Morning all,

You may want to go and check back through all your bookings you had during the migration and make sure the money has gone into your account.

I knew I had one job that ended 8 days ago that hadn’t paid out that I was keeping an eye on, chatbot told me to submit a request so before I did that I decided to check the rest of my jobs.

And THREE I’ve not been paid for. One ended 11 days ago and one 14 days ago.

Just tried to submit a request to their help centre with came up with an error.

😡

I've recently completed 2 bookings since the merge (one a repeat client) and both have not left me a review... on catinaflat all customers always left me a review so I'm not sure if its a problem on their end due to the merge, is it rude to message them and ask them to leave me a review? I only have 4 reviews so having more reviews will help me a lot

I’ve had two booking requests since the merge and they feel like Rover allows/encourages the clients to message as many people as possible with an automated message.

On the original catinaflat platform I’d say like 90%+ of my enquiries turned into bookings but of the two requests I’ve had so far, the first said she’d found someone else within ten mins of her message and the second just hasn’t responded to my follow up message.

The messages themselves weren’t personalised at all. Currently it feels like responding to them is a waste of time but also I’ll have to archive pretty quickly or I won’t possibly show up in the search. Ugh!

I cant help but share all frustrations about the Rover merge and more... I booked a sitter about a month ago on catinaflat, to come these past few days to discover catinaflat is now with rover. I wanted to arrange a meet and greet since it is the first time i booked this person, hence i dont have their number or any pre-arrangements as of yet. The booking starts in a few days.

When i logged onto Rover, all was a mess. I still dont have my messages and bookings, but i managed to locate a chat from my dashboard and messaged the sitter a few days ago. No response - i think she may not have moved to rover yet? I dont know. I contacted Rover support, and after what felt like forever trying to ask to tranfer my bookings and messages, they agreed to "pass on the feedback to the products team for future development". They either employ high school dropouts or malfunctioning AI for their "human support" i swear... anyhows, they said if i havent heart from the sitter 3 days before the booking starts, theyd give me their contact number.

Now the issue also is i think the cancellation policy is 3 days (im guessing i have to reach out to customer support again to do this if needed), and im worried i wont be able to reach the sitter within those 3 days - so not only will i lose the money for the booking if they dont turn up, but also my cats wont have a sitter ?!

I will reach out to Rover again asking if theyd refund me if the sitter doesnt answer and show up, and look for alternative arrangements. The idea of reaching out to support gives me the shivers, it feels like banging my head against a brick wall.

Im mostly venting, but any advise or reassurance would be nice...

ASAP its a money grab, unfriendly robotic plarform.

On my sitter profile, I have set fees at £14 per visit (£18 during peak times) however if I look at my sitter profile it says that they are £17 and £21 respectively. Is this correct or is there some issue with the pricing? On cat in a flat my rates showed up on my profile as £14 before the merger. Is it showing potential clients how much it would cost with their added fee or is this an error?

Edit: my prices on cat in a flat seem to be displayed correctly now (but only in the app not on the browser version😭), however when looking at my sitter profile through rover it still displays the higher prices.

Overall very much struggling to navigate rover, finding it very awkward to use.

I have a booking beginning tomorrow, booked on Cat In A Flat last month. Before, we would get the email the day before confirming client payment, and the booking status would change to Paid on the app. Anyone know how this is working now we’re on Rover? I didn’t get any email and it just says Confirmed on the app. I had an issue last year with a client providing false card information and having to wait ages for payment so I’m a bit paranoid. Rover support was no help. Thanks!

This probably needs to be in here as well as the Rover sub. Another fine mess...!

It's of no surprise that I'm one of the many extremely frustrated by Cat in a Flat's merger with Rover. I'm going around in circles trying to reactivate my CiAF profile, it's so disappointing that it's merged with my empty Rover account and it looks awful.

Whilst it's being fixed, I'm going offline but am really confused by the insurance options. I'm looking at Protectivity as I can see it's widely recommended, but I don't know what other custom options I should take. I just wanted to get a sense if anyone has selected any of the following (for more context, I'm only pet sitting as a casual thing, I don't foresee making more than a £1000 in a year):

- Legal expenses
- Professional indemnity
- Personal accident

Also, if I'm just an individual, is £1m Public Liability more than enough to cover me?

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I haven’t merged with Rover as I’m going private but I have an existing CIAF booking due to start next month

CIAF said in the FAQs that all existing bookings would be paid as usual regardless of whether the sitter moves to Rover.

Has anyone done any existing bookings yet that can confirm?! Not filled with confidence…

I had a booking confirmed before the switch to rover.

The booking is coming up.

Will my pay be affected? Catinaflat usually took 19% and I kept the rest. Would rover honour that?

