New questions about pet sitter background checks on Rover

Despite a lengthy criminal record, a New Hampshire woman was able to get herself listed as a dog sitter on the popular website Rover.com, raising new questions about the company’s vetting process.Last month, NewsCenter 5’s Ben Simmoneau shared the story of a Massachusetts man who said his Rover dog sitter stole from him, took his car and started a fire in his home. He then learned that the woman had a criminal record, yet she was listed on Rover as having passed one of the company’s background checks.After that story aired, Amy Jo Clough reached out to NewsCenter 5 because she says her experience with Rover should serve as a warning to pet owners. Clough is great with her dogs. Watching her interact with them, it’s clear she loves them, and the feeling is mutual.But she will tell you that doesn’t mean you want her to be your dog sitter.”No way. No way. I know what my criminal record is,” she said.Clough has a lengthy criminal record in New Hampshire, including convictions for assault, theft and drugs, compiled over nearly a decade as she struggled with addiction. But her record hasn’t stopped her from being listed as a dog sitter on Rover.com, and she’s listed as having passed what the company calls a “verified enhanced background check.””I was shocked,” she said. “I expected to get some sort of rejection email saying, you know, ‘various charges exclude you,’ whatever it may be.”To be clear, Clough is not the same person she was before October 2016, when she and her now-husband made the decision to get sober. They went through treatment and hold steady, good-paying jobs, with no interactions with law enforcement in more than seven years. They live in New Hampshire’s Lakes Region and find joy in their Golden Retrievers Aries and Eve.”If I’m going to let someone into my home to take my dogs out or walk my dogs, I want to know what type of checks they’re doing on people,” Clough said. So when she got a voucher for $30 of free service from Rover.com and saw promises that all its sitters “pass a background check” and are approved by a “team of sitter specialists,” Clough wanted to see what would happen if she registered.”I did it to test the system. I wanted to see what it would bring up,” she said. “It put me right through. Took a couple of days. They charged me $35. So, I don’t know what they check.”Sitters on Rover have either blue or gold checkmarks. The blue indicates they’ve passed a basic background check while the gold signifies an enhanced one, which Rover says is “considered the most comprehensive criminal check on the market.” The company says its basic background check ensures a potential sitter is not on any sex offender registry, terrorist watchlist or in the National Criminal Database for any “disqualifying criminal offenses.” The enhanced check does all that plus includes a manual search of county court records based on a person’s address history. Rover says it uses a third-party company for the background checks that’s also used by a majority of Fortune 100 companies, but it would not say what it considers a “disqualifying” crime.Clough was granted a gold checkmark by Rover, indicating she passed the manual check of court records.”I don’t think that I just slipped by and it was a mistake,” Clough said. “I don’t think that their system is very thorough.”It’s not unlike the experience of Travis Anthony, a Massachusetts man who says his Rover dog sitter started a small fire damaging his kitchen, but also stole a spare debit card he had filed away, obscured cameras in his house and repeatedly drove his car without permission. A simple Google search with the dog sitter’s name turned up results mentioning multiple arrests including one just this past May. “If I can find information about her that easily on Google, then Rover should have been able to,” Anthony told NewsCenter 5.Clough says she wouldn’t hire someone from Rover.com based on what she now knows and implores all pet owners to be dogged in doing their own research.”If I was the person I was seven or eight years ago, I’d probably be looking for money or different things to support my habit,” she said. “Just be aware of who you let into your home.”After NewsCenter 5 took Clough’s case to Rover, they removed her from the website telling her that her background makes her ineligible to be on the platform. The company would not provide more specifics about its vetting process, but said it monitors for concerns raised about pet sitters and will start requiring sitters to have recurring background checks next year.

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