Care.comReviews 12,031

In the last 10 days I have received 2 responses from parents in Latin using Care.com? Has anyone else received a response from parents in Latin from through Care.com? In small print, a good distance from the message from the parents was the statement, "Upgrade now to view's(their error) application". I sent a reply to the parents asking them to translate their response into English. I also received an "alert" that I was being "downgraded" in my membership status. That was included by an assurance that as a "basic member", I could do just about the same as I could do with my current status. Yet they had already billed me at the higher rate for the month. It had already cleared my credit card. Has anyone experienced the same?

I signed up on care.com hoping to find a legit job caring for animals and the first response came through my phone via a fake number from Google, and the scammer posed as a "disabled lady who was moving from California to my area and needed a dog-sitter". "She" sent a cashiers check for over $2,000 and I knew it was a scam. My second response came through my phone the same exact way and it was "a guy moving from Idaho to my area and needed a dog-sitter".

Lessons: Don't put your phone number or Email on random websites and if you still want to apply for care.com, only take responses from the site itself, and even then there is no guarantee there won't be a scammer or two after you. Also, Do Not Ever put a check into your bank account without checking its validity first!

Signed up for 1 month only - keep getting billed by them - won't refund my $$. Deceitful company. I've contact the DuPage County Attorney's office to report and hopefully get resolution. I've also emailed Shelia M. (blog below) indicating interest in the lawsuit. "*******@gmail.com".

UPDATE: I was referred to the Illinois Attorney General's office which handles these types of complaints. I submitted a formal complaint OAG**************.

UPDATE 05 JUL - Care.com refunded my $35.00 on 28 JUN for the 2nd month that I didn't want.

I signed up for Care.com because I wanted to find a babysitter job over the summer. I applied many job postings but most families do not get back to me. Many families that do advertise $15-20 dollars an hour for childcare, but when you get to the interview they want to pay you $40 dollars a day. What a waste of time and gas money. Other families hire caregivers for arbitrary reasons like their daughter goes to the same dance school as the nanny. I have had families make me believe I was going to get a job and then went on to hire someone less qualified or had less availability. I would be very cautious with using this site. Ask the families upfront what price they are looking to pay and how many hours they want a week. A lot of people of Care.com just want to waste your time or mislead you.

I have been using this site as a nanny for about 5 years now, it wasn't so bad at first. Then they started charging ME not the families for background checks and now they are making me sometimes pay to email families and now I have to pay them every time I want to apply for a job! For every 20 applications I have filled out i suually only get one or two responses so to have to pay to APPLY for a job is insaine! And last they are strict to a fault on our pictures. We have to meet their standards and basically have business processional pictures, I'm a nanny not a business woman! I guess now. I need to use sittercity because they don't pull this garbage.

I have been using Care.com for years to find awesome caregivers with tons of experience for my son who is now almost 6. I always start with an email message, then a phone call. Then we meet in person and I introduce them to my son. I have met some of the most wonderful sitters on Care.com. We even found a special needs teacher to use as a babysitter when she's not teaching at her school. I'm so surprised to hear of so many scams. When looking for a good sitter, I only reply if they have a picture posted and a well written bio. Then, if there is too much back and forth in emails or calls, I just decline. Sitters either meet or don't meet my expectations, and there's no use wasting anyone's time. Anyway, I love Care.com and don't know what I would do without it. I'm sure there are scams everywhere. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. But with Care... I have really found some awesome people! Don't give up if you have experience and want to help out moms like me.... we need you and your expertise. Hang in there!

We clicked the 'One Month' subscription option to search for someone.

Six months later we had been billed hundreds of dollars because of the misleading 'One Month' subscription. It SHOULD read 'Monthly'.

They intend to mislead and no doubt have scammed users out of MILLIONS!

If you had any interest in opening a class action lawsuit against them, you can find that in their terms of service you must opt out within a month if you intend to legally join a class action suit against them... before you even have the ability to observe the fraudulent account activity.

Excerpt from their terms of service:

This Agreement contains an Agreement to Arbitrate, which will, with limited exception, require you to submit claims you have against us to binding and final arbitration, unless you opt out of the Agreement to Arbitrate (see Section 13 "Agreement to Arbitrate") no later than 30 days after the date you accept these Terms for the first time. Unless you opt out: (1) you will only be permitted to pursue claims against Care.com on an individual basis, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class or representative action or proceeding, and (2) you will only be permitted to seek relief (including monetary, injunctive, and declaratory relief) on an individual basis.

They are a deceiving, fraudulent company who prey on those seeking to find help when they are tired and desperate.

I was on this site for maybe two weeks and I am not exaggerating when I say that 100% of the responses I got for babysitting jobs were scams. I know this because I did some research on the person who was scamming me and it turns out he (who pretended to be a she) has been scamming people for years. Luckily I caught it before I gave him any money (it was a cashier check scam) but it turns out that people in my area alone fell victim to it and gave him their money.

