Care.com Caregiver: Find Jobs

I’ve been on Care for several years and have found some good jobs here. But recently, they started asking you to pay $2.99 PER JOB you apply to in order to “boost” your application. Or in other words, so they don’t bury your application under the ones that people pay for. They already charge the families to belong and then to hire someone, and they charge the nannies for a background check (understandable), and want us to get a premium membership in order for them to not bury our profile to where people can’t find us, now we have to pay PER APPLICATION, before we even know if the job is a fit?! The app is confusing enough for the parents bc half of the time, they post for hours different than what they need (like people who want regular babysitters post that they want someone every Friday and Saturday bc there is only an option for a one time sitter for a specific date, or a recurring sitter for every single week. So I might be applying to someone who wants me overnight every single weekend night, or someone who wants a sitter here and there, mostly on weekends. I have to pay $3 to find out. Total money grab and scam. In addition, they also changed it so I have a reminder on it at all times for “job matches near you”, which are jobs anywhere from 10-15 miles away from my home (not a big deal) for families who are offering $10-15 less than my minimum (HUGE deal). I wouldn’t even consider these jobs. So annoying.

The app is very glitchy. Constantly crashing, delayed notifications, always displaying an “error” message. All of that I was willing to deal with, as I have previously found families to work with, and had used instant bookings. However recently, they have started taking out MAJOR fees from instant bookings. Mind you, that’s PRE tax. They claim this fee is for background checks to “ensure our safety.” I find that very funny because I paid for my own background check. They also claim it’s for a support line, which I have received zero support from, I’m met with an error message every time. I would prefer them to say they are just broke, need money, whatever. Because absolutely nothing has improved, in fact it’s only gotten worse for sitters. I had to cancel a booking because I was not feeling comfortable with it, there are still many fake accounts circulating through the app, and I live in New York City where it is not the safest. After cancelling (mind you I had to cancel probably 10 times because of the error messages), I received a message saying cancelling could affect future bookings. Well then maybe you should actually use the money from your high fees to run real background checks. Get rid of the fake accounts. I have made money off of the app, and found good families to work with so that’s why I am leaving 3 stars. But in the mood to leave one after these stupid fees.

This app has been easy to use and easy to create a profile. I love how easy it is to find a family (you do have to pay for premium but it’s worth it to find a family easier) I like the feature how you can get reviews from other families, but I wish there was a review you could give to the family. I’ve had families who were really nice and some who were not. There should be a review for the families profiles to let other caregivers know little more detailed about them. It seems like families can leave reviews about caregivers but what about caregivers giving reviews about the families? I had a family who had many nanny’s before me (I had no idea until later and neighbors would say comments and even the kids did!) and she gave me a really hard time while trying to take care of her kids. She made it seem really professional and care free at first, but when I started watching her children she was always trying to control everything and stepping on my toes. At first, I didn’t mind it was like she was helping, but it just kept getting worse. It would be nice if someone had given a review saying some of those things. I wasted a good chunk of time when I could’ve been with a family for the long term. I just want other nanny’s to look out for one another in the nannying world. Thank you.