care.com is a website, job board and online community that allows you to find qualified caregivers to care for your loved ones.
provide connections with caregivers who specialize in elder care, child care, in-home care, pet care, or a combination of all of the above, allowing you to place ads or review people’s resumes that provide care in your area.
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however, the service is not free and for users who no longer need care or have made arrangements elsewhere, you may be wondering: how do I delete my care.com account?
in this article, we will provide a step-by-step guide to:
- return to a non-paying care.com membership
- completely delete your account, either online or by calling a customer service representative
- post a job
- look for summary profiles of active caregivers on the site
- access the online community
- use the security center
- view full profiles of caregivers
- see user reviews of sitters
- contact caregivers
- purchase background checks
- 1 month membership, $39 per month
- 3 month membership, $19 per month
- 12-month membership, $13 per month
We’ll also review care.com’s billing practices and answer some frequently asked questions about the service.
a brief guide to care.com
care.com is a website that specializes in matching people in need of caregivers with qualified and experienced professionals in a variety of specialties.
what started as a simple job board has grown into a one-stop-shop for all care needs, offering everything from job listings and comprehensive background checks to a massive online community space featuring hundreds of jobs. of discussion forums.
the care.com community is one of the most helpful parts of the care.com experience.
An online message board, discussion hub, and information-gathering resource, the Community brings together thousands of experts and millions of community members to share experiences, offer advice, answer candid questions, and help you learn more. navigate the often confusing world of caregiving.
It also works as a very effective job board.
care.com says a new job is posted every 30 seconds and offers help for families finding child care, babysitting jobs, elder care, special needs care, tutoring, housekeeping, housekeeping, home, pet care and more.
Founded in 2007, the company is headquartered in Massachusetts and has 22 million members in 19 countries.
how care.com bills its users
care.com has a free basic membership and a paid premium membership, both of which offer different things for users to take advantage of.
a basic membership includes the ability to:
a paid premium membership includes all of the above, plus the ability to:
basically, a free membership allows you to post a job and get people to contact you.
A paid membership allows you to search for caregivers in your area and contact the ones you’d like to hire directly, as well as request a background check through the site if you’ve found someone you’d like to hire.
premium membership has three different membership types:
While you can offset those costs substantially with a promo code from care.com, previous memberships represent a commitment for that amount of time, but what’s important to note is that memberships automatically renew .
let’s say you want to get a one-month membership just to hire a sitter, and then you hire that sitter.
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You might think that’s it.
but if you don’t downgrade or cancel your one-month membership, that membership will automatically renew the following month and you’ll be charged $39 in perpetuity, and the membership will automatically renew each month.
note: if you get a 12-month membership, you will be charged for the full year and that membership is set for 12 months.
If you change your mind after six months, you can still upgrade or cancel your membership, but you won’t be reimbursed for the six months you didn’t use.
We’ll discuss how to avoid that recurring charge below.
how to downgrade or delete my account
Many people who want to delete their care.com account simply want to go back to the free basic membership option and stop recurring billing, while others want to cancel their account entirely.
both are fairly easy to do, but you have to navigate a difficult menu system.
Important note: None of these options are available on the care.com app or mobile site.
You must visit the desktop site on a computer to cancel your membership.
how to completely delete your account
To completely delete your account, first go to the home page of care.com.
in the upper right hand corner, you will see an icon that is either default green or a photo you uploaded.
click on that icon and you will see a menu.
click on account settings.
on the next page you will see your membership information including your personal account information, care account preferences and then if you scroll down towards the bottom of the page you will see a link which will allow you to close your account.
click “close account”.
before making your deletion request, care.com will ask if you want to review your email settings.
click “no thanks, cancel my membership”.
then just answer a question about why you’re leaving and you’re done.
how to downgrade your account
If you want to remove a paid account and continue to use care.com with a free account, please follow all the instructions above, but when you get to the “membership information section” on your account settings page, click “downgrade” instead of “close account”.
there you will be taken to a screen confirming that you want to downgrade your account.
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you will still have all the benefits of your premium membership for the remainder of your subscription.
so if you pay for a month and downgrade on the second day, you still have a month to use the premium membership.
cancel your account over the phone
Some people prefer to speak to a real person on the phone when canceling or downgrading their account.
It should be noted that wait times can be considerable, and actually downgrading and canceling only requires a few clicks on the website.
However, if you think you’ve been mischarged after downgrading or cancelling, they have a phone number you can call: 877-227-3115.
if you don’t mind navigating the process online, it tends to be a much quicker task than sitting on the phone and waiting for someone.
frequently asked questions
what happens to my linked accounts? Do I need to take any additional steps?
if you have signed in to your care.com profile using your facebook profile, your google account or your yahoo account, you do not need to disable the connection between the two accounts.
closing the account will cut those connections and should delete your data.
If you set up care.com to provide you with alerts through a service such as ifttt, evernote, or other online accounts, disabling your account will likely turn those features offline and you may receive a notice from those services that the connection needs to be repaired or removed.
Is deleting my account really permanent?
care.com says that once you delete your account, you can’t get it back.
that’s true and that’s not true.
that version of your account, with all your saved preferences and information, will be permanently deleted.
but you can always open a new account, either with a different email address or with a different linked account.
Will my community posts be removed if I cancel my account?
Posts you’ve made to the care.com community will remain active, but you’ll need to sign up for a new account to view them.
basic free and downgraded accounts can always see the community section.
To delete community posts, you must delete them manually.
forward and up
Once you’ve used care.com for what you need to, deleting or downgrading your account is a relatively simple, but important process that can save you money.
When signing up for a premium membership, set a reminder to downgrade or delete your account so you won’t be charged anymore.
