What: ElderCare.com helps caregivers find live-in or part-time jobs taking care of elderly and disabled adults
Expected pay: $10 – $20 per hour
Husl$core: $$
Where: Nationwide (theoretically, but they may have no jobs in your town)
Requirements: Be over the age of 18; legally permitted to work in the U.S; pass a criminal and sex offender background check.
Review:
ElderCare.com is one of a number of sites offered by a Toronto-based company called CareGuide. They operate sites for housekeepers; pet sitters and nannies, including the poorly-rated Nanny Lane.
Job opportunities listed on the site are sparse. And when you get to the last step in the sign-up process, you’ll find out that listing your services on this site will cost you $12 a month or $101 a year. There is a free “basic” membership, but it does not allow you to respond to messages, so it’s obviously not an option if you actually want work.
Theoretically, if a parent paid for a membership, you could respond to them for free as a basic member. But, by and large, the site is set up to make it difficult for any job-seeker that isn’t paying to play. And there’s no indication that you get a selection of well-paying jobs in return.
We suggest you find eldercare opportunities elsewhere, such as Carelinx and Care.com.
What their users say:
Because of the common name, it was impossible to find verifiable reviews of this company. If you’ve signed up to work through them, we would love to hear from you. Please click “contact us” and tell us about the experience.
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I’m a friendly, compassionate, hard-working caregiver with 10+ years of experience and rave reviews, but I’m deleting my profile on Eldercare.com because the website appears to be fraudulent and the job postings look like scams. The site is owned by CareGuide, Inc., a Canadian company with hundreds of complaints and abysmal ratings that operates Nanny Lane and similar sites for babysitters, housekeepers, pet sitters, etc. Their most recent blog entries and Facebook posts are almost two years old. I searched for caregiving jobs in Phoenix, Arizona, the retirement capital of the country, and found less than 30 postings, with no indication of original posting date. None of them list the job location, hours, schedules, rate of pay, or level of training needed, and most have vague, non-specific job descriptions (“elder care and personal care” instead of “bathing, grooming, meal prep and housekeeping”, e.g.). Most entries are in very poor English with a job title that just lists a number to text, with the digits spaced widely apart to avoid scam detection. Nearly all of them begin with the same job description, “Hello, my name is _____. Nice to meet you! I hope you are having a good day!” which no legitimate employer says, ever, to anyone, when describing the job. The majority of the posters say “See my other profiles on Housekeeper.com, Babysitter.com, Petsitter.com, Housesitter.com”, etc. (What a coincidence they need all 7 services, and all from the same company.) Some of the job postings listed in Phoenix were actually for caregivers in Pennsylvania and other states. At the bottom of each posting it says, “Find Elder Care Jobs In Phoenix, Arizona”, and underneath it lists our local suburbs like Scottsdale, Tempe, and Glendale. But it also lists the suburbs of Komatke, Franklin, and Maricopa Colony, which do not exist. Although creating a profile is free, the website will not let you respond to job offers unless you pay a recurring monthly fee, which is, apparently, almost impossible to cancel. My recommendation is to run from this company and all their data-mining websites as far and as fast as you can. Check out care.com instead. It has many faults, but at least it’s legit and the jobs are real. Good luck.