Care.com deleted ‘tens of thousands’ of providers after report found lax vetting procedures
On March 8th, The Wall Street Journal published a damning report about caregiver platform Care.com, which found that it put the burden on users to evaluate its caregivers, that it didn’t conduct full background checks or vet the daycare centers that were listed on the site, and that in some instances, providers were unlicensed and even were responsible for deaths of the children in their care. In a followup report published today, the WSJ says that the company removed “tens of thousands of unverified day-care center listings” prior to the publication of that initial report.
The original report found that there were “about 9 instances” in the last six years where a provider was listed on the site had a criminal record, and then committed a crime against someone they were caring from, ranging from “theft, child abuse, sexual assault, and murder.”
The Journal was also able to determine that “hundreds” of listed daycare centers lacked the proper state licensing, even though they were listed as such on the site. It raised questions about the procedures that the company had in place to ensure that the centers and providers it listed were safe for members to use. Care.com CEO Shelia Lirio Marcelo told the Journal at the time that incidents like this were “rare but ‘very heartbreaking.” Following questions from the publication, the site began issuing prominent alerts to members, and notified some members of account closures.
The Journal says that the site “removed about 72% of day-care centers, or about 46,594 businesses, listed on the site,” with some listed just days before the initial report was published. The company says that it removed 45 percent of daycare centers, and cited a different set of metrics from that of the WSJ’s analysis. Care.com did not provide the Journal with specific numbers, and hasn’t replied to a request for comment from The Verge. We’ll update if we hear back from them.
Following the publication of the original report, Care.com began to implement new policies, saying in a securities filing that it would start conducting a “preliminary screening” process before people could apply for listed jobs, and that it would remove business listings that it had generated, but hadn’t been claimed by their owners. It also created a new board position to cover safety on the site.