Cultural Care Au Pair

Generally, I have also had terrible experiences with the whole Au pair plan. The first one left after 4 weeks when she realized she can «trade up» to a better family — i.e. Meaning less kids, less responsibility, older kids) and the second one was great but left with no notice back to her home country. Given she stayed 2 weeks past the terms of the financial contract we were not eligible for a refund so lost basically half of our down payment — almost 4K. So my advice is if it works it is great but there are a lot of things that could go wrong and then you are out a lot of money.

My au pair stole my vehicle, stole from my house and wallet, crashed my vehicle, had alcohol easily accessible to my children and has connections to criminals and had a fake ID with my last name on it! Far worse was way Cultural Care treated me and what I learned about their despicable business practices. This company should be shut down!

Cultural Care does an excellent job when you are a NEW client. They hold your hand every step of the selection process and make sure you get an au pair that truly fits your family and your needs. Once you’re in, you’re forgotten. There is no assistance any longer with selection (you may get assigned someone to help you but in our experience there was no help given, no care or concern to helping us). If you end up with an au pair who was grossly misrepresented in terms of skills and qualification it’s entirely YOUR problem. No effort on their part to help find a replacement, to empathize with your gap in childcare, to own the situation whatsoever. One of the «senior» managers went so far as to tell us that these are not professional childcare givers, we run the risk of them not being qualified and the problem is ours when that happens. There is nothing lost by the agency, they keep their money, have expended no time or resources and just keep collecting their money. There is a complete lack of professionalism. Our au pair chose to go home, she didn’t want to be an au pair after a mere 2 weeks on the job and that equaled close to $ 3,000 lost by us when we lost faith in the system and the agency and sought to hire a US based nanny. No skin off their back. I would think very carefully before choosing an agency and would strongly suggest seeking out honest feedback from current and past host families who used that agency. Had I even thought to do this and saw how terrible CC reviews were compared to other agencies, I would have placed my business elsewhere. Buyer beware– go elsewhere.

It is a terrible company, they support rematch because it enables them to make double money on aupairs. My terrible aupair felt like remacthing to see more places in America, and they sent her to Miami to a new family. The LCC added lies to rematch that was never talked about in the meetings, so they could have a valid reason to rematch, tried to make the aupair seem nice. There were safety issues, recklessness, and came to US just to see different places. They matched her with a new family. And they did not return my money. So, agency made double the money, she got to see more places. And the family is screwed by thousands of dollars and no care. Also, the aupair did not like the nanny camera, she complained to LCC, and LCC told me I could be in trouble for using the nanny camera, can you believe, she made this up, to make the aupair happy. Most LCC’s are clueless of what they are doing. She also reccomended to make food at once and give it to my daughter for a week or more, so all they are doing is supporting these aupairs not to work. I have to pay thousands of dollars, my daughter will eat old food and I can’t even say a single word to aupair.

If I could give them no stars I would. This agency does a great job of collecting money from host families and au pairs but provides no support to either once you have selected an au pair. Most of the au pairs are not interested in child care but rather finding a husband or getting out of their country. The agency collects the cash but doesn’t vet the au pairs enough. We had a terrible experience and the agency did nothing for us. Their local support people are focused on making things fun for the au pair while the host family pays huge fees plus all the expenses for the au pair once she arrives. We will never use this agency again or recommend them to anyone.

The first au pair they placed with us was homesick and went home after 2 weeks. The second au pair they placed with us decided she wanted to go to a different country.
They said they would not re-​match us since we maxed out on 2 au pairs leaving.
Cultural Care does little screening of the au pairs and most of them are not prepared to live outside of their countries and are not prepared to take care of children.
We already paid a deposit of $ 6,520.00 for the au pair for the year. They refunded us $ 1,701.
Worst Au Pair agency of all of them.

Please do yourself a favor and do the research on this horrific agency. From your local coordinator to the director of the east coast, the worst customer service of any company. Read all reviews thoroughly, I wish I had, they are all true. I did not do enough due diligence, I only hope you will prior to engaging in any business with this company. I filed complaints with the company about the au pair (lack of interest in the children, unsafe circumstances, taking time off when she deemed appropriate), they did NOTHING except remove her, send her to another home to get more money for ccap, refuse to provide a replacement, even though I found a suitable one and then keep the rest of the fees without providing services. It is called robbery, no contract condones this type of business and I am astonished that the agency is still in business, If I could they would have 0 stars, worse than that and this agency provides child care, there are zero regulations in this industry so please use a reputable one. I even asked them not to put my information on anything associated with this au pair’s next «move» they put my full information against my instructions, which I am pretty sure is also illegal, posting my personal information against my advice not to online or otherwise; they were trying to make it seem as though she weren”t half as bad as the agency knew, if you could only see the look on the face of the local coordinator in my home at the horrible performance of this ap you would be horrified at this agency, then did they send her home??? nope to another family, disgraceful and horrible. Now you know why they had to change their name and why horrible things have happened under their «care.» Choose carefully, they DO NOT CARE.

