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Discuss everything related to paid childcare here, including childminders, nannies, nurseries and au pairs.

Has anyone had an enquiry from overseas to look after daughter? (suss) sorry a bit long

11 replies

sandym3g · 19/05/2011 22:13

Hi there

Was wondering if anyone has any responce to adverts online from a person overseas?

We were offered the following hours of work for a 4 year 10 month old girl. (shouldn't she be going to school I thought?)

1- Monday to Wednesday 9:10AM -- 4:10PM.
2- Thursday to Friday 4:10PM to 7:40PM.
3- Saturday 10:00AM to 5:00PM.

now we said we would only be able to do the first one. We recived another email asking more about us."We'll like to know more about you if you don't mind, I mean like the kind of people you've worked with in the past? What is the assurance that you will be able to resume to work on time? Has your appointment been terminated by any of your previous employer? If so give reason for this. Are you single? a single mother ? Married? For how will you be able to work for us? You could all also supply any additional information like location where you grew up. Etc"

We told them about us and gave them our website to browse over. We got another email back saying that they accepted us and would like us to start 15th July. They also said that she loves watching cartoons and video games. Could we buy a ds game and 7 games and let them know how much it came to so they could sort out payment to us.

I sent them an email saying that we were a bit confused. She is of an age where she would have to by law go to school and assumed that this is a temporary solution to your childcare needs until they get her into school? We said we work from our own home and look after other children during the day. We are allowed to look after 6 children at any one time. We have lots of toys, games, books, arts and crafts. All of the children we look after have a choice in what they want to do in these areas. We do put the t.v. on but only for short periods. We go to local parks, playgroups and a place where the children can climb, run, crawl and mix with other children. The DS games won?t be necessary for keeping X entertained. We would make sure by getting to know X what she would like to do with us.

We finished the email by saying. We would like to meet with you for a face to face meeting when you arrive over here. We need to sort out a contract with you if you still want to go with us. We would be working on a 3 month trial to make sure that everyone is happy. After that we are happy to look after X
for as long as everyone is happy.

Spoke to father in law and he thinks they are trying to get money out of us. Why wouldn't they just buy the games online themselves instead of asking us to buy them?

Has anyone else had this experience?

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
5318008 · 19/05/2011 22:16

ah now I think I had a group email from our EY team about this last year

it's a scam IIRC

I'll go and do some digging for you x x x

nannynick · 19/05/2011 22:30

Could we buy a ds game and 7 games and let them know how much it came to so they could sort out payment to us.

Hmm sounding like a scam.

See if they reply to your last e-mail. Be suspicious, trust instincts.

Summersoon · 19/05/2011 22:32

and, whatever you do, do not under any circumstances give them your bank details, or any more personal details than you have already.
It could be that they are just completely ignorant about how things work in this country but it could also be a particularly devious, unpleasant new scam to me.

nannynick · 19/05/2011 22:32

From May 2010

Hello,
We are a very busy parent, our work require almost 15 hours a

day, because we are a small scale business owner. We need your

service for our, she's 4years and 10 months old. Below are the 3

offer we have, you are required to choose the once you can do

or take 2 out of the 3 offer or you can even take all if only it is

convenient for you. 1- Monday to Wednesday 9:10AM -- 4:10PM.

2- Thursday to Friday 4:10PM to 7:40PM. 3- Saturday 10:00AM

to 5:00PM. We are paying £180.00 for weekends and £20.00

for week days and evening per hour. Let me know which one you

are interested to do out of the three offer or if you are willing

to take more than one please let me know as soon as possible. my email is : josedavids@


<img loading="lazy" class="inline-flex mumsnet-emoji" alt="Hmm" src="https://www.mumsnet.com/build/assets/hmm-PR4o6B1t.png">] sounds similar to the initial contact you got.
Samedi · 19/05/2011 22:33

Scam scam scam. Had similar things related to nannying. There is always one thing involving you paying out- I've seen people telling you to go to their favourite travel agency to book tickets for the interview, pay a 'nanny retainer' whatever that is, send money for a visa to get to them etc etc. All scams. I'm guessing in this case either they send you a link to a site to buy this DS which just takes your card details, or they ask you to send it to them to be reimbursed, or they are just checking if you will buy something without asking questions then go on to bigger things.

I'm suprised they haven't mentioned that the child's mother/father passed away recently, always seemed to crop up in the ones sent to me!

5318008 · 19/05/2011 22:34

yup scam

similar vein

sandym3g · 19/05/2011 22:42

Thank you. Yes we felt very uncomfortable about this. I was discussing this with my husband and said at least they could have said that the child was 2 and liked watching tv all day. Would have been more convincing.

We wouldn't feel comfortable working with someone who treats there child this way anyway. Think we need to let the local Childminders ass know about this one so they can put it in their next newsletter.

OP posts:
5318008 · 19/05/2011 22:45

good call about letting local ass know

eastmidlandsnightnanny · 20/05/2011 13:50

I get a number of these most days and now just delete them.

maidbloke · 20/05/2011 22:18

Great spot nannynick, almost identical!

Yes, looks like this is a variant of the Advanced Fee Fraud:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud#Babysitting_and_Au-Pair_scams

confuseddotcodotuk · 22/05/2011 00:14

I get these daily, even after I have delisted myself from every au pair website I was on 3 years ago! They're a nightmare, especially the clever ones who write well-'spoken' English!

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