Safety
Once you have created your aesthetically pleasing, honest profile families can add you which is essentially liking your profile. The website then sends you an email with a link to the family’s profile and you can check them out. If you like what you see, then you can like them back and be able to contact them freely.
Do not advertise your contact information on your profile. The only contact information you must enter is your email address when you register. This way, no one can get hold of you without your consent. This is so important. You need to remember that there are human traffickers out there and what a pleasure it would be for them to get a person to pay for a plane ticket to walk into their little trap. Although new au pair is a great site and is incredibly safe, still use your brain and don’t invite trouble. Traffickers are easy to spot though, and usually the site will find them in a few hours and delete their profile. But it is important that you know how to tell the difference between a trafficker and a family. This is an email from a fake family:
Par lives in San Pedro, , United States, have 1 child, and need someone from 25 December 2015 They say “Greetings to you over there! Call me Mrs Parsons, from California, USA. I am earnestly in search for a domestic helper or au pair who would take care of my home and kid while i am away on official duties. I propose to start with a sum of 3500 USD for you, on a monthly basis. I do not get much on this website. As such, write to this email kelly-parsons at out look dot com if my offer seems appealing to you. I will deactivate my account on this website immediately i receive your re” Their interests are Sports, Beach, Music, Movies, Books, and Painting.
And this is an email from a real family.
Manuela lives in Turin, Piedmont, Italy, have 2 children, and need someone from 15 September 2015 They say “We are an italian family who lives in Turin. I am separated with a 7 year girl and a 3 years girl who go to school all day. We ahve lived in London for many years and would like an english speaker au pair for them to be able to practise their english. We offer a nice envornment in a welcoming family with a priovate bedroom with an ensuite bathroom in a nice city” Their interests are We like skiing, biking, going out with friends etc.
The first email has no profile picture, which should immediately make you suspicious. Some families genuinely don’t put up a profile picture, but I recommend only looking at families with a profile picture. It may eliminate a large number of potential families, but it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The next thing in the first email that should raise suspicion is the manner in which the email is written. The first email, comes across as cocky, “call me Mrs parsons.” “I need someone to take care of my home and kid.” This is all wrong. There is no compassion, there is nothing personal to make you want to consider this person. And there is NO information about the child. They don’t state the age, or the sex, you don’t know if the child is in school or not. You know nothing about this family at all. A genuine family, like in the second email, would be trying to sell their family to you. They try to sound welcoming and to tell you what life with them will be like. They describe the children’s sex and ages and state a reason why they want an au pair. They try to describe your living arrangements to you and they DO NOT mention salaries.
Although the first email was vague and uninformative, they use an attractive salary to grab your attention. The standard salary for an au pair in the USA is about $ 195 per week. Generally, no matter where the place is an au pairs salary will be roughly the equivalent to $ 500 a month. It may be more or less than that, but use that as a rough guide, if its way higher, it’s a trap and if its way lower, they are taking advantage of you. This is a cultural exchange, not a career that you will get rich with. Most families won’t even mention salaries to you until your interview. So this is really something to look out for, it’s a for sure tell tail sign that it is not a real family.
And the final point here, is the email address. The website states that you may not share contact information. Once the family and the au pair have liked each other’s profiles, email addresses will become available. This is a safety precaution the site uses and takes very seriously. Some traffickers will claim “not to know how the site works so email me at …” do not respond to these people. Another thing you will notice about the email addresses is the way they have been written, Kelly-parsons at outlook dot com they do not put the @ symbol or the .com because this makes it easier for the site to pick them up as traffickers. These are all the obvious signs that you can see for yourself.
I’ll add one more fake email that’s a little different and highlight the give-away points that you should learn to look out for.
tom lives in pennsylvania, N/ A, United States, have 2 children, and need someone from 10 January 2016 They say “I am Mr Walker from Pennsylvania, United States. I am here offering you the post of a babysitter for my sweet daughters, Amy and Pearl. I am offering you a sum of 3500 USD monthly. Do write to my email if interested. Thanks” Their interests are Being together makes us happy together. We also like visiting the park, beach and a couple of dinner parties with ourselves and loved ones. No profile picture.
Still no mention of children’s ages. Salary is far too high, there to temp you into thinking you hit the jackpot. Email address shouldn’t be there and uses at instead of @ and dot com, meaning they know that by adding those symbols, they are at risk of getting deleted.
Often when I receive these emails, I log onto my profile to check them out and the site has already deleted them, if not, they are gone by the end of the day. So don’t let the fear of traffickers hold you back. Just be smart and careful and really take your time to get to know the family before you jump into anything.
When you are in contact with a family, ask them to send some pictures of their homes and children. This way you can see if everything is legitimate. If they seem hesitant or only send you one picture of a child that looks like a professional edited thing that came off the internet, alarm bells should start ringing.
Kindly ask them to send a few more and say it is a big deal moving half way across the world to strangers and would appreciate some more pictures to get a better feel of the family. If they comply and everything looks legit then carry on and have a few skype sessions with them. If they do not comply, block them and move on.
Skype is your friend when you do this kind of thing. Have your interview with all potential families on skype before committing to anything. Once you have had your first “interview” and you feel that you’re happy with the family and want to work for them, ask if you may have a little meeting with the whole family, children included. This is just an extra safety precaution that is well worth your time. This way you are able to really check them out and decide for yourself if they are the ones you want.
