Does anybody use or work for "sitters"?

alibubbles - out of interest, did they check you out properly / take up references etc?

am thinking of registering (as a parent) so would be good to know if they do all that they say!

I registered with them and did a bit of babysitting as I was interested in buying a Sitters franchise and wanted to see how they operated, whether they were truly professional and vetted their sitters AND families properly.

I had no intention of sitting for them for a long term as my DD then was getting £7 an hour, picked up, dropped aoff and fed, to the £5.25 I was getting from sitters where I had to provide my own transport, and always took a sandwich or something if sitting early!

They still text me for babysitting and I haven't sat or renewed any details for 6 years!

Hi, JennyPenny23

Yes, I used to work for them. It was great for a while because you do not have to put any effort into advertising for work, and the work can at times come in thick and fast. The pay is not great but every little helps!

However, over a period of a couple of years I had to cancel a few times. Some of them were my fault (ie my car was out of order!) and two were when my mother was ill: once when we were waiting for the news that she had died and once when she had done so.

A short while after that I received a text to say that I had been removed from their list of sitters because I cancelled too many times. When I called them to ask them about the times and when they were, the person who answered the phone was not interested in talking to me, saying that she was too busy to go through the times and dates I had cancelled. She sounded flustered and was rude.

I know that cancelling is BAD!!!! and yes, there were times that I was wholly responsible.

Pity about my mother being so inconsiderate as to be on her death bed and then dying on days I had arranged to babysit, though

BUT: other people have had better experiences of it than me!