Care.comReviews 12,031

I paid for a premium membership to find a babysitter for my two young kiddos. After a few days, they sent me an email informing me they were suspending my account because of a dismissed criminal charge in my background. I have worked on military sites, public schools and in tightly regulated environments and this dismissed charge was never an issue. I emailed them, certain it must have been a mistake, but instead of actually addressing my situation they sent an infuriating form letter. I have attempted to call customer service repeatedly during business hours and only get a message saying they are "unavailable." It's too bad this company has such terrible business practices. There is a community of great people out there using it, but care.com is using us. I do not recommend paying them for anything. As other reviews have stated, use other free resources and cut this unethical company out of the picture.

Hi! My name is Tracy and I hired Emily L from Pine Beach NJ. On her first day of watching my 2 kids, she sat on her cell texting her boyfriend the whole night and leaving my 1 year old inside the house for my 12 year old to watch multiple times. She also had my 1 year old son walk up a flight of stairs at 10:30pm and left him there to get her cell phone off the table leaving my 1 yr old to fall down the stairs. She told my 12 year old not to tell that happen but he called me right away and I came straight home! She was going through my personal belongings and I'm now missing 3 iPhones. 1 iPhone 4 and two iPhone 5. Which have personal pictures in there. My pregnancy pictures, birthing pictures as well as pics of my mom who passed away last year and those are the only pics I had! I text her to return my stuff and she ignores me and I don't want this to happen to another family., I'm very upset over this and I'm going to file a complaint!

Tracy

After they rejected me because of background check, I called the company that actually does the background check for them and they never had me in their system but they said we have hundreds of the same name but none of them match me. So watch out because they could have easily accepted the one with my name that really has a criminal record. I've waited on hold for over an hour 2 times finally got through to someone one time and they refused to deal with me at all, they simply refuse to think that they have even made an error. Since I paid for the background check I requested a copy they still refuse to deal with me and say they don't have it. Also there are so many tons of fake ads on there it's impossible to sort through to a real person. My rating is actually below 1 for them. Scary stepford website.

I signed up for Care.com and found a really nice nanny. However, finding that nanny took too many hours of scrolling through a poorly set up site. Site is not consumer friendly.
Once my subscription ended, I was given an option of 12 months for $50. I signed up for it thinking it was a great deal. Today, 6 months later, I am charged $50 dollars again. After calling Care.com, they said it was a mis-print and they would not honor the 12 months. POOR BUSINESS! After reviewing the other reviews on here, Please look elsewhere for care services for your loved ones.

For anyone who is on care.Com looking fobabysitting, pet care or nanny jobs... PLEASE don't listen to anyone who contacts you and says they need a job done, are moving, or will be out of town and offer you money up front. It is all a scam. I ALMOST got sucked into one by someone saying that they are "moving to my neighborhood" from Australia and will need me to watch their dog while they are at work. They offered me $400 a week and said they would send me a check ahead of time so I can get pet supplies. Of course it sounded to good to be true and my gut feeling said not to give them my information. I did some research and care.com clearly warns you about those types of scams. Since I've had a account the only people who contact me are scammers who use different names and switch up their stories.

I signed up for an account so I could find an in-home daycare for my daughter. I started researching only to discover that I needed to pay to see all of the contact info. I paid the ridiculously high fees only to discover that I still couldn't see the contact info because the in-home daycares didn't pay (Not my problem). I was able to get a refund for my money but it was a huge hassle and took several hours to straighten out. I found a great daycare that I love on Google for free in less than ten minutes. I will never do business with care.com again.

Like many others, I was looking for a nanny/babysitting job. Someone contacted names Brydon contacted me telling me he was moving to my state because his wife was having breast cancer surgery. He wanted to send toys to my house but he needed me to give money to the you seller. I deposited the check but it had a hold until a few days. I started discussing some of the issues and the next day I went to the bank and told them I think I had been scammed into cashing a fraudulent check. I have never heard of scams with baby sitting so I wasn't aware this was a reoccurring issue. Now that I look back a lot of the things were weird however as a young person who was looking to help children and be employed I thought it was the blessing I was looking for, however it ended being the worst situation ever. He has my number and address. Don't sign up for this website

I received my first contact after months of being signed up on care.com. I didnt pay for any memberships or anything. Just my simple profile. I got an email from a lady around 30 years old, lived in Florida, hard of hearing and wanted me to pay the furniture people who were moving her stuff from florida and help her mother pay for bills. She told me her name was Falica Brown and sent me pictures of her and her daughter. She sent me a check worth around $3000 and said i could take $300 of it. I went to walmart to cash it because i did believe it was a scam but if i had cashed it at wal mart i would be in less of a risk. It didnt work so i went to the bank and they almostt cashed it until i told them the story and that i was a little scared, they ran it and it was fake. They said i would have owed the bank all of that money. I texted the girl ( who weirdly texted me everymorning asking how i was and how my day was.) and had a few not nice things to say as she tried to convince me it was real and i should try to go somewhere else. I let the bank keep the check and put it in their fraud section so nothing like that could happen again. I was very scared as I am only 18 years old and pregnant so i am not capable of protecting myself much if something worse happened. I feel like it couldve gone a lot worse. Be careful and i would advise to stay away from the website. Or atleast be cautious and not trust anyone on there or any similar stories

