Sittercity

Be careful with this company when it comes to billing. They auto-renew your account without telling you for more than the initial approved charges. Apparently they state that your account will be auto-renewed somewhere in the fine print. They do not send you a confirmation or receipt indicating that you signed up for any type of auto renewal service and make it very difficult to avoid getting caught in their trap.
I emailed customer service the day the charge was place on my card and they refused to refund my money back, even though I had not used their services in 3 months.
Worst customer service ever and worst way to take your money. They have mastered the art of charging you for nothing. Care.com offers much better customer service and has a much more clear system for payments and auto renewals.

Honestly, if I could I would give sitter city a -100% for their customer service as well as their procedures. I have been a member with sitter city for 7 years and never have I ever gotten myself "removed" from their website. What they failed to do was run background checks FIRST before allowing people to join. I am currently unemployed NOW because Sittercity has decided to COMMUNICATE with the family I was supposed to work for and tell them to "no longer make communication" with me due to my background check. Unfortunately, I had a lot of personal issues going on with my family around 2015/2016 and that caused me to have my license suspended due to my insurance company informing DMV that my family was "late" on a payment - long story short, the payment was made the next day but they still suspended the license at the end of 2015 going into 2016. So of course is shows up as two suspensions on my driving record. As well as two violation tickets that were paid off as well but of course sit on your record for a while -luckily they get removed at the end of September. ANY-WHO! Sittercity removed me from the website due to my "violations". So of course they send your background check that LITERALLY DOES NOT GIVE EXPLANATIONS as to why your ineligible to babysit. From there I tried contacting Sittercity for a week. Literally today makes a week that I've been trying to get answers out of them. They told me they weren't "allowed" to disclose the information as to why I got removed and directed me to their policy page to read "what I did wrong". I did ABSOLUTELY nothing wrong lol but yet and still the family I'm supposed to be working for now all of a sudden thinks im a CRIMINAL! YES. YOU READ THAT CORRECTLY, I would post pictures of the texts/conversations I had with this family. And of course when you call the background check company (Sterling's Talents) they tell you everything looks good on their end and there's no criminal background LOL. So literally for a WEEK I'm freaking out because I can't understand whyyyyyyyyyyyy on earth I would be removed from a site after using it and HIRED TWICE through them for the past 7 years. NOW you have a problem with my driving record? Why didn't you guys have a problem with it the first time I got hired through your site and the family ran a background check?/ GENUINELY confused.

Finally I decided to pretend to be a "friend" seeing if they would give me some info. And man when I tell you these customer service women are BEYOND BACKWARDS, they're completely and totally beyond backwards. Now all of a sudden you can disclose information to me? When I'm asking in a HYPOTHETICAL form?! INSANE! So now I am unemployed lol not that that is ANYONES problem but my own, but when you have a face to face interview with a family, and they end up LOVING YOU, ask you to see if you can quit your $45,000 yearly job ASAP, it's upsetting to know that all it takes is one little email from sittercity to have a family worry to the point where you have to beg them to communicate with you and prove to them you aren't a criminal. It's sickening. And what's even more sickening is the women behind the customer service phones at their headquarters. They're RUDE and OBNOXIOUS and they do wish to help you at all. "There's no supervisor here" WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?!?!? You supervise yourself?

As you can see I am TRULY fed up with this company, as much as I would always recommend them to my family and friends who wanted to either put a post out for babysitters or vice versa, I will NEEEEEEEEVER recommend this company for people who are looking to babysit children. GO TO CARE.COM, BECAUSE THEY ACTUALLY CARE AND DON'T DO SHADY THINGS LIKE THIS!

I'm a caregiver who was looking for families in need of service and not only was account locked out of nowhere but the lock caused me to miss out on potential offers because I had of way knowing they contacted me (even with my email and cell being on the site) then the few "families" that managed to reach me where SCAMS they were asking for my name (which is clear as day on the site) my address and card info before we even established a meetup time. My account is still active and I have no idea how to get rid of it, I don't even take inquires from the site anymore because it's so shady. I'm appalled and beyond irritated by that sham of a "website"

Please stay away and don't waste your time applying for nanny, caregiver or any jobs at this site, because it is built by a Scam organization! Notice that you are required to give money in order to get a job on their site, this is the first Red Flag that it is a Scam! They have also recently posted a fake website to defend their reputation, but in going there, it directs you back to their Sittercity.com website... All disgusting, manipulating online Criminals! Protect your money and credit card account from vultures Scam Companies know the RED FLAGS signs!
https://www.thebalancecareers.com/top-job-scam-warning-signs-*******

On 7/15/2019 SitterCity closed my account for absolutely NO reason! I paid for a 6 month membership. I was a member in good standing for 2 months.