Cultural Care has among the worst staff in customer service. We worked with them for eight years primarily out of inertia. Each year I would say that we want to match with older au pairs (24 – 26 years old) and each year, they would emphatically state that that would be near impossible. I’m not sure what they don’t understand about families being the customers paying for their salaries. In additional they have extremely high staff turn-​over particularly among their local child coordinators (LCCs) who typically are part-​time and are supposed to support both the au pair in their transition/​orientation to a new country and the family with any issues in setting expectations with their au pair. In one year we have had 4 LCCs. If you are looking at au pair agencies, go with a different one!

**Update** We have since filed legal charges. It is a very simple process to file charges in small claims court against the company. You don’t need to fly to Boston for this, simply file at your local small claims court. I can provide this information for people who would like to follow a similar course of action. Please mail me via Unilocal.
I’m shocked that this company stays in business.
We had an au pair who the agency deemed unsuitable to remain in our house any longer and the agency representative got her that same day I filed a complaint.
My one and a half year old daughter had suffered two dislocated elbows under her care within only 2 months. Our doctor said this had to have been done by someone who pulled her — very hard. Our doctor (a very prominent doctor) also said there is no way our daughter could have done this to herself. The nanny refused to tell us anything about what had happened. We had previously setup the nanny cam and told the nanny that we were concerned and didn’t feel our daughter could be left alone with her. The nanny had subsequently blocked the nanny cam (placed a tent in front of it, brought from the other side of the house) so I had no way of knowing what was going on. Note: The agency failed to interview her/​screen her properly. The nanny suffered clinical depression (told me she slept ¹⁸⁄₂₄ hours before coming here), was kicked out of her high school, wasn’t able to drive (lied about this) and had other disorders. Yet, the agency always defended her and encouraged her to rematch after the incident! I had to elevate my concerns before anyone responded appropriately.
The agency later said that they were terminating the relationship. We paid $ 8, 500 deposit and after having a nanny for 2.5 months (who did a terrible job, put my daughter’s care in jeopardy, put my job in jeopardy), they kept $ 5, 000 of the money and refused to allow us to rematch with another au pair. The statistics about rematch is that 40% or more au pairs are re-​matched within the first few months. Yet we weren’t given a second chance. The contract that we had signed is below. I believe this states that even if our au pair harmed or neglected our baby we have no recourse.
I also wanted to mention that the agency forced numerous au pairs on us that were in rematch. When I called the host moms to gain a reference what I received was red flags and concern that the au pair was in rematch. Even our au pair (who they had gotten immediately) is now in rematch I believe. Yet, we were essentially kicked out of the program. I am shocked that this company stays in business.

Cultural Care Au Pair is a wonderful resource for families interested in having live in childcare. They have a one year process for screening applicants and provide red cross training prior to their arrival to the family. Additionally, you have an opportunity to look through many applicants and email, Skype, and communicate for an extended period of time to determine if they would be a good «fit» with your family. The administrative staff at Cultural Care Au Pair is very helpful with any questions you may have or in assisting you in your search for an au pair. They are always quick to respond to questions or concerns. Lastly, there is a local area director who you can reach out to for any questions and they organize the monthly au pair meetings for the local au pairs. Overall I would highly recommend this company for anyone interested.

