Craigslist Reminder and Other Scams

Craigslist serves a wonderful purpose on the internet. It allows people to post for free to advertise their businesses, especially child care! However, there are individuals out there who have found ways to use Craigslist for nefarious purposes. I recently recieved an email from a provider who had been contacted by someone from the UK who was relocating to the US and needed child care. She, unfortunately, sent them her contact information, and has now heard from several others who are doing the same thing. Eventually they will offer to send her a check for some large amount, ask her to cash it and mail the difference back to them, after keeping a modest fee for herself. The problem being that the checks they send are fake, and then she will be responsilbe for paying it back to her bank. So PLEASE if you are contacted by ANYONE on Craigslist from a foreign country, do not reply, and contact the local office of the FBI and report it as internet fraud.

Also recently I was doing a 6 month update with a provider, and she told me that someone was posing as a representative of Child Care Answers. They said that they were trying to place a child and wanted money from her to make sure that any future children would be placed with her first. Please remember that ALL services from Child Care Answers are free, and we do not charge parents or providers for our referral services! If you get a phone call from this person claiming to be one of our staff and asking for money, please try to get his contact information and let me know.