Anyone interested in a lawsuit for their billing practices? I signed up for one month membership and they took it upon themselves to renew my subscription charging me hundreds of dollars without my consent. I'm serious about suing them, and have contacted a lawyer who would be interested if I got enough names. I've started an email account to compile contacts of people interested (*******@gmail.com) Bottom line is they charge without consent and have a business model that is deceptive to the consumer.

Needed a caregiver for a few hours, a one-off job.
Posted job description, started getting "applications".

When I tried to respond to applicants, website immediately demanded $50 for "upgrading to Premium".

I don't mind paying for services, but in this instance there wasn't any. Applicants - a few that I was able to respond to - sounded surprised and didn't know what the job was. They didn't read my ad. They were not "applicants". This website is forwarding you random resume's from the database, deleting person's contact info unless they in turn pay $50 to Care.com. They charge both employer and applicant, and do NOTHING else.

My advice to employers - don't waste your time, go to Craigslist, you'll find more caregivers there. Care.com don't do background checks anyway. They just send you random resume's - not actual responses to your ad. With a BS like "Your ad is getting attention, you have 9 responses!". What a joke.

So, here's the deal with care.com
Many folks seem to be wondering why the people who advertise jobs rarely seem to reply to job seeker's applications. I found out why after I finally got a reply from the care.com customer support team.
Care.com has two types of memberships: Basic and Premium.
If you are a Premium Member who advertises a job, you can read and answer any applications submitted to your job posting. But, if you are a Basic Member who advertises a job, you can only reply to the applicants who paid for a Premium Membership. Same thing for job seekers. If you are a Premium Member seeking a job, you can submit job applications to all postings and know that your application can be accessed and read. But, if you have a Basic Membership, the only people who can access and read your job applications must be Premium Members.

The Bottom line is this: for there to be actual communication between a job seeker and a job advertiser, either the job seeker OR the job advertiser MUST have a Premium Membership and pay the monthly subscription rates. If both parties are Basic Members, the whole process is a complete waste of time.

Hope this helps.

I have been using Care.com for the past three years b/c it does provide yet another resource to look for service providers, such as childcare or housekeepers. HOWEVER, I can't stand this company. Here's what any user needs to know about this money-grubbing outfit:

1) They auto bill when your initial subscription runs out. Yes that policy is written, but it is not at all obvious to the first time user. Rather, it is buried in small print in an obscure location on their site.

2) Although you pay for a one month subscription, your job posting is closed AFTER 21 DAYS! So, you pay for 30 days but get only 21. Again, this information is listed in very fine print in an inconspicuous place. What a scam.

3) They only allow you to contact a certain number of providers within a 24 hour period. So, if your time is crunched & you only have one opportunity to sit down & contact providers, you can only do so to a limited extent. Otherwise, you have to wait for 24 hours.

4) The response rate of the applicants is abysmal. I posted two jobs, & contacted many providers who offered the services that I was seeking. Out of those contacts, I got responses from about 2% of them, & all but one of them stated they were unavailable for one reason or another.

5) If you need to contact Care.com by phone, you better be long on patience. I was on hold for 30 minutes trying to resolve the above issue (ie, trying to use the service which I paid for, in #3 above). However, if you're willing to PAY them anywhere from $1.00 to $9.00 they'll answer your phone call quicker! No kidding!

6) Finally, you should be aware of the false advertising that Care.com does. The majority of the job postings do NOT have several ratings on the applicants, like Care.com TV ad's show. I'd say you'll find a rating on 1 out of every 25 applicants. Also, although they list 100+ applicants in some categories, you'll quickly learn that at LEAST half of them have not logged onto Care.com for a month or more, meaning, they are not actively seeking work.

Will I continue to use Care.com in the future? Yes, but only b/c I live very rurally & it is hard to find providers. However, if I had ANY other choice I would not patronize this company.

- Autohide topbar consumes 25% of browser window. Disappears when you scroll down. If you want to click anything that was on that bar, you have to scroll back to the top in order to access it.

- Photos must be square or they're stretched-to-fit. (Nobody has done this since 1999). Nowhere on their site do they even mention any size or proportion restrictions.

- Human caregiving appears to be mixed in with pet sitting. For example, to register as a pet-sitter you have to provide educational and work history. That seems a little excessive for boarding dogs. (Rover doesn't require that info.).

- When I contacted support about some of my concerns, they suggested there's something wrong with my account, and suggested I look at 3-4 things like name, address, etc. They couldn't tell me there *is* a problem. Nor could they look at the things they told me to look at. They just sent me on a fool's errand to sound like they knew what they were talking about.

I get the impression the lights are on, but nobody's home. Maybe it's offshored to India? It has that "hands off" lack of care and personal investment. I deleted my account after one day. Wasn't worth the frustration.