Care.com
reviews and complaints

Hi Kaligrl123,

We're horribly sorry about your experience with an employer you found through Care.com. We can assure you that any report you made to Care.com would be fully considered, and immediately passed on to the safety team to review and take any appropriate actions. Care.com does run preliminary checks on all of our members, and do consider any complaints or reviews against members. Per our terms of use, Care.com reserves the right to remove an account for any reason or no reason, with or without notice.You are welcome to contact our Member Care department at any point to discuss your removal from the site.

Regards,
Care.com Member Care Representative

I believe' Mom of three2' is expecting a lot more out of the kind of service Care.com than she should expect. I believe this service is no more then a kind of Craig's List to help people locate each other over the Internet who share certain interests, very much like an online dating service, or other social network. In Care.com's case the social network is specific to people who are desiring to locate services or service providers. Be realistic, why would you expect anymore out of Care.com than you would from the classified ads in your local newspaper? There is always a risk involved when strangers attempt to meet one another.

Hi Mom of three2, I am a member care representative from Care.com. I am sorry to hear that you did not have a good experience using our service. We do have the same standard for every member that enrolls on the service, meaning that we run a verification check on all members before their account goes live on the site. We also give members the ability to run more in-depth checks once they become a member and are looking to actively hire through the site.
If there are any issues between a family and a caregiver, we encourage members to contact us regarding these issues, or to leave feedback about the experience they had with a particular care provider. Any member complaints or concerns are escalated directly to our safety team for further review and appropriate action. Once member reviews are posted, whether positive or negative, they are not removed from a care provider’s profile. It is not part of our policy to terminate a membership for leaving honest feedback about an experience they had.
There are several reasons why we would terminate a membership, but per our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy we cannot disclose the specific reasons as to why an account does get removed from the service. Again I do apologize for your experience, but am happy to hear you were able to find a great fit through another service.

I completely agree, I knew there had to be some sort of payment involved from the applicants. I, too, wrote a complaint to them this week after 2 applicants did not show up for interviews they scheduled with me. Also, 1 of the applicants I feel like was dishonest in her resume and references with me. She listed immediate family members as references and the one family she supposedly cared for, she could not find the phone number for them!? come on, that is a big red flag that something isn't right. The response from care.com to my complaint was basically putting it off on me, on how to interview clients. Hello, you can't interview someone who does not show up. I am a manager at a large hospital, I am completely aware of how to screen and hire an employee. My point is, I have paid this company to do this prescreen for me and to have only qualified applicants working for them.
when you have to pay for this and the applicants are so inept, it is really frustrating. I think you should not have to pay unless you hire the applicant through the service.

I wrote today saying that there were identical ads in various markets, and it seemed to be spam or a phishing scam. They wrote back saying it was a multiple listing service they use. So this seems to confirm that they are going for short term revenue in lieu of building a trusted service. They will not last if that is the case. I got a great job through the service, but it was before I noticed this abundance of fake ads. Awful.

I am having the same issue. I'm still no sure how it works. People looking for work have to pay to post their ad, people looking to hire has to pay to be able to contact the people looking for work. After I pay the membership, am I able to view all contact info for those looking for work? Or will I only have access to contact info for those who paid their membership fee? How do you know who paid and who didn't pay? I cant find these answers on the website.

Hi IL60103, I am a member care representative from Care.com. I am sorry to hear that you did not have a good experience with our site. To clarify, we offer the free basic membership as a way for members to evaluate the site before upgrading with a membership fee. Upon enrollment, all members are made aware that there is a fee associated with actively hiring a provider through the service.

With the free account you can search the site and view potential candidates in your area, and also post a job ad and receive applicants for it. Once you have found a few care providers that you’re interested in, you can upgrade with one of our memberships. This gives you all of the tools you would need to actively hire a care provider. It allows you to contact other members, check references, read through reviews and run background checks on any of the candidates that you’re interested in. Once you have found a safe and reliable provider through the service, you can cancel you can cancel the membership and are no longer billed for the service. Again I apologize for the experience, but I hope this information helps.

