My wife and I went looking for our first part-time nanny with an agency-a bit naive about the whole process, but after two candidates they provided, we made an offer to one. We had consulted one of the most recent professional references prior to making the offer to the candidate (via email, sans written contract)which was fine. In pinning down the details the candidate started to backtrack on which days she could work and communicate in a way that made us think we hadn't done our homework and could not trust her with our young child. We checked with a second professional reference that gave a less than glowing review and we decided we didn't could continue with this candidate at this point.
The agency called the reference and claimed they presented a much rosier opinion of the candidate than we received. Having abandoned the candidate and resigned to holding out a bit longer until we could get placement in nursery, we told the candidate and the agency we could not continue on the basis of the poor reference.
Naturally, the agency demanded that we pay the full placement fee and pay the candidate a month's wages(the contract stipulates one week wages if contract is terminated prematurely), even though the nanny never started work. The agency had obviously performed their service---as limited as it was. The agency, the candidate, or references either lied or mislead on a few occasions, but it would have been difficult to disentangle.
The sum for the agency invoice is not big enough that we'd bother pursing anything legally, and we're resigned to paying both the nanny and the agency what is asked and moving on. Is this the right thing to do?
If nothing else, this is just a reminder to read the fine print and do your due-diligence on the candidate before bringing someone on.