Care.com

My friend told me about this site. We both created profiles the same day hoping to find jobs. Immediately we both were contacted by people with need of house keeping. We compared our emails and texts and they matched. We both were contacted by same people, same story. These are some red flags:
1. They give you some feel sorry for me story like "I am deaf and I will only be communicating via text or email" (we cut that one off quickly) "My son needs a wheelchair and I need you to receive it"
2. They are moving 5 minutes from you (priority to live by the sitter and not close to their work or hospital)
3. Urgency to get your personal info to transfer or send you money
4. Advance payment to insure your commitment (usually 300 or 500)
5. Inconsistent information about the job descriptions (I was approached for a house keeping job, he started referring to me as his son's new nanny)
6. For some reason his job description to me and my friend both included cutting vegetables?
7. Horrible grammar or English that you usually do not use like referring to Emergency Room as Emergency Department ( a normal person in the US would just say "ER")
8. Emails coming in past 11:00pm and replies almost at the same time the following day. (that is when they are getting up on another part of the world)
9. Google numbers instead of a normal Local number. Where you have to state your name and then Google connects you. (Of course, no answer)
10. This individual even send me their family pictures. All we had to do was to Google search the images and we realized the people on the pictures are stolen pictures from a personal family blog (they were already aware that scammers are using their pictures and had a disclaimer)
11. I decided to play along avoiding at all cost not to give out my true information or my bank account just to see how far they went. Until he finally called me. Heavy accent. He did not make sense, did not speak clear English and when he did not understand what I said he began to speak "Gibberish" to me. I believe he got nervous and hung up.
12. References to God. Like "God bless you" I don't know what god you pray to! Not mine for sure.
This all happened this month 7/2015
*What I learned: never give your personal information to people, specialy financial to anyone. Advanced Payment is a big Red flag(people never do that). There are not many places to report this. Blogs and review sites are helpful. If it had not been by the girl in San Francisco who posted her story, me and my friend could have fallen into the same trap. I plan to post this in as many places possible so it can help someone out there. This is not fair. I feel violated and with no one to turn to.

Even after paying to use Care.com, you only have a first name and last initial of any potential hires, as well as a review or two if they have any, and you can't tell if those are legitimate either, since you can only see first names and last initials, and very limited information at all. Care.com notes if the potential hires email, telephone, and facebook has been "verified", but they don't give you that information, so you can't do any additional check on the person. You can ask for a background "preliminary check" for "free", but then it says, you will receive "within 1 day" after approval from the potential hire. Well, they must never approve, because I've requested 4 in the last few months and have not received one back. You can also request a Preferred ($59), Preferred-Plus ($79), or Premier background check ($300), for additional money noted to right of each, which of course they suggest - ridiculous. Any good leads don't seem to respond back either. They show the "response rate" and the last time they logged in to give you an idea, but I just haven't received many responses when I've reached out (Housekeepers in my case). I am also trying to choose wisely, based on picture, limited reviews, experience, and what they charge. With so many options and resources online, I expect much more from a site I am paying for. I am very disappointed with the lack of response, limited information given to me even after I became a paying customer, and background check option not really being an option, since I haven't received any when I've requested them (the free ones that come with the service I've already paid for anyway). Use thumbtack.com to find potential housecleaners, petsitters or handyman... it's free for the person looking to hire, and I've had great success! I don't know that I'd hire a child care person on there, but once you get the information, they are often legitimate people, with websites, and enough information that you can do your own background check if you wanted to (for a lot less money). You always get the full name of the person or company quoting on the job you want done, and an email and/or telephone # that you can quickly google or look up on facebook to at least get a glimpse into the person's life, to decide if you want to pursue their services. I am about to cancel my subscription to Care.com, and will update here if I have an issue (based on all the other reviews I read, I may).

I own and operate a pet care business. I provide pet sitting, dog walking, pet transportation, etc. I thought it would be a good idea to list my business on care.com to see if I could supplement my existing customer base. In the year that I have had my business profile listed, I have not acquired a single customer from care.com

I recieve e-mails frequently (sometimes 3-4 times per week) from care.com listing all of the potential customers seeking pet services, but I have never been contacted by any of them. Often times the same people supposedly looking for a dog walker or pet sitter in my area are listed for weeks upon weeks. Am I expected to believe these people are just sitting there waiting for a provider to contact them while they struggle along without services? Why don't these alleged customers ever look up the service providers listed in their area and contact THEM? If I needed refrigerator repair or air conditioning repair, or I wanted to schedule cable or satellite activation, I wouldn't list my needs and then sit around the house with no AC, no food, and no television until somebody contacted me begging for the job... I'm the guy with the small business, if you need services, pick.up the phone and call the number or click on the e-mail address and schedule a free consultation. In what world do the service providers call the consumers? Am I missing something?

After reading other reviews of care.com, I'm convinced none of these customers are real, which would explain why they just pop up week after week in my service area ( a service area where no other pet sitters or dog walkers operate by the way) just waiting for someone to contact them to solve their problem.

Sorry, my days of responding to help wanted ads were over a long time ago. I didn't build a successful small business so I could "apply" for work. I'm the boss. If you need my services, you call me.

If you are a service provider, I highly recommend saving your time and energy and skipping care.com altogether. I suppose it can't hurt to list your business just to have another link on the web for search engine optimization purposes, but don't expect care.com to drive any actual business your way. The only thing it will drive your way is a bunch of spam e-mails that you have to delete every other day.

Let me start off my saying they have got THE WORST customer service & policies I have ever encountered! Takes days for them to even email you back/you can stay on hold for hours!