I don't think it's such a horrible thing for there to be a membership fee. It helps weed out scammers and people that aren't serious about needing care of some kind. I doubt many people that want to use the sight for malicious things would want to pay the fee, hence it saves people a lot of trouble. Besides, your kids should be worth paying the $35 fee.

Thanks for your review. I am a job seeker who just signed up for the site and I was wondering if it would be worth it for me to "upgrade" my membership to get noticed more easily by potential customers. Now I see that it is not. Thank you for saving me the $20.00.

I am having trouble getting on Care.com about the cost of the premium package? When I put my phone number in It keeps tell me " not a valid phone number". I know my own phone number. I even try using my cell phone number same thing. ?

Hi Aison, I am a member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience. For privacy and security reasons, we cannot release any specific details as to why an account gets removed from the service. It is listed in our Terms of Use that we reserve the right to close a members account for any reason, and the Terms of Use is something all potential members agree to upon enrollment. When we do remove an account, it is a final decision and cannot be reversed. Again I do apologize for the experience you had with our service, but I wish you best of luck in your future job searches.

Hi,

I am ROB TSERETELI the husband of the Elsie Deocares who registered to care.com looking for the job .
We were pay for $ 44 Dollar for 3-4 Month membership. The representative from Bank Of America called me and they Informed to me regarding that the care.com is charging since February every Month $44 and some change .
We did not confirmed to care.com pay Automated the payment. We did pay just for the care.com ones and told to them we wont continue the payment .
What kind of the permission you have a charging from my bank account the money without my authorization ?
I will report care.com to Business burro for the illegal activities and you know what goanna happen .
Urgently eliminate the Elise Deocares Account and all my money which you charge from My Account since February return to my account back as soon as possible I need update as soon as possible from you and after I will take my action
Rob Tsereteli
Cell: [protected]
Email: initialtreasury@gmail.com

Hello, I am a Member Care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience. The information you fill out to have a profile on the site is not made public to anyone, and is purely for the safety and security of the site. The detail of the profile is optional; you can fill out the description boxes you would like, and leave others blank if you would rather not fill it out. You also have the ability to set your response time as well. If you feel that it would be unrealistic to answer messages within a day, then you can set the response time to a longer period. I apologize that the photo rejection was a little confusing. The primary photo has stricter guidelines: It has to be just a clear shot of you with no one else in the photo. The secondary photos are able to have other people in the photo as well as animals. Again I am sorry for your experience, but hope that I was able to clarify a few things.

Sorry that last one was posted to the wrong one ^^^

I don't think it's such a horrible thing for there to be a membership fee. It helps weed out scammers and people that aren't serious about needing care of some kind. I doubt many people that want to use the sight for malicious things would want to pay the fee, hence it saves people a lot of trouble.

I think y'all need to pray.Care.com is amazing . So negitive energy brings negitive energy. The parents are cheap. The site has been good to me. 1 bad apple can't spoil it for the rest of the professionals who actually get job. They have connected me to some awesome parents...

Hi rameng, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience with the service. If your account is not approved on the site, we do have helpful guidelines for our members to follow in order for the account to get fully approved and go live on the site. For the safety and security of the community, we do reserve the right to suspend or remove accounts for any reason or no reason, as listed in our Terms of Use. Once an account is removed the personal information is no longer available on the site. Again I do apologize for your experience, but wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

They suspend when you are not following the rules oor you are not a goood fit for the site. They only allow professionals. So you need to look into yourself and fix it they maybe they willl approve you. There rules to follow. Attitude iis everything. Be positive you get positive. Be negitive and get negitive. Your tongue iss powerful. Word of mmouthcan make or break you my love.

Dear Noway hose,
I was not aware of any of my family members working for Care.com. In that case can you please refrain from using my name in vain. I suffered enough back in the 80's when the name calling first started on the playgrounds and then again when some idiot decided to make a MTV show back in the 90's. I thought finally the use of this word had been erased from the minds of everyone, but NO you had to bring it back. Enough Already!