We have been working with au pairs for 9 years. We have had excellent experiences, and have worked with Cultural Care Au Pair and Au Pair Care. We recently hired an au pair who did not work out, who had home sickness, we considered a rematch at 2 months, tried to work things out again, and after 4 months she left. We attempted finding another au pair, but the selection was terrible, they even offered a candidate that had been accused of abuse by two other families. Finally, we arranged for a previous au pair from a couple years back from Au Pair Care to come back for another year.
We paid over $ 5000 to Cultural Care Au Pair during the 4 months toward the $ 8330 they charge for the year, in addition to the almost $ 2000 to the au pair for her 4 months of salary. I asked if they will refund part of our payments that were made for the entire year, because we paid half of the installments for a third of the year. They didn’t even have to pay for the return flight. However, the financial agreement states that after the au pair arrives, there are no refunds for money that has been paid to them. Glad I didn’t pay the whole year up front, which is what we usually do.
In general, over the past 9 years, the selection of au pairs at Au Pair Care (who are German speaking) has been hugely better. The screening of them at Au Pair Care is better. The accommodations in New York/​New Jersey has been hugely better with Au Pair Care (all the au pairs have complained but over the years Cultural Care Au Pair seems to not have addressed that, for example there was no heating one year and they were indoors with coats on, the rooms are not clean, etc) The only thing I liked about our recent experience, was our Cultural Care local childcare consultant, Nicole, who did her best to help the relationship, however she does not handle rematches or finances. After our years of working with Au Pair Care and Cultural Care Au Pair, I would not hire an au pair through Cultural Care Au Pair again.

Please stay away from this agency. I honestly feel they dont screen the aupairs and then these premadonnas come into your house and run havoc. My au pair didnt want to do anything. She showed no love or affection. She just wanted to browse facebook all day. She also made it very clear when she wanted vacation time.

This place is «a mill» plain and simple. They only care about the fees they collect. They don’t care about the host family or the Au Pair. Do the math on this: their fee is $ 7,800 and they match 14,000 Au Pairs each year. That’s over $ 100,000,000+ per year. If there is an issue the host family is either stuck or the Au Pair is sent home and they find another to replace him/​her. There are ZERO checks and balances! If the host family doesn’t abide by the rules; no one say’s a word because the host family pays a larger fee than the Au Pair pays. If the Au Pair is to blame they are slow to respond or they make a mountain out of a mole hill. THEY EXIST SOLELY TO COLLECT FEE’S. You have to do your own due diligence and pray you find a perfect match or are able to resolve your differences without them. It’s a bait and switch that cost you $ 7,800! BUYER BEWARE!!!

Multiple issues that would take a book to map out all the problems experiencing with this agency. First of all, they have major retention issues with their staff, every time you would contact them there would be someone new to work with. Initially when I signed up for the program it was based upon our first contact, Bob who since has left and we are very sorry not to have him to work with. Other issues step from the au pairs not being adequately screened, I had one tell my children that she was their new mom, told them they were stupid, etc. Needless to say she only lasted a month. The replacement au pair was amazing, but felt for her given she had an horrible experience from her host family, working more than 45 hrs a week. Working all night, not breaks, no classes, etc. She never was contacted by Cultural au pair to see how she was doing and even after she sent numerous responses. Other issues such as logistics, follow up, customer service, all rate 1 star. Thinking about notifying the US state department that then need to pull them from the student visa program,
Over the past six months we have witnessed this poor support of other families and au pairs in the program. Our sense is the agency is all about the fees they collect and once they have an au pair placed they don’t pay any attention until it is time to renew and collect their annual lump sum fee.

In a conflict between an au pair and a host family, EF cares less what au pair has to say. They care about the money that can get from host families. They throw a «conflicting» au pair from family to family like a little slave.
Giving 1 star just because some host parents are honest, dicent, welcoming people.
Otherwise EF does baaaad screening of host families.

We had a horrible experience with the agency. I am taking action against the company for keeping our money despite not letting us continue with the program (apparently if two au pairs don’t work out then you are kicked out of the program). I am taking legal action, please contact me (via the inmail here on Unilocal) if you would like legal advice on what I am doing and how to go about it. But, I will only reply to those people who have posted a legitimate review here on Unilocal