I, Steve, and my wife Skirma opened the account under her name. The picture on the account was a picture of she and I. We do not have any children. I was seeking a local person to pet sit 2 black labs for me on weekends. I contacted a few people who were listed as "baby sitters", in the hopes that they would also be open to pet sitting as well. I pay top dollar, and am honest and fair. "Pet sitting" is a valid, listed job category on SitterCity. Additionally, MANY people seeking employment on SitterCity list themselves as seeking one job, but are open to doing other jobs as well!

My account was closed with NO reason, NO justification, and NO explanation.

When people spend their time to open an account, PAY them for their service, and seek to employ someone in good faith, there is NO justification for them to arbitrarily close the account.

Do all that you can to avoid this service. They are HORRIBLE. And when you call to try to get an explanation as to why they closed your account, the representatives become unprofessional, defensive, dismissive, and openly hostile.

AVOID SITTERCITY AT ALL COSTS.

This company is very deceiving. I signed up for the one month service to find a babysitter. After the one month I was led to believe that they would no longer debit my account. Two months later I realized they had a recurring debit of $35 each month. When I called the number listed for sittercity it took forever to actually get through to a person to speak about my account. When I was actually able to get in touch with someone, I was told that in the agreement it states that it will be a recurring payment and they will not issue refunds. So I lost $70 plus I never even found a sitter for my children. I do not recommend using sittercity.com.

Even though my experience with this unethical company was two years ago, I feel compelled to try and warn as many others as I can. Their business model depends on people not reading the fine print. In my case, when I noticed "auto-renewal" on the purchase page, I backtracked to make sure I had not selected an auto-renewing policy or subscription. It clearly stated a 3-month plan (which I did to take advantage of a discount). If auto-renewal was on the selection page, it must be in fine print. Yes, my bad. Sittercity is a predatory business that relies on customers signing up for what they think is a limited time frame of access to their program. Customers then realize that they are being charged or have been charged multiple times without their consent. When contacting the customer service department their trained response is to say that the customer signed up for a recurring service in the fine print. Trust me, there is no place where that information is prominently EXPLAINED. I actually called them on the day that I noticed the charge on my bank account, which was still "processing." They refused to refund the charge, though I was able to cancel my subscription. While they may not legally have to notify you that they are billing you, this is the ethical, transparent way to conduct a subscription-based or renewing-policy-based business. Examples: Amazon Prime, Netflix, most likely your car insurance provider, etc., send an email to let you know that your policy or subscription is due to auto-renew. Sittercity's business model is deplorable and to to do this during the pandemic is unconscionable.

This company practices dishonest billing practices. Buyer beware! We were forced to pay for an additional 3 months of service which we did not want. Sittercity would not refund us even though we cancelled on the day they billed us. We filed a dispute and sittercity fought us on that too and had our dispute overturned. I will fight this out of principle and be filing a complaint with the BBB and reopening the credit card dispute as well. Do not give this company your credit card if you aren't prepared to be charged without your consent.

I signed up for services from sittercity.com. After spending almost $150 on membership fees alone without having any success using their site, I downgraded my membership. I reached out to them when I was billed another $70 just for membership services to notify them of the error since I had already downgraded. They neglected the entire issue but instead stated that their policy mentions that there are no refunds. Not only that, but I am unable to remove my card information. Also, at the end of the response, Stephanie B. Proceeds to tell me that she will be closing my support ticket. So basically they are free to continue to charge my card and contacting them through support is useless.

I have been going back and forth with them constantly repeating my issue through the complaint system with the Better Business Bureau. They have actually acknowledged the entire conversation with their support team, but then proceeds to tell me that this is the first time I have contacted them... come on now pick a side. It can't be both. They continue to insist that they have no record of any prior downgrade... which I have now done TWICE, and also now that they have billed me for another 3 months, they can delete my account but the 3 months that they have billed me for will still not be refunded. What in the world is really going on here. Not to mention whomever I am speaking to from their department seems to not care about the issue at hand and be snobby with their responses. Very unprofessional. Still at this point, I'm out every penny I have been charged and their bright idea for a solution is to delete my account and keep ALL my money even though they have charged me for another 3 months. Someone over there isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. That's the BEST solution they have come up with. No my dear, that won't cut it.