They Thought Their Scam Could Go The Distance

I offer a dog-sitting service through an app. A woman reaches out and requests my services for three one-hour visits per day, every day for a week. She provides an address that is only ten minutes from my house. We do a little meet-and-greet at her house to get to know each other, and I agree to take the job.

The first day of the week-long agreement comes and I go to the house. There is no key like she said there would be, and the door is obviously locked. I try calling her through the app, but she doesn’t answer. I knock, but there is no noise. I reach out again through the app via the text option.

Me: “Hi, I’m having trouble getting into the house. I don’t see the key where you said it would be.”

Client: “Yes, we are at [different address]. Please change your visits to this place as we are on vacation and brought the dogs with us.”

I plug the address into my GPS and see it’s almost two hours away.

Me: “I won’t be able to do that. I agreed to this address. The one you just provided is way out of my range.”

Client: “We’re paying you to take care of these dogs so we can relax.”

Then why did you take them with you?

Me: “I am canceling this appointment.”

I canceled the whole week and contacted customer service letting them know she had failed to provide accurate information. Customer service apologized (even though it wasn’t their fault) and said they would look into it.