Care.com, Inc.

The FTC alleged that Care.com inflated the number of jobs on its platform and made unsubstantiated earnings claims to draw caregivers into paid subscriptions, while making cancellation difficult. It turned over $8.5 million for refunds.

Resolved. Refunded, settled, ceased operating, or the claim did not hold up. Kept for the record.

Jobs that could not be applied for

Care.com runs a platform matching caregivers with families needing child care, older adult care, care for people with special needs, and pet sitting. Contacting anyone requires an auto-renewing paid subscription.

The FTC alleged the advertised job count was deceptively inflated with listings for which there was little to no chance of being hired. A family can post a job for free, but a poster who has not bought a paid membership cannot see the applications they receive. Since at least 2019 the company advertised millions of such jobs to draw caregivers into paying.

The earnings claims

The complaint alleges Care.com touted hourly and weekly earnings totals it had little or no data to support. One 2021 campaign on a third-party site advertised “Childcare jobs from $18/hr” while the company’s own website put the national average rate for babysitting at between $13 and $14.25 per hour.

The company does not track what job seekers and posters actually agree once they make contact off the platform, so its figures were averages of listed rates rather than earnings. The FTC alleges these claims continued even after the company received a Notice of Penalty Offenses about earnings claims in 2021.

Cancellation

The complaint describes cancellation obstacles: unrelated links to click through before finding cancellation information, multi-page questionnaires, confusing language, warnings about the effects of cancelling, and offers of other paid memberships. Cancelling a free subscription took two steps. Cancelling a paid one did not.

The outcome

Care.com turned over $8.5 million for refunds, and must make only substantiated earnings claims, count only jobs posted by users who can actually hire, explain how communication on the site works before taking money, and provide a simple cancellation method. In June 2025 the FTC sent more than $8.1 million to 194,207 consumers.

What is not established

The order is a settlement and resolves the allegations without any admission or finding of wrongdoing.

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