter for 10 days to care for our dogs in our home, and unfortunately the experience was extremely disappointing. Based on what happened during the stay, I now seriously question the reliability of the previous 5-star reviews. On the second night, he brought a woman into our home even though we had clearly discussed this beforehand and specifically asked him not to bring anyone over. During the entire 10-day stay, he walked our dogs only once. He also changed settings on our household appliances and opened our central air filter, leaving the filter bent. When we returned, the house was dirty. Most concerning, he did not pick up the dogs’ waste from the yard during the 10 days. He only cleaned it up at the very last minute after I told him we were close to arriving home. We know these things because we have cameras throughout the house, and he was fully informed about them beforehand. I am sharing this review because I would want another pet owner to know exactly what our experience was before trusting someone with their pets and their home.

I booked a petsitter for 3 days of in-home petsitting and after completing 2 drop-ins for a total of 40 minutes, disappeared at 11pm at night on the first day. I had to cancel 2 days of a 3 day vacation to come home and watch my 5 pets. What did Rover do after I contacted them? Nothing. Zero. No communication, no concern, nothing. So much for background checks and verified sitters. For a company that says "loving pet care in your neighborhood", they have shown me they only care about making their 11% fee for every booking. Beware of using Rover, you never know what kind of sitters they actually provide. Their rating system is a joke.

I paid Rover $50 to join as a sitter, completed the background check and profile process, solicited testimonials, and spent significant time making my profile competitive. I then lowered my rates repeatedly, eventually to roughly half what I normally charge privately. In nearly four months, I received one impractical last-minute request and no actual bookings. My concern is not simply that I personally failed to get work. Rover operates a data-rich two-sided marketplace and necessarily has detailed information about sitter supply, customer demand, booking rates, geographic saturation, and how often newly approved sitters actually receive work. Yet it continues charging new providers a nonrefundable upfront fee even in markets that may already be heavily oversupplied. When I requested a refund and specifically raised the issue of sitter saturation and insufficient customer demand, Rover did not address that concern. It simply told me the fee was nonrefundable. I think this practice deserves scrutiny. Regulators, consumer-protection attorneys, and journalists should examine whether Rover continues recruiting and charging new sitters in markets where its own internal data shows that additional providers have very little realistic opportunity to obtain bookings, and whether prospective sitters are given enough information about those market conditions before paying. A nonrefundable-fee clause may protect Rover contractually. It does not answer the larger question of whether it is fair or potentially deceptive to profit from continually adding providers to an already saturated marketplace while the applicants bear virtually all of the risk.

I had a disappointing experience with Rover and would be hesitant to recommend the platform to pet sitters. Although Rover takes a significant percentage of each booking, the level of support and protection available to sitters does not always seem to match the fees charged. Rover should do more to protect sitters, their homes, and their pets. Before a booking is accepted, owners should be required to provide complete and accurate information about a pet’s behavior, anxiety, medical needs, medications, destructive tendencies, ability to be left alone, and compatibility with other animals. Sitters should have a clear opportunity to review and confirm this information before agreeing to provide care. The platform also needs stronger safeguards for situations involving safety concerns, property damage, undisclosed behavioral issues, or risks to other pets in the household. Sitters should not be left to manage serious problems alone or expected to absorb the financial and emotional consequences of information that was not disclosed before the booking. Rover should provide responsive emergency support, clear procedures for ending or transferring a booking, and practical assistance when a sitter can no longer safely continue care. Sitters should not be pressured to provide transportation, extend a booking, or make arrangements that exceed what they originally agreed to provide. There should also be meaningful protection for damage to a sitter’s home, belongings, and personal pets. Sitters open their homes and take on significant responsibility, and they deserve clear coverage, fair claims procedures, and timely support when something goes wrong. I do not blame pets for behavioral or medical challenges. However, Rover should ensure that owners disclose those challenges honestly and that sitters have the information, resources, and ability to make informed decisions before accepting a booking. Overall, Rover needs to improve its screening and disclosure requirements, emergency response, communication standards, dispute resolution, and protections for sitters and their pets. Until those improvements are made, I would be cautious about using Rover as a sitter or recommending it to others.

Doesn't look out for sitters or pet parents There background check on experience is just "trusting your word" when filling out experience related questions Doesnt support sitters when dealing with negligent owners like not providing enough food for a stay, nor do they have concer for sitters safety like clients having cameras in BEDROOMS Will punish sitters for "violating safety terms" when a pet parent LIES about dogs behaviors or training. Doesn't hold pet parents accountable for lying or bluffing about having an aggressive dog Does follow local laws for boarding by making sure whoever offers boarding has a kennel license or inspection done by there state. Nor do they make sure there sitters are insured, and bonded I was doing all the right things as a sitter ( insured, bonded having a registered LLC )and got over 80+ 5 star reviews and clients DELETED from me while it was my full time job because i was transparent with a client about her dog not actually being crate trained and breaking out of the crate after me being gone for 3 hours in a whole day, she didn't want to pay for damages her dog caused due to her negligence to properly inform me of her anxious attachment behavior so she made false statements to rover claiming "neglect" and i lost my account with no warning or chance to explain myself. Customer services SUCKS they will take a clients money over protecting there sitters! Even if this is your full time job and someone cancels while a visit is already active you will not get paid even tho every other service in the WORLD makes you pay full price if you decide to cancel while the service is already active. Time is money, and you cant get time back but Rover doesnt care about there sitters time and money only there own Do not recommend.

We will never use Rover again. This was our first time and it was a nightmare. Our sitter brought her 17 month old child to the job without asking or telling us and freaked out our diabetic cat. She also brought a friend in to help and the friend ended up getting bit. All of it could've been prevented if she didn't bring the small child. She was able to give our diabetic cat the shot when she came alone for the meet and greet. She wrote a review that our cat was so aggressive that she must have "borderline rabies" which needless to say isn't a thing. Because of the bite and the comment an investigation needed to be completed by animal control and because of course our cat is vaccinated and doesn't have rabies was able to home quarantine. What concerns me most is because of the negligence and poor judgement of a sitter clearly not very well vetted by Rover (she stated she was a Vet Tech and then freely told me she dropped out of the program at our local high school) we had to cut our trip early and could've had our cat taken by Animal Control. Will never use Rover again. Ridiculous fever dream of an experience.

AVOID THIS APP. WASTE OF MONEY AND TIME. False accusations of payments outside the app and unjustly suspending the account. To begin with, I haven't booked anything in the app yet. They have access to the chats and my account, it is very clear that there is no confirmed booking. A waste of paying the verification fee and time spent in the app, booking NOTHING then now wasting time appealing on their false claims.

I tried using this service two times. This company’s does not vet sitters and I had two bad experiences which ended up to be a huge waste of time weeks before vacation while trying to prepare for a sitter before vacation. The first sitter came over stoned and this past time, Yvette cancelled two times for scheduled walks to warm up to my dogs. Yvette also began to text me from a ghost phone so it did not go through to Rover. She complained about my smaller dog scratched her at first into.; her complaint came in three days after waiting for her to walk. River suspends my account. We have not gotten past hello. I do not recommend this service of untrained, unprofessionals.