Care.comReviews 12,031

Care.com does not do all that it should in terms of background checks. Several months into having hired a house and pet sitter, we discovered that she had a juvenile record, which she had never been questioned about by this company. By this time, we had hired her to petsit our dog, whom she killed due to neglect, lack of feeding and watering and over stressing him with a hike in 100 weather. I do not recommend this company and feel their hiring practices are entirely self serving and deplorable to the customers they claim to serve. I will never use nor recommend this company to anyone. As far as I'm concerned they are just as responsible for death of our dog as the person they claimed to have thoroughly checked out and hired.

It seems my experience with Care.com was not unique. This company is a scam. They have an underhanded billing policy which tricks customers into auto-renewal without our knowledge. The Customer Service team will not respond proactively to legitimate complaints about inappropriate and illegal charges.

One scenario to defraud customers is thus: You will receive an email by default to your email box when a potential client responds to your posting. You may reply to emails from your own email box to the potential client without going to the site. After my one month premium subscription ended, I stopped using the site, thinking my month was up and that was it. Little did I know, auto-renewal kicked in. I was NOT NOTIFIED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NEW MONTH OF THIS RENEWAL by Care.com in any way. When a nanny emailed me after the month asking if the position was still open, naturally I responded from my own email box. According to Care.com, this constituted use of their Premium features even though I did not use their site or knowingly use this Premium feature. This tactic was used to defraud me and others.

When I brought all of this to the attention of JoAnne at customer service at Care.com, she sent me back a fake Subscription agreement, which was purported to be mine, in which it was written that "All Subscriptions are automatically renewed unless cancelled". This was either a forged or outdated document since it said the charge was for $35. In fact, my subscription was for $39.

Care.com's billing process is set up to scam and defraud customers. I intend to bring this to the attention of the relevant authorities and I would hope others like me, who have been cheated out of their hard-earned money, will do the same.

DO NOT USE THIS SITE! They only rip you off and won't refund your money! I wish I had read these reviews before subscribing. They will not advertise that they will continue charging you. So, here I am, thinking I'm paying for 1 month and I see another charge before that month is even up. SERIOUSLY, I will report them to ripoff report so more people are aware of these scam artists. Why not put it in plain words right on the page with the credit card that you WILL CONTINUE CHARGING. Oh I know why, because it's a part of your scam.

Care.com takes advantage of busy parents that think they are just paying $35 for one month of service by continuing to charge them even if they are no longer using the service. Do not give them your credit card number! They will not refund you. They will hide behind the same statement that you should have known they would continue to charge you based on the fine print. This is a very unethical company that only cares about making money. They do not care about their customers. Hopefully more people will realize this is a scam. What a perfect setup... overcharge customers and then state that the customer is at fault for misunderstanding or forgetting to cancel.

I'm giving this site 3 stars because I was very happy with my search for a caregiver - it took less than a month. But beware - even though I downgraded to a free membership before I was charged for the next month, I was still charged. I didn't receive my credit card statement until the beginning of the next month to notice the charge and when I asked for a refund I was told no because it was over 30 days. I appreciate the policy, but they did not have authorization to charge my card. They claim they have no record of my downgrading, and unfortunately even though I remember getting the confirmation screen stating I now had a "basic" membership, I have no proof so they are refusing the refund. I noticed in another response they say you should receive an email when you downgrade, but I did not receive this even after they did downgrade my account (and it wasn't in my spam either - trust me - I was looking). They admit I did not use my account during that time, yet the $39 is apparently worth turning a happy customer into a very upset one. Just be sure you get some kind of confirmation when you downgrade so you can dispute charges.

I used the site to find a tutor for my son and thought I had to pay for only that month.
Without a warning or a email they charged me continuously for the next 9 months.
They send emails about all the crap promotions etc but no email about my credit card being charged. This site is making money of people who don't use their service and but have signed up without reading about their stupid auto renewal policy. It is a scam!
Not sure if there any law where we can prevent users from being take advantage off. I heard the lady who started this site wanted to help people! Clearly not if she is taking money for service people have never used! I will never use this site.

Any company that has auto renewal policies is horrible in my book. Why do they even bother having different 1 month, 4 month, 1 year membership subscriptions. Every membership with them is infinite b/c they continue to charge your credit card even if you haven't used the website in months. No- I did not read the fine print- I had a 6 week old baby when I signed up with them. Why do they present it as a 1 month subscription period when that is not the case at all? And the fact that they respond to everyone saying that the auto renewal feature is a benefit to their customers is an absolute joke. At least the company should admit that it's a money-making practice for them.

Beware of false charges, poor record keeping and horrible customer service. We used care.com to find a babysitter and they continued to charge my credit card after I deactivated my account on their website (twice!). After spending 30 min on the customers service call center, they could not figure out why they were charging me and claimed they could not find the record even though I had my credit card bill right in front of me, They told me to call my credit card company and report a fraud charge. That only helped with one month, then they continued to bill me without authorization for 4 more months. Another 45 min with customer service call center they could not stop the false billing. They proceeded not to offer me any credits, no apology or recourse. I have had to tell my credit card company to take legal action. What a waste of time! How embarrassing for this company. Don't trust this company - and watch all the charges if you dare use them

UPDATE:

Kristen,

Your apology means NOTHING to me.!.!.!. Actions speak MYCH louder than words and your words are WORTHLESS, just as your actions are.!.!.!.