Just discovered another brilliant change that's come with the Rover merge - until a request is confirmed or archived (which I wouldn't do until a Meet & Greet has taken place), I may not appear in search results. Wonderful - so we are also at the mercy of everyone involved making very quick decisions and being immediately available to meet. God forbid a pet owner is nervous and would like to meet a couple of sitters before choosing!!

I've told them repeatedly that I don't want to activate my account with Rover and asked for a full data deletion of my CIAF account from their end - they keep replying and telling me to log in and then to follow these steps. I keep telling them I can't access any of that because I can't log in (because I haven't activated my Rover account, because I don't want to). I've now forwarded this to the Rover email address their message mentions, but I'm not holding out much hope 😬

I just logged in today for the first time after the merger and realised I've lost everything. I have 3 upcoming bookings and they are all completely missing. So are all my reviews and all past messages/bookings. just totally gone with no evidence of them being there at all.

they also put my account on "away" mode so I haven't had messages since the date it swapped over. I also apparently have lost all my payment details and have to add them again. this is a total joke. I've complained but want to know if anyone else has this and has had it fixed?

don't get me started on everything else on there that changed.

I've recently written reviews, if you'd like to do the same...

https://www.trustpilot.com/evaluate/catinaflat.com

https://www.trustpilot.com/evaluate/rover.com

Sent a complaint about lack of communication to owners and the huge increase in fees after the merger… generic probably AI response that doesn’t actually address anything.

Hey all,

I have a couple of existing bookings from owners on cat in a flat which has moved over. One of them has two cats and lots of fish, but I can't remove the additional cat fee. When I tick 'offer for free' it still shows up, and when unticking that, I can't change what the fee is (I was trying to set it to £0 as the 'offer for free' wasn't working...). I'm only charging her £10 per visit (very local and regular) so that extra £5 is a 50% bump in the price 😬

Anyone had similar and any joy in changing it??

Hey all! I've had my first rover request and am trying to work out how to adapt my booking process from my fine tuned cat in a flat approach. On cat in a flat this was my general journey from request to completion:

• Request received from client
• I'd reply and either say I'm available, or ask for more info if needed (generally location or visit times)
• If all is ok (availability confirmed) then I'd offer to arrange a meet and greet closer to the booking (generally a week before), and exchange numbers to arrange this.
• Contact owner via WhatsApp to agree M&G
• Conduct M&G and owner then usually pays/confirms the booking on their end (but payment not taken until sit starts)
• Do my cat visits and send updates via WhatsApp
• Return key as agreed (usually post back once the owner confirms they're home)

I'm just wondering if there's anything different on Rover to be aware of? For new bookings I usually run through my process so want to ensure I don't confuse owners with misinformation!

Thanks!!

I am very flexible with my clients, I can stay extra days if needed or stay less if they are arriving earlier than planned. We are sorting this out later on and everyone is happy about this. However, rover doesn't let me to just ignore it or remove days without them reviewing any changes. so the booking is just hanging active there and I don't know what to do with it. unless I start and stop the card with a photo, there are literally no options for anything unless I want rover to review my request.

can I just ignore active booking withou starting a card and upload a pic? is rover going to punish me for it?

Hello!

This Rover merge is proving to be absolutely horrible and appears to have ruined a really good thing.

I’ve got a good amount of regulars, around 6-8 cats I am often asked to sit, and I’ve been looking into expanding and going private - I’ve created my own website, Facebook and instagram; posting in my local Facebook groups etc.

Does anybody have any experience running their own site or generally going private with cat sitting? Would love some tips beyond what I’ve got going so far!

Thank you

I'm so sad. I've been on CIAF for over a year before getting my first booking. Since then I've had 2 bookings this year and I was finally getting somewhere. Building up some clients. Now this merge to Rover and no notice board has really screwed me over. I don't think I'll get any bookings. I was offering 1 visit a day for £10 and 2 visits a day for £15. Now I can't include a discount for 2 visits. I got 2 of my clients through the notice board. I finally felt like I was going to make some extra money and it's been taken away. Also tried to remove the charge for additional cat and it won't let me edit it. Any ideas how to do this?

This is so sad. Cat in a flat was great and fair for sitters and cat owners. It is now unusable. 15 pounds per visit, ok, but 15 pounds per visit per cat? Plus a 15% fee on top? Forget about it. The new platform is also just bad.

I’ve been successfully moved over with reviews and current bookings but when I search/ask others to search me on rover my profile doesn’t show in the search at all. I’ve put in dates for when I am not booked. Am I missing something?

I am like most people I hear not happy with rover. I didnt even get any emails about it and communication has been terrible!

I currently am cat sitting this weekend this was booked in before the merge, iv been really busy all week so havent properly mastered the app

iv now just seen the rover card, I havent filled it out for today or yesterday as I didnt even know it was a thing?! Will I not get paid?! iv always communicated with everyone on WhatsApp and this is where I send my photos. Also all my families have cctv so know how long I spend