Sincerely,
Jerimiah Butt-Head

I worked for Inside Sales department at Care.com out of Waltham, MA. They have red flag keywords they look for when you search. In other words if you search for a "sexy" baby sitter or something to that affect they ban you from the site and don't tell you why.

It's a decent place to work if not for a couple of buttheads. My supervisor being one of them. He's the real life comic store guy from the Simpsons.

Hi Maureen,
We're very sorry about your experience with Care.com. Per policy, the only person who could remove a review would be the member who wrote it. However, you are given the opportunity to respond to a review, and you ultimately will get the final word on that review. Everything you submit on the site does have to go through an approval process, including reviews and review responses. A couple of reasons a response may have been rejected would be if it included specific information (ie. last names, specific locations, contact information) or if it had anything inappropriate.
Any concerns you had about another member would have been passed right on to our safety team to look in to. We take all complaints very seriously, and if you have anything further that you would like to report to us about the situation I do encourage you to contact us regarding it.
We again apologize for this experience, and wish you all the best in your future endeavors.

Lots of negative comments around the web for Care.com. No surprise. As an excellent caregiver myself with an excellent work history and reputation who found a difficult employer through Care.com, I quit the position and difficult employer (who had a long history of unhappy caregivers) retaliated with a negative review on my profile. When I challenged this Care.com refused to post my response. I corresponded with David at care.com (who had no last name) outlining the difficulties of the employer. I was informed that Care.com has no obligation to unwarranted negative comments and they refused to remove it. I had been a paying member for over a year. They threw a good caregiver under the bus; meanwhile an abusive employer is allowed to continue on. Their policies are hostile to caregivers. Any company with such a backwards approach exercises bad judgment and is not worthy of your trust to find good care for yourself or your family.

TO: Those who are really pissed off at Care.com for fraudulent charge and misleading advertisement and unstoppable recurring charges even after you cancel the service, PLEASE file a complaint with FBI's Internet Crime Report Center.
If all of us who were scammed by these people file, something GOOD will come out of it.

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

File a Complaint

The IC3 is co-sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Complaints filed via this website are processed and may be referred to federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for possible investigation. I understand any investigation opened on any complaint I file on this website is initiated at the discretion of the law enforcement and/or regulatory agency receiving the complaint information.

Hello, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience, but per our policy we do not remove reviews from profiles on the site. We give all members the opportunity to respond to the review that listed on the account, but the only person who has the ability to remove the review is the person who originally posted it. Again I do apologize for your experience, but wish you luck in your future job searches.

TO: Those who are really pissed off at Care.com for fraudulent charge and misleading advertisement and unstoppable recurring charges even after you cancel the service, PLEASE file a complaint with FBI's Internet Crime Report Center.
If all of us who were scammed by these people file, something GOOD will come out of it.

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

File a Complaint

The IC3 is co-sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Complaints filed via this website are processed and may be referred to federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for possible investigation. I understand any investigation opened on any complaint I file on this website is initiated at the discretion of the law enforcement and/or regulatory agency receiving the complaint information.

Hi, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for any misunderstanding. Our memberships are subscription based, so they do automatically renew until they’re canceled. The member is made aware of this both on the payment page, and on the confirmation page after a payment is made. You also have the option to set a reminder on the confirmation page, which sends a notification email seven days before the renewal date. Your subscription can be canceled at any time, and can be taken care of through the ‘Profile and Settings’ page on your profile. You can also call/email us to cancel if you are more comfortable doing so. As per our Terms of Use, we do have a no refund policy and can only make exceptions in certain situations. Again I apologize for any misunderstanding, and wish you the best of luck in your future searches.

I've tried about 500 different photos of myself! No sunglasses, just me very simple. Literally gets denied every time. Something about this system is very annoying. Sure an actual person looks at the picture...I wish. I'm about to call them personally about this issue, it's unfortunate it takes caregivers 10X the work to do one simple thing!