They really should do background checks on families as well as caregivers to protect them as well. I've read a few comments about sketchy encounters girls have walked into on their Facebook wall today!

I met a woman off of care.com saying she would pay me $25 an hour to watch her 5 children (which have disabilities)... after I "train" for 5+ hours she sends me a huge email (WHICH I SCREENSHOT & sent to care.com in an email) saying how she loved me and thought I would be a perfect fit... gave me the hours she would want me to work, and at the very end of the email goes FOR THE FORST FEE MONTHS I WANT TO PAY YOU $13 AN HOUR as a trial period!

My jaw hit the ground! I was so upset that I had wasted over 5+ hours training/over an hour interviewing for this job/ driving to and from/ emailing & texting back and forth! That's a slap in the face for all the experience I have (which she knew about SHE CALLED ALL MY REFERENCES!)

ANYWAYS I sent her a very pleasant and professional email declining the job STATING unfortunately I can not accept the job for $13 an hour! She tried raising it to $15 asking if that would help! WHAT ABOUT THE $25 YOU ORINGINALLY SAID?!?

Turns out a few girls I work with at a local daycare have crossed this woman's paths and warned me! So I blocked her number.

A month goes by and she decides to give me a 1 star review on care.com saying I never got back to her and left in a huge mess without childcare! 1. I have proof with the email I sent her declining the job 2. I never accepted the job SO how did I leave you in a bad position?!

I have been trying to have care.com delete this review & you would think since I have proof they would help! It's very clear they don't care about the situation at all and that now all future parents will see is a negative review next to my name WHICH I DO NOT DESERVE!

They deleted my comment on their Facebook and blocked me from posting on their wall! I guess they don't want others to see the truth of what goes on!

I've reported Care.com to the Better Business Bureau for their practice of automatically continuing a subscription at a much higher rate with no notice and their refusal to reimburse customers once they realize what's happened, even if, as was my case, they can confirm not so much as a long-in for months.

Care.com responded with their standard "it's in the fine print" defense. Here was my response to BBB. Folks, this company could easily address these issues but they make money ripping people off like this. They don't deserve your business!

"In responding to my complaint, Care.com point to fine print in their subscription contract, which is precisely the nature of my complaint and hundreds of others over many months readily accessible on the BBB website. My complaint, as with the complaint of many Care.com customers, is that Care.com uses needlessly deceptive subscription practices (perfectly highlighted by the screenshot in their response to my complaint) showing a low subscription rate (in their screenshot ranging from $13/month to $39/month), with fine print that automatically enrolls customers in a much higher monthly rate WITH NO NOTICE. This quite predictably results in a pattern of customers unknowingly being charge one or more months at much higher rates than additionally agreed. I invite you to review the plethora of consumer complaints on the BBB website to this effect. Care.com could easily address this situation by making their billing practices more transparent, but why would they, when they are making a killing charging their own customers for services that, as acknowledged by Care.com staff in my case, many are not even using.

To add insult to injury, when customers discover they have been overcharged and Care.com confirms that said customers have not even logged into their service, they refuse to refund the subscription fees. Again, this is even in cases, like mine, where Care.com has confirmed that many months have been billed without a single login.

The BBB should not accept Care.com's defense of relying on the fine print on their website. Care.com could have addressed this issue in response to the many other complaints received by BBB, but have chosen not to because this deceptive practice is obviously a key driver of revenue. Identical practices in the financial industry have resulted in punitive judgments against banks and credit card companies, but since this is a consumer product no such regulations exist. This is why we rely on the BBB to call foul when companies deceive their customers in such a systemic manner despite easy fixes such as automatic notification of expiration of premium membership, automatic monthly notification of credit card charges (two changes that their system could easily handle since they already send automated notices at the beginning of such subscription periods), and refunding of membership fees when it can be confirmed by Care.com that such memberships were unused."

I posted a job looking for a local rabbit sitter and the post was very detailed so that there could be no misunderstandings for both parties. I had a lady interested (not local), and I asked if the distanced would be a problem, to which the reply was NO. This was then followed up by phone call, and EVERYTHING was discussed, in terms of what I expected and a price was AGREED. We then had a meeting and I was then convinced that I had agreed to one visit a day, not two and at this stage I should have said 'on your bike' but I was trying to be reasonable and agreed to one visit a day. The lady then left with my house keys. Shortly after, I sent a text just to confirm dates and the price and the text back was quite a shock, basically saying they were reluctantly accepting the price even though I had given them additional duties (post and bins). For the sake of keeping the peace, I replied and said dont worry about these tasks as I will ask family to do this. The other tasks that this woman was referring to had in no uncertain terms been agreed. At this point, I realised she was trying to be greedy and get more money even though she was getting a fair price and told her not to bother and to give me a time to collect my keys. Fourteen hours later I got a reply, basically demonstrating how unpleasant she really was. So needless to say, thank God I have seen the back of her, as I wouldn't entrust her with a goldfish let alone my precious pets and house. Incidentally the price agreed was £200 (2weeks)for one visit per day (quote''a brief visit if it would be raining!'')even taking into the cost of the round trip, she would be earning approx £16 per hour pro rata, this is after deducting the £6 fuel amount. By anyones standard, this is a very good rate of pay. Thankfully I have been recommended a PROFESSIONAL wonderful lady, who is by all accounts honest, not greedy, ensures each visit is a FULL 30 mins and does not charge extra for bringing in mail etc. and more importantly does not renage on an agreement. This lady is also legitamately qualified and experienced with MANY references, so basically it is win, win for us.