I would give the site 5 stars if they hadn't cancelled my subscription after 3 days. I used this site previously and found a wonderful caregiver so when I moved to a new place and needed a new nanny, I signed up again. This time I've been using it for 3 days and tried to sign on today to confirm an interview appointment and my subscription was terminated. I have literally done nothing wrong, no complaints or anything. I paid almost 100 dollars to have the unlimited background checks and 3 months of use and 3 days later my membership has been terminated. Luckily, I already did 5 interviews and found a few quality people to choose from or I'd be in a worse spot. I'm very disappointed in care.com as of right now. I still haven't gotten my money back. The messaging portion of the website and app are designed so poorly that I couldn't read my messages because they were disappearing repeatedly and bouncing around the screen when I would open one so I had to give people my cell number. That's the only reason I can think of why they terminated it. This is terrible business practice. I hope they shut down quickly. Especially since I saw that they were facing a wrongful death suit because they didn't report back on a background check and the caregiver ended up getting drunk and murdering a 3 month old baby. This site is a scam to steal money from parents.

For anyone considering care.com, let me warn you. Even if you pay for a premium membership and are in contact with others through the site, once your membership expires, you are no longer able to contact anyone and their contact information--if they provided any--is redacted from any previous communications. The site warns you to contact others ONLY through their site, supposedly to protect your privacy, but this is a load of crap. It's so they can try to force you to pay a new membership fee to access information you already received.

Additionally, there are essentially no real protections provided against fraudulent, unethical, or misleading information available through the site. You're far better off with word of mouth, and if that doesn't work for you, you might as well use Craigslist for free since Care.com can't protect you from any of the risks that may concern you.

Finally, care providers who list with the site have NO IDEA how limited the functions are for non-premium members, so it can create a lot of misunderstanding.

I had a horrible experience with this website! I was in contact with someone for a month or so and they wanted for to purchase a wheelchair for their disabled son and she would send me a check for 2950, which i received yesterday but at that point i already knew the person wasnt real! I have since deleted my profile and moved on, if you are going to use this site id advise you to only talk on the site. Not via text or email! Its not a good feeling in the end, to many scams now a days! Just be careful!

I purchased a 1-Month Premium Membership since you can't do anything on the site without one, and I was aware that it would automatically renew each month until I canceled. I found a nice sitter, so that is not my complaint. My complaint is that I downgraded my membership a month later, but found just now (4 months after the fact!) that they were still charging me this whole time, despite me having downgraded! I log back into my account and it still had me listed as a premium member. So I canceled my account. It's set to be canceled in a few days, so I will diligently check my bank account to make sure they do not try to take any more of my money. After what I've read online about their customer service and refusal to work out any problems, I'm not even going to bother contacting them and waste my time. I will simply make sure my bank blocks them from taking any further money.

I spoke to a woman from care.com for nearly a month, she was supposed to be moving to my area and needed a sitter for her six year old son, and some errands(such as paying for furniture and some of her moms bills.) I received a check for $2,775 in which I was supposed to use to do the above mentioned things. This woman told me she was hard at hearing, 39 years old, never married, catholic, etc. After careful research, I've found multiple people who have come in contact with nearly the same story just changing the sex of the child. I advise you to BE CAREFUL when using this site. I had the check examined by my bank, they said it was fake, and then I called the bank on the check, in which they also said it wasnt a valid check. There are three separate state addresses listed on the check, obviously showing that its fraudulent. After telling the woman I was going to shred her check, she kept begging for me not to, telling me to trust her, blah blah. ITS FAKE. Its all fake. So watch your back, and if you receive a text telling you to email someone because they need a sitter, dont do it. Its a scam.

I signed up with Care.Com nearly 2 months ago as a part time sitter. I am currently working for 3 families.
For the first month, had tons of views but no one responded to my applications. I then decided to purchase the background check, and motor vehicle check. Very cheap.
I also made a video of myself introducing me and why they should hire me. After that I have been inendated with offers from providers. I have had to turn down quite a few as my 3 families utulize me 4 days/nights a week. I was even asked if I could do overnights by one.
This site is easy to use and Beneficial to both the provider and job seeker.

The business is highly questionable. The auto renewal policy is nothing but a way to steal money from people. You will not be notified of any charges. The customer service? Well, they never respond to any negative comments or grievances, once they have your money they have nothing to do with your well being. They send fake certificates and cheap gift cards to up the value of their $#*!ty box. And the no returns and no cancellation is cherry on top.

I signed up a year ago to try to find a babysitter for my 2-year-old, as we were brand new to the area and didn't have anywhere else to turn at the time. I signed up for a 3-month subscription and paid with credit card. I was overwhelmed by the number of applications I received for my posted job, and after doing a few interviews with potential babysitters, realized I needed to find a referral from someone I knew because I did not trust anyone I was meeting. I never got on the website again, assuming my membership would just expire and I'd be done with it. However, I just checked my credit card statement, and I have been continually charged for the past year, even though I was not using the website. I was not informed that my subscription would be renewed like this- via US mail or email. I have heard NOTHING from care.com since I signed up over a year ago. It's my fault, since I haven't been looking closely at my credit card statements to notice that I was billed over and over again, but I'm just very disappointed and feel scammed.