Hi, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for any misunderstanding. When photos are not approved, we give some common reasons as to why the photo may have been rejected. A primary profile picture needs to be a clear shot of your face, with just you in the photo. This makes it easier for families to put a face to the person they’re corresponding with. We allow families to post job ads on the site with the free basic membership. They can view the applications, but in order to view contact information and message providers back, they do need to upgrade to the Premium Membership in order to do so. Once they upgrade, your contact information is made visible and they would be able to contact you directly through the site. We are the platform where families and caregivers can connect with each other, so it is entirely up to the family to upgrade their membership and get in contact with the providers that they’re interested in. I hope that this information helps, but if you have any further questions or concerns about the site please let me know how I can help.

Hello, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I apologize for any misunderstanding. As someone signing up on the site to seek employment, you do not need to pay a membership fee in order to do so. During enrollment, you would come across a page that advertises a “Premium Provider” membership, but this is an optional feature. You can skip the payment page and just create the account. The basic account allows you to create the profile, search for jobs and apply to them right through the site. You are located in search results for families to find, and are able to exchange contact information with them without ever paying a membership fee. I hope this information helps, and best of luck in your future job searches.

Count me in. I am another victim of the auto renewal. There needs to be a lawsuit.

I too join the group of people that have been cheated by Care.com. I signed up for a month and have been charged for 6 months - without my explicit consent. When I complained, they returned fees for 1 month. How does Care.com justify stealing people's money like this? Such unethical business practices must be stopped. They offer NO option to only use the service for a month. On top of that, Care.com sends a barrage of spam that forces you to click over to the site and they claim that to be utliization. I am extremely disgusted by these shady and unethical business pracitices. Shame on you, Care.com. You claim to be helping people but are really just crooks. My email address is seemeen@gmail.com if you care to investigate.

Shame on me for having this happen to me several times over the years - AUTO RENEWAL hidden in the webpage - BURIED settings, difficult to find, and obviously in order to bilk customers for millions.

I was charged hundreds of dollars several years ago and just discovered another 3 month autorenewal - after my complaint to "support" to refund my unused balance of the $78, the "NO REPLY" auto-mailer spawned "Your Care.com account has been successfully set to downgrade at the end of your current billing cycle on 12/10/2017, and your credit card will no longer be charged. Until that time, you still have full access to all the benefits of your Premium Membership."

NO way to contact a real person. SCAM, SCAM, SCAM. I will NEVER use this site nor recommend it again!

I will be contesting the credit card charge. This is FRAUD. Many have wanted to start a class action suit - is there one yet?
Dr PK

I agree on the Negative comments above. I am an IT Professional but somehow missed this auto renewal thing, very bad for a company that has such a reputation. Such a Greed is unbelievable. And there is no way we can talk to Customer Service over the phone, you go into loop and end up with all automated messages.

Add me to the list of those scammed. I signed up for one month of service, and later found $500 in charges on my credit card. Unbelievable. Never, never, use this horrible company. TOTAL SCAM!

I did not use care.com in nearly a year and then today I find that a week ago they charged my credit card nearly $170 for a year's subscription! Not only is this practice unethical, but it's illegal in the state of NY as we require a customers’ express consent before charging them for a renewal. I was not notified and I certainly did not consent to this charge. It's the weekend and I can't get a hold of customer service, but I fully plan to have this charge reversed. More importantly, I plan on reporting them to the NY attorney general as the notice burden of the service before the renewal. This is such a crummy practice and the states really should intervene.

Please add me to the list of people who find care.com and their auto renewal policy sneaky and deceptive. This policy is out of alignment with the care.com brand, which will ultimately backfire when customers overwhelmingly feel cheated. Personal, I sought the services provided by care.com during a family crisis when we realized my mother in law required immediate care and we were thousands of miles away. I was definitely not scouring the website for the small print. I have been saddened to read many complaints from customers who incurred not only the unauthorized charge, but overdraft fees when these charges hit their accounts. It certainly adds salt to the wound that this practice is employed by a company that publicly claims to care. The thousands of complaints could easily be avoided with a simple reminder of renewal email, but then that would cut into a revenue stream that is counted on to achieve fiscal goals. Why start a company based on caring, then treat your customers with such disregard? One day they will cheat the wrong person and a class action law suit will inevitably be started. I look forward to this day.

