A Peabody, Massachusetts, man used a popular pet-sitting app to find someone to look after his dogs while he was on vacation last summer.
He returned home to about $3,000 worth of damages and has a warning for other pet owners.
When Travis Anthony and his partner went to California in July, they left their dogs with an overnight pet sitter they found on the Rover app.
"Her profile on Rover was pretty good," Anthony said. "She had at least 25, 30 glowing reviews, five-star reviews."
They had success with the app in the past. So they met the sitter ahead of time, felt they could trust her to stay in their house and headed off for a week.
"Everything was going great. I was checking the living room camera and nothing seemed out of ordinary," Anthony said. "I saw some videos of her playing with our dogs, so that was great."
But then, he lost connection to his security cameras.
"I was starting to get a little antsy that I couldn't access the cameras," Anthony recalled. "But I was still trying to keep calm. But it was once I realized that our car was not at our house because our car's a connected car, and you can see in an app on the phone where it's at ... it was at some strange address. That's when we got very concerned and freaked out."
Anthony said they had not given permission to the sitter to use their BMW and had left the keys in the locked master bedroom. They sent a relative to pick up the car but couldn’t find anyone to take the dogs so they could cancel the service.
"The worst part of it, was just not knowing exactly what's going on," he said.
They got the answers when they returned home.
"I walk in and immediately I can smell this, the smell of burned oil and some other stench," he said.
There was smoke and soot damage from a kitchen fire.
"It was pretty obvious that she had dug through a lot of our stuff ... our closets and drawers obviously had been gone through ... like somebody had ransacked the place," Anthony explained. "I did discover why I couldn't access the cameras. It was because she had obviously disconnected them or also disconnected the cable to our modem and router."
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The stored surveillance footage revealed the sitter had tried to disable the camera and brought three other dogs into the house. They also saw a stranger smoking on their couch, and both he and the sitter drove their car.
"The most upsetting ones were seeing that she used our car several, several, several times and ... seeing that she took our car at night and then didn't come back until the next morning. So our dogs weren't being watched," he said.
Anthony filed a police report, and called police again two weeks later after getting an alert that his debit card, which he discovered was missing from the house, had been used. The sitter is charged with larceny and credit card fraud. He also filed a complaint with Rover.
"They did give us a refund of the booking. But they said that if we want any of the damages covered, we would have to put it through our homeowner's insurance first and they'll cover whatever our insurance doesn't cover," he said.
Rover tells us:
"We strive to help pet parents find and book services from pet care providers who offer loving care; this is nowhere near the typical experience on the rover platform. We understand the trust Mr. Anthony placed in his sitter, and we are deeply upset this trust has been violated. As soon as we were alerted to these concerns, our 24/7 Trust and Safety team launched a thorough investigation. We removed the sitter from the platform, meaning they can no longer list their services on Rover. We also issued a full refund to Mr. Anthony and remain ready to reimburse him for any eligible expenses through the Rover guarantee.
The Rover Guarantee does not extend to losses covered by homeowners insurance. So Anthony has to pay out a $1,000 deductible.
While Rover says:
"The safety of the pets and people on our platform is always a top priority. Every sitter who lists their services on Rover must first pass several safeguards, including a criminal background check administered by an industry-leading third-party, and have their profile reviewed by a member of our team."
The company did not say whether they do updated checks periodically.
Anthony recommends that others using the app Google potential hires. His sitter's name pops up in a published police log.
“If I looked her up on Google in the first place, I would have immediately said, this isn't going to work out. And canceled it based on what I saw.”
Rover said that as of several years ago it required all sitters to pass an enhanced background check, which includes diligent monitoring for crimes, such as animal abuse, to help protect the well-being of the pets and people booking care through Rover.
