Rover.com | Pet SittingReviews of rover.com

I was a sitter on Cat in a Flat and as others have said, since the merger with Rover, there have been lots of issues. My main issue is that I have bookings approaching, and I need to contact the owners to arrange a Meet & Greet and get my instructions. Unfortunately, I’ve sent everyone a message on Rover and not a single one of my owners has received a notification that I’ve messaged them. For bookings from new owners, I don’t have any contact details to contact them any other way, so what am I supposed to do? I also have a few owners whose numbers I don’t have because I updated them through Cat in a Flat. If this issue doesn’t get fixed I’m going to have to turn up at their houses to let them know I’ve been trying to message them to arrange a key pick-up; how embarrassing and unprofessional. Rover support just keep saying that owners will see my message when they log in, but they’re not going to log unless they know there’s a message! If Rover communicated the change to owners, at least it would prompt them to log in. Otherwise they might only log in when it gets very close to their booking and they realise that they’ve not had their M&G or given a key to anyone. As others have said, Rover is set up for dog care services. The needs of dogs and cats are very different, and Rover doesn’t have the functionality to accommodate the needs of cats, so there are various issues related to that. The fees owners are expected to pay vs the small flat fee on Cat in a Flat is also off putting. But my main concern right now is that I have bookings coming up, my only way to contact owners is through Rover/Cat in a Flat, and my messages aren’t triggering a notification to my customers. I’m just getting repeated upbeat, AI replies telling me not to worry. I don’t know what’s wrong with them, honestly. We have very different standards. Unlike Rover, I am worried about my customers but I don’t know what else I can do other than leave this review and hope it prompts them to take some action to fix this quite serious issue ASAP.

I and my son have worked with Rover several times to obtain pet boarding services for when we went out of town. The providers we have worked with have been too- notch. They test your pet like they are their own, they communicate regularly and help keep you connected with pics and little stories about your visiting pet. There is an array of options for providers that fit your budget and pick up and drop off has always been easy and efficient. Rover understands that pets are family and reassurance when they are apart is of utmost importance. This is an awesome service provided by dedicated and caring people.

No regard for user experience during cat in a flat takeover. Issues: - clients had to reconfirm bookings and pay IMMEDIATELY to secure - increased pricing of existing CIAF bookings 🐽 - sitters not paid until after booking (used to be during) despite payment being take from owner MONTHS in advance - fee now taken from owner as well as sitter - prohibits phone number exchange - concerning in case of emergency or app issues - glitchy app - no longer a bookings tabs - ‘also sits cats’ on profile like cats are an afterthought - awarded me star sitter status then took it away almost immediately 😂 Greed over regard for cat owners and cat sitters. Taking my sits privately now - Rover - you won’t get a penny of mine or my cat owners money. Edit: in response to Rover’s response - CIAF payments were paid 5 business days after booking started. Rover pays after the bookings ends which in theory could be weeks for long bookings. With the secure telephone numbers, these presumably would not work if no data or if the app was down. It’s blatantly to avoid any out of app bookings which I understand but cats wellbeing is the most important thing and thus proper telephone numbers should be allowed to be exchanged. Avoidance of out of app bookings is clearly more important to Rover than an owner being contactable at all times if there’s an emergency.

Everything was easy

The merger with CatinaFlat has been managed atrociously and has left multiple catsitters and owners completely in the lurch, with inconsistent access to booking details (even imminent/current bookings). Sitters are caught between adhering to Rover t&c's of not contacting owners outside the platform, or risking a ban to reach out privately to booked clients to advise them of the platform changes (and consequent pricing/payment changes), which neither catinaflat nor Rover have done. The poor management of this merge has left cats at risk of not being fed as booked (as booking details did not transfer over correctly, and contact outside the platform is technically prohibited, meaning many Sitters may not have backup contact details), sitters at risk of not being paid (as payment terms have now all changed, not to mention pricing being much higher on Rover), and owners at risk of paying twice AND potentially being left without their booked sitter. Absolute shambles all round, and a real loss for the catsitting community as there is now no dedicated catsitting platform. Rover is only suitable for dogs, and is not set up to manage catsits effectively or safely. I look forward to whichever company develops a replacement platform to fill this gap in the market - it's clearly needed. Rover is not fit for purpose.

Jeremy house sat for us during a two week trip to Europe. So happy to see how well he and our dog Remi bonded. Nice to be able to travel knowing how well cared for she was.

Despite having 2 years to prepare for this "merger", i.e. Rover buying out CIAF, the actual moving over to this platform has been horrendous. Zero communication, zero support, everything going wrong, reviews being lost... It's clearly a dog walking/boarding/sitting platform where cats are a subcategory and an afterthought. Not to mention the fees - 15% for the owner AND the sitter? Ridiculous. It's been incredibly frustrating both for both sides. I've been going back and forth with a regular client about their booking for today - it's not been confirmed, and they can't find where on Rover to confirm/pay for it. I still went and did it, but will now have to arrange payment separately - and boo-hoo on Rover for losing out on their cut because of their incompetency! Should have done a better job with this "merger" and provided support and communication for both sitters and owners.

I have used the Cat in a Flat site for many years now, going back to 2018 for my first booking and have had an overall positive experience. Some sitters were subpar, but some real great ones. The website/app has evolved in that time and worked really well for what I needed as an owner. Since the merger, it is apparent the previous owners/creators have sold it to Rover who are not cat-focused and it just does not work in the way it did. Unless something is fixed, I am going to be looking elsewhere for a cat sitter in the future. We were given zero communication on this merger and I only found out via Reddit. Since then it has been nothing but AI/generic responses to sitters/owners problems. The costs are astronomical by now charging the owner and the sitter a fee and also in some instances charging additional cat fees making a twice daily feed for a 2 cat household incredibly expensive. I know the cat sitters are trying to work with the pricing models to make it work, but have encountered problems in being able to change those figures. The messaging I have seen from CIAF was that nothing really would change for sitter/owner when in fact it has completely changed by forcing all to the dog-centric Rover platform. There was zero engagement with sitters/owners about the move to actually check the features Rover offered translated to cat sitting. Disappointed in Kathrin Burkhardt and Julie Barnes for not considering the product they sold to make a few £££ and leaving the so called "community" network they created behind to be just another cog of Blackstone.