I find the care.com subscription process to be highly deceptive. Unlike a magazine subscription where you receive something each month of tangible value. Your subscription offers "site access" which requires the customer to unlock the value first. This flies under the consumer's radar. Let's face it Care.Com knows that it's easier to "get paid" when the customer is looking the other way. Companies like Care.com that do not "affirmatively transfer value" to the customer should only offer subscriptions with "affirmative renewals" (explicit customer consent at the time of the renewal). Auto renewals should be offered only if the company can find a way to verify "affirmative value transfer at the time of renewal or a recent pattern of value transfer." In contrast, if a customer subscribes and does not log in again that customer is highly likely to be unaware of their subscription and should not be a candidate for renewal without affirmative consent. All customers appreciate value transfer. That is why we spend money;-to receive the value that businesses create. Customers feel cheated when value transfer does not occur and such can the case be when "value" is replaced by "access to value." That is a fundamental difference! Care.com claims they are honest in giving consumers notice in an email. One email? How many emails does care.Com send that go into the spam folder? I can't even count. One email in an ocean of junk email is not a notification; it's a message-in-a-bottle. Sure you'll find it...eventually but by then it's too late.

Hi Linda M, I am a Member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience on our site. The memberships on our site are subscription based, so they automatically renew until canceled. It is listed in our Terms of Use, but it is also listed on the payment page, and then again on the confirmation page after the payment has been made. On the confirmation page, you have the opportunity to set up a reminder that sends an email notification seven days before the account is set to renew. When you want to cancel, you can do so on your own under your ‘Profile and Settings’ page, or call/email into us to request the cancellation. I do apologize for your wait time when you called in for assistance, and we have worked to make this a more efficient process for our customers. Again I apologize for your experience, but hope you were able to find suitable care.

just go to amazon.com or google care.com reviews to find it. Looks like people really don't like the slimebag companies that play games with auto renewal..we all know it is a way to get people to pay a month or two before they realize what is going on. If it wasn't, you would not have to jump through hoops to downgrade this or click on this and get out your magnifying glass to read the entire site... Who would have thought a site set up for care would be like this? Guess the mighty buck rules again but the company will not last..the trust is gone and the results are not worth the hassle.

Hi Terrencesmom, I apologize for the experience you had, as it was never our intention to mislead our members. Care.com states on the payment page that "All subscriptions automatically renew until cancellation" so that members are aware that it is a subscription service. Once you upgrade, you get a confirmation page showing the cost that was just charged to you, where it again states that it will automatically renew until canceled and gives you the option to "Set a Reminder, " which sends you reminder emails leading up to your automatic renewal date. Once you have upgraded to our Premium Membership, you can also simply downgrade your account to a free basic membership at any time. To do this, simply scroll down to "Membership Information" under "My Profile and Settings." Once you are there, click on "Downgrade." This will set your account to downgrade to the free membership, but will keep your information in our system so that you can log in and upgrade anytime. This process is detailed out in our FAQ page under "How do I close my account?" The Care.com Member Care lines are open 10-6 Monday-Friday EST, voicemails are returned same day and emails sent to careteam@care.com are responded to within 24 hours, 7 days a week as it states on our "Contact Us" page. If your billing has not been resolved, please feel free to contact us at 877.227.3115 and we would be happy to help. -Kristen, Care.com MemberCare Representative

How are they running their background checks? As far as I know and being an employee for a company and running checks on people daily, I need a signed release form to run the checks. I dont understand what they are using to do background screens. Are these checks Nationwide criminal which covers sex offender registry and county they live in? Drug testing? DMV ? Any background checks done on someone require a signed release form.

