aaargh, aupairworld

[catepilarr]

my friend just wanted to register on apw as an aupair, her profile didnt come up, so she emailed and asked, only to be told there are lots of scammers around and that she needs to send copy of her id and a bill on her name??? wtf?
has it happened to anyone as well? i know they read peopels profiles and delete they without saying if they dont like the content but this is a different kettle of fish i think? i am very annoyed!

au pair worls is appalling when is come to customer service. She could register on greataupair.com. I use them both. I only use au pair world because they have more EU au pairs. They were very rude to me once and I still annoyed with them. I wish the who world would move over to greataupair.com so au pair world would get what they deserve for being so bloody rude to people.

i hate apw with a passion, despite finding a second lovely family on there. sadly dont like the old gap better then the new one.

I also have a very negative experience with aupairworld, actually the same as catepillar´s friend - long long time ago (about 5 years ago) I had a student job in an aupair agency (just admin tasks) and I stupidly mentioned it in my profile when looking for a family - apparently for this reason they banned me from their website for good. Then last year I tried to register under a different address and they found out (no idea how, I must be on their blacklist) and asked me for a copy of my id as well - but it was very clear to me that they know it was me (aka the one working as a support staff in AP agency 5 years ago, coming to ruin their business - yeah right).
The only thing making me want to use them again (although I cant) is that there are really nice families. If only they all switched to greataupair :)

I'm blacklisted too.

Found my British MH job on it, worked with them for a year, and then tried to register as a couple on it thinking it worked like the other sites in that you signed up under one name and added the other persons details.

Nope. They insisted that I create separate profiles and they'd link them which I did, but then his wasn't good enough, then mine wasn't good enough, then they had an issue with me stating on his profile that he wanted work in the UK because he was British so I said we were looking for AP/MH jobs. They then made a lot of very rude comments about him, especially because of his military background which we stated on his profile (we had families us because of this so knew it wouldn't 'offend' as they suggested) and made very sexist remarks as it stated he was happy to do basic housework, etc.

Big arguments over phone and email and after jumping through so many hoops over quite a period of time for them, spending a good amount of money calling them and dealing with their nasty customer service team who at one point reduced me to tears I just gave up (though was a bit rude to them before I did ).

It's a shame as there were some lovely families on there asking for AP couples and they refused to acknowledge that APC's existed.

This was around 2009 I believe?

jeez... and I thought they were rude to me. But, I think you can have the prize. Imagine a customer service team reducing you to tears.

Strix: To be fair, I was having a rough day! It was the last straw. If I remember rightly this was shortly before I told them to stuff it and I hadn't seen DP for a good month or two. They were telling me that under no circumstances should somebody who was an ex-Marine should be allowed to work with children as they were too violent(?!). At this point my DP was working for an activity company and violent is the last thing you could say about him!

I do wish now that I'd kept the emails and recorded the phone calls. Me and my DP split up in April and he was saying how he couldn't join the site when he was looking as a backup option for work. He's blacklisted too and didn't even do anything! Of course, they didn't bother telling him this when he emailed them to ask...

i really started wondering whether they are allowed to do all this by german law. havent got a clue where one would need to look and dont think i would have the strenght or time to follow it through to a big complaint somewhere - dont know where? they are just so awful it makes my blood boil.

btw was it you confused whom they said you cant look for ap work in australia because you wouldnt be learning a new language?
and that you cant say you dont mind which country you work in as long you can work as a couple, because that doesnt show you are not taking aupairing seriously?

Could well have been, they definately said something along those lines to me at some point. I also argued back that England isn't exclusively English-speaking, but apparently nobody in the UK speaks anything but English You bringing it up does twinge my memory lol

They must violate some law, but what can be done? It would have to go through international courts to get anywhere I assume?

haha, dont you just love them:

"Hello Anna!

We fully understand that you would like to discuss our decision with us. However, please note that it is not possible to comment on our business decisions with our users.

Best wishes,
Katrin Raible - Rechtsanwältin"

I never thought aupairworld scrutinised the profiles at all - I must have used them at least 6 times now and they have never troubled me. I am about to use the site again in a few weeks as current aupair comes to the end of her stay. Fingers crossed.

cate: What decision did you ask to discuss with them if you don't mind me asking?! & They still haven't got back to ex-DP

blueshoes: Of course you aren't on the receiving end of the trouble, you're the 'customer' as such I think the problem is that they know that they're the most popular APsite about and can 'play god' with the APs who register with them as there aren't very many other sites which work can be found on :( They make up their own rules as to who can and cannot join, which is sad as families are missing out on potentially awesome APs and APs are missing out on brilliant jobs.

btw, good luck on your search :)