You should take a hard look at all the posts and how many times you start out saying "I'm Sorry".!.!.!.

WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE EVER! Don't waste your money or time!

I'm active duty military and I tried to downgrade my membership while out of the country and thought I had. I was charged an annual renewal fee of $140 on 10/24 and requested a refund and to cancel my service on 11/27 and they denied my request and I was told its because they have a no refund policy if not requested within 30 days of the charge. Just goes to show that care.com obviously doesn't support the military community!

Care.com was not helpful at all. I signed up for a 3 month subscription that tuned into a 9 month subscription. I did NOT find the care I was looking for and was still charged $140. I was more than willing to pay the inital $70 for the irst 3 months when I attempted to use this unhelpful site. When I called customer service they even stated they could see that there was no activity on my account over the previous 6 months but would not refund all my money. This site is a SCAM. It was extremely difficult to find the phone number on the website to call and cancel. Even after reaching a representative and requesting a manager I was only e-mailed back. Through email with the supervisor I also requested a phone call and was never called! HORRIBLE customer service. They set you up for automatic renewal and won't refund all your money even if they show NO ACTIVITY on your account.

What appears to be a welcoming and easy website to set up a personal account, ends up being difficult or impossible to make changes on. It takes some time to go through all the steps and put together a well written bio. After all was finished, I realized my headline was not good and was somewhat misleading with the type of work that I really wanted to pursue. I couldn't change my nanny headline to part time childcare (and they can't help you to do it either). That is a big disservice when that's the first thing a family will see and then skim on over to the next profile. I deleted the entire account thinking I would start over but there is no way to apply the background check I already pd for to a new profile. I now have to re enter everything new again and pay for another background check. The phone rep went through her canned speech about how the system is set up that way and there is nothing they can do. Not pleased with this company and I will not pay again for a background check that is so easily thrown out. I will be going to Rover.com to look for someone to care for my dog.

I was ripped off by a client of care.com. When I complained to care.com that their client had ripped me off of a shift's worth of work and cc'd the client, the client lied and put a bad review on my profile. When I complained to the client and care.com that I had been ripped off and lied about, care.com cancelled my account. I had written a very nice rebuttal to the lying, stealing client's bad review, but care.com refused to post it, and sided with their crooked customer. Probably because the crooked customer client was a paying member and I am not. I am booked out all the time through care.com's competitor. Precisely zero of my other clients came from care.com - so I guess it's no loss, but what a horrible experience. Theft of services. Defamation of character. And no recourse. I think the company should be called: don'tcare.com. Booo! Stay away. They are bad.

This service has gone from a good partner to a deceitful money making bureaucracy. They have instituted auto renewal on your credit card payments without any warning or change management communication to participants. Their communications are canned and the network has declined considerably. When i first used them a few years ago, I had a lot of good options, this time, i received nothing. Be careful, they will take your money.

This service deserves negative stars. BEWARE! Unless you like paying someone for nothing, which is exactly what I got. Do not fall for the free trial offer. Nothing is free with this scam of a company. I signed up for the "free" trial and discovered 11 months later that I had been charged $35 a month for an automatic monthly renewal for what they call Premium Service. For that amount, I got one pet caregiver for one visit who stole my pain medication. Almost $400 later, my husband mentions a $35 charge that had been showing up in our bank statement that he had thought was related to MY medical care. Don't even bother to try to read their fine print--just RUN and find a service with more transparent and honest dealings.

This website is a scam. They auto renew your membership and there customer service department has been advised to "never refund any money for any reason" even if they are at fault. I originally signed up for one month because I saw several in home daycare providers in my town listed and I had to purchase a one month membership in order to contact them. Once I signed up, I saw that there daycare providers did not exist! They put up fake providers to lure you to sign up. Once I realized this was a sham, I decided to not renew my membership and did not visit the site after the first month. I recently checked my credit card statement and realized that I was being charged every month - I immediately called Care.com only to be told that they never refund money to anyone. This is the response I received...

Per your request I have reviewed your case. Unfortunately, at this point we will not be able to offer you any further refunds. As the representative you spoke with explained, it clearly states on our enrollment page that we are a subscription service and that all of our subscriptions automatically renew until cancelled. I have attached a copy of this page for you to review again. Ultimately it is the member's responsibility to either downgrade the account or contact us when through using the service.

I apologize if you misunderstood our subscription service or forgot to cancel. However, if you refer to Section 8.3 of our Terms of Use you will see that all payments for services are non-refundable and there are no refunds or credits for unused services.

If you have any further questions please refer to our Terms of Use for more information.

Best Regards,
Cara
Care.com Member Care Supervisor

It did NOT clearly state that my one month membership would be auto renewed. That is a lie on there part and they are clearly hurting for money and just trying to take advantage of people. I have filed complaints with BBB and contacted care.com several times. I only accessed the site two times and realized that they falsely advertised sitters in my area to get me to sign up. Then, I was charged 37 dollars a month for NOT VISITING THE SITE, these charges were NOT AUTHORIZED BY ME and they are not willing to refund. Stay away from this site at all costs - use sittercity.com