Hello, I am a member care representative from Care.com. I do apologize for your experience. Anytime a member on the site is having an issue with another member, we encourage them to report their concerns either through the site or by contacting us directly. We do not terminate a membership for filing a complaint on another member of the service. These issues do get escalated to our safety team for further review so the proper decision can be made. There are several reasons why an account would be removed from the service, but per our privacy policy we cannot disclose specific reasons when an account does get terminated. Again I do apologize for the experience, but wish you best of luck in your future job searches.

I too was a member of Care.com until this morning. Without notice or expalnation they have teminated my membership. I guess when I registered a complaint with them regarding another member they didnt like that.

I was the person seeking the position and the complaint was against a woman seeking a care provider. She is an employee of an accredited adoption agency listed as their Executive Director. She asked me to pose as an employee of her company in order for her to secure a federal and state level background checks on me. Now mind you, I had already completed all of the checks that Care.com offers and they were clear of any issues. The adoption agency owner wanted more checks at the federal and state level along with fingerprints. Thats all fine and her prerogative but asking me to lie to these agencies in order to secure those checks was unethical and unlawful and I refused to cooperate.I emailed Care.com and told them the entire story.

So, I tell Care.com and bam, they drop me...so much for being an ethical and above board company. I am a mature woman not a teenager. I have been around the block in this world and am not a newcomer to the employment scene. There was no way that I was going to open myself up to that type of violation or unlawful action for any job.

Then I am verbally abused by another member who called me a B*&$#...I sure do hope that our youth applying for these positions are treated better. It would be very sad to think that these people "acting" like employers are breaking employment law across the counry and Care.com turns their back. BEWARE when a prospective employer asks you to do something (no matter how high the unemployment rate) don't do ANYTHING that you don't agree with...this is your reputation...protect it!

Hi Kathy,
Thank you for sharing your issue! Without looking at your account, which I was unable to locate, I would not be able to find out what is going on with your background check. Please feel free to email me at careteam@care.com ATTN: Kristen so I can take a look.

Thanks,
Kristen
Care.com MemberCare Representative

I was amazingly surprised at how many people have been terminated from Care.com without explaination. I hired an attorney who can not get any information, based on what we all signed saying we can be terminated for any reason at any time without explaination.

Someone, an attorney friend of mine who knows how contracts like this work. She has suggested going on the news or reporting it to the news.

Anyone here willing to do that in there area? I am in the Boston area, and am looking for people to join in. It would also be wonderful if we all did it on our own local news.

What do ya think?

christinemello@comcast.net

I completely agree. Don't waste your time and energy or your money (thank goodness I didn't or someone would be feeling my wrath right about now) on Care.com. When they terminate you - and they will - they refuse to give you an answer as to why.
I'm sure there are other, much better sites out there to find these gigs.

TO: Those who are really pissed off at Care.com for fraudulent charge and misleading advertisement and unstoppable recurring charges even after you cancel the service, PLEASE file a complaint with FBI's Internet Crime Report Center.
If all of us who were scammed by these people file, something GOOD will come out of it.

http://www.ic3.gov/complaint/default.aspx

File a Complaint

The IC3 is co-sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C). Complaints filed via this website are processed and may be referred to federal, state, local or international law enforcement or regulatory agencies for possible investigation. I understand any investigation opened on any complaint I file on this website is initiated at the discretion of the law enforcement and/or regulatory agency receiving the complaint information.

Hi Mojo12,
We were unable to locate an account that has been closed that is related to the information associated with your username. If you are having trouble logging into your account or received an email about your account, please feel free to contact us at careteam@care.com.

Kristen
Care.com MemberCare Representative

I believe the whole site is a scam. i have applied for several positions over the past year and had yet to receive any replies.I am about ready to file a report with the BBB.

Hi and thanks for your feedback. Without looking at your account, I can not give you a definitve reason why your account has not been approved yet. With that being said, I do apoloze for the lack of help you have received so far from our Member Care team. If you would like us to take another look at your account, feel free to email us at careteam@care.com. Just make sure to use the subject: ATTN: Kristen, so it will be directed to me.

Kristen
Care.com MemberCare Representative