As you will see from my other reviews, I generally give companies 4 or 5 stars. If I could choose zero for the company I would.
We chose an au pair based on this company’s recommendation (they selected her for us as a match). The company gives you 48 hours to interview the candidate which can be tricky with time zone differences around the world so we had to rely heavily on the fact that they selected her for us and had stressed their expertise in matching candidates. After only a week with us, it became clear that she had lied about several critical aspects of her background (her education and her childcare experience). She admitted these things to us but not surprisingly later denied them to the agency.
In addition to her lack of education or experience, in the first week she missed work more than 3 times and was drunk twice when we were supposed to work or meet together, once for an important meeting with their local staff person and our family. Later, she also smoked in our house even though we had asked her not to due to health concerns for our preemie daughter (her lungs are compromised due to her preemie status).
Rather than believing our reports, the agency chose to re-​match this au pair with another family! They said they could not prove these things because they were not with us in the house at the time. They chalked all of the problematic behaviors up to «cultural misunderstanding». Then, they seemed surprised that we were not interested in another au pair from their organization. When they knew about the issues we experienced with this au pair and continued to place her with another family, it was clear that they are more focused on their fees (as other reviewers have stated). I would have hoped that when the welfare of a child was involved, they would err on the side of caution but that is not their practice.
When the potential host family was interviewing the au pair, she had them speak to my husband in front of her so he did not feel comfortable relating all of the problematic issues and asked them to call us separately. They never did and the company now claims that we gave her a good review when we did nothing of the sort. After we could not speak freely with the potential host family, we emailed the company about our concerns and asked that they pass them along to the family. They seem to want to push the issues off on everyone else so that they can continue to collect their fees.
As of now, they are only offering us the standard refund which means we will have paid $ 3500 for the pleasure of meeting someone who admitted they lied about their education and showed up drunk to care for our child.
I have to admit that I agree with the other negative reviews that complain that this firm is focused primarily on their fees and not their family customers or the welfare of the children involved. Very sad experience.
I am sure that local staff members are very supportive as other reviewers have said. Unfortunately, if you ever have a problem and need to deal with their national staff you will be in for a rude surprise. I would recommend you look for another au pair agency. Cultural Care Au Pair has a large selection but that seems only because they are so focused on churning through au pairs and families so that they can charge more fees.

I have been hosting au pairs for 5 years and have had mostly wonderful experience with each au pair. My dealings with Cultural Care have been very professional and pro-​active. We had one au pair leave mid year, but Cultural Care was very quick and responsive in finding us a new placement that was absolutely one of our best au pairs. You cannot beat the selection of applicants with this company and availability of au pairs. We have hosted nay Latin American au pairs and as a result our 5 and 3 year old are bi-​lingual. It is an experience like none other and Cultural Care is a phenomenal company to work with. I wouldn’t consider a different agency.

We have attempted to work with this agency for more than a year. We first connected with them through a au pair that had listed via Craig’s list looking for help matching to a family because the agency was not helping her as she wanted to extend for a 2^nd year but her first family no longer need a nanny. The agency was zero help with setting up with our first au pair but we liked Ory so we decided to move forward regardless.
The agency claimed that they would be there and checking with us monthly on status. I the two years we have worked with the agency we have received maybe two phone calls. In the other hand, when we call them the are painfully slow at responding.
Over the past six months we have witnessed this poor support of other families and au pairs in the program. Our sense is the agency is all about the fees they collect and once they have an au pair placed they don’t pay any attention until it is time to renew and collect their annual lump sum fee.
If you are looking for an agency that provides high fees and minimal service, then you have found your match.

I have given this company multiple chances. They are CRAPY at screening the Au Pair and their matching is a joke.
My first AP was a «transition» AP that actually ready to start transgender process. The second one did a year and when it was time to end the contract the AP told my neighbors how bad it was in the home country, ended up in a romantic relationship and lived with that neighbor. They did nothing to ensure the departure even with full knowledge of location and phone numbers. They responded with. the just have to provide a ticket for the plane and they can’t force them to get on the plane.
I gave another chance after the birth of my second child. This one came and after a full week of getting to know everyone and a trip to Disneyland, the AP said that the agency said that he would only be a help and not have primary childcare duties. As a single dad… how is that supposed to work. The LCC wanted me to hire a second sitter to help train and transition him for 6 – 8 weeks… really?
Then I was locked into a year contract and the replacement was one that looked after the kids… while texting alllll day or talking on the phone. I asked for help with LCC again, then there was the vacancies issues of their staff for 3 months and then finally multiple meetings with ineffective communications. Their idea was to keep writing things down. We hand a handbook, list of duties and discussed the duties daily.
During this time my house looked like a tornado went through it. The AP refused to help clean up after the kids. She was «screened» to cook, clean and speak Spanish to the kids. She could make PB&J, pour cereal, and cut up veggies… she couldn’t even use a crock pot to cook. Then the fun part. Once you decide the match does not work you have to put them on a probation for 2 weeks to see if it can be worked out even after months of sit down meetings, then for an additional 2 weeks you have keep them there while they try to find another host family.
Here is the real deal. Their goal is to get the $$ from the AP and the Host Families and have no service and don’t back up their promise of service. THey just dump one bad AP on the next family so they can keep charging their fees without regard to the impact of the family and their need for childcare.
You have been warned.