Refunds from Agencies: Examples
AZMom suggested that we make a running list of our experiences with getting refunds from agencies after problems with incomplete au pair years.
Please let’s use this list to share succinct summary information-– please don’t go in to the gory details or get too emotional (even though you might be very ticked off thinking about the situation.)
Please share:
- Year of the Event
- Agency
- Basic situation (flame out, non-driver, etc)
- Number of weeks “used” with your au pair
- Percent of your agency fee you received back
Please also add what actions you took that you think made a difference in getting a refund.
Let’s see if we can make sense of these experiences!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
October 2011
Au Pair Care
Matching process refund: we matched with au pair, our credit card was charged, au pair offered another job in home country and dropped the program. Au pair care immediately refunded all money to credit card until we matched again.
We just went through the refund process after it was clear the agency (Au Pair Int’l) did not have the types of au pair we were looking for. Au pair radically overstated her experience with children and her other skills (cooking, driving). Was also more interested in finding an American boy to marry than getting enough sleep to fulfill her childcare duties. She was officially on duty for 2.5 months (we did all sorts of things to try to make it work), but she spent the last two weeks on vacation in NY. We received 43.7% of our agency fee: $325 for each month remaining on the contract. Agency counted her participation as 3 months.
Similar experience with APIA and still fighting for a refund-au pair was not capable of fulfilling obligations; unable to cook, clean, make a bed, laundry-some things she learned while others were simply not penetrating, i.e., making up my daughters bed with the blanket “under” the fitted sheet. I tried and tried because she was a nice girl but incapable. She ended up ending the placement as she could not understand why she was unable to “learn” these things. She was another child among my three.
I have had ZERO success getting a response from anyone high up and at the regional level; the girls send me a summary of charges that make no sense and keep saying-no refund. I also am aware of au pairs in the same program where the hours worked are in excess of the 10 hour requirement and well in excess of the 30 hour educare. This has been allowed. My LCC was let go just before filing the separation paperwork-they removed her from the system before she could enter it. My au pair had to pay for her return flight yet I did not even get a credit for this…in addition, when I review her application, they counted watching a “cousin” once a year during holidays as part of their experience. The other experience was tutoring. She was a local au pair in transition and I was not told the truth about what caused the transition until I started to experience this. She opted to leave claiming “not for her” after having an out of country visitor of 2 weeks during my huge residential move and taking her vacation.
I am speechless on the way this agency have evaded me and my questions and it has been two months. Any idea where I can go now?