Tanja P.

This site does nothing but taking your money. It is also a part of Care.Guide.com marketplace.

For the past few months I was looking for a babysitter job in Chicago area. First I posted on Craigslist, which got me several job offers, but soon I discovered a scam. I will describe the scam on Craigslist, because after I signed in on sitter.com I kept receiving the same letters even more, and not any real request from real family.

All the letters look similar, and there's a pattern. It's always some engineer or military person, wealthy and full of trust, who is coming to your town with a toddler, and staying at the hotel for a month, offering 20$ or more for an hour, not even asking questions. They also offer, which no real person would do, to send you a check in advance, on 600$ or so.
Using those letters, I did some research online and found it is about a classic fraud with check in advance, which causes people to lose thousands of dollars.

At the same day I posted on Craigslist, I also received a message to try sitter.com. I could not found any bad reviews (and now when I'm thinking, not any reviews), and site has jobs listed, people with photos and profiles. They were also cheaper than similar sites, covering USA and Canada, so I decided to give them a chance, becoming featured member for 5$ per month. I received a welcoming message from John Phillip Green, apparently chief executive, who is a real person according to his public listed facebook profile.
I also got other emails with tips how to use site, all regular things as on any similar site.

But, soon after that I started to receive the same letters as on Craigslist! Different names, similar stories, and two of them only 5 min one after another, with exact same text and different names!

I wrote back to John Philip Green, asking is there a place where I can report a scam, but never received replay.

I decided to end my subscription, so I did it. In settings and options, there was again the option to click featured, so I was sure I cancelled it. I was only subscribed for 15 days, receiving spam only.

But, when my bank report came, next month, I could see they charged me again, even after I cancelled! Not just that, first day I subscribed, they charged me the same amount twice in few min!
They charged me 3 times, and I asked for a refund, at least for two of the payments. I send another email, explaining my situation with multiple payment, asking for a refund. Similar thing can happen, paying bills online, but so far at the other companies you can call costumer service, see what happened and get refund.

But not these guys. I got replay that I must have several accounts or email addresses so it might be that. I didn't want to give any more of my personal information and I called my bank to block any other request from that company. Luckily, it works.

If you type in address of the company, street view will give you abandoned warehouse area, not a sign of anyone working there.

So, for any next user, you will receive all the formal emails, but not have any results. If you go further, you will lose your money.

I don't know if Craigslist fraud has anything to do with people on sitter.com but stealing my money on membership, even if it's 15$, with no effort to try to solve my problem and get me a refund, makes them look pretty shady.

Anyone who is searching for the poorest, weakest, the most fragile people, mostly immigrants, who are already poor and have no luck, and no power to strike back, to do such fraud, deserves to be recognized. They count on that you don't know local circumstances well yet, you are not familiar with computer and you are desperate searching for a job.

I've learned my lesson and I hope this post will show up in google search to help someone else, I wish I could find some before I signed up there.