Potential Nanny Scam, Bucktown/WP/Chicago area

[Alyssa S.Participant January 7, 2020 at 6:41 pm Post count: 1]

#3580

We experienced what we have concluded is most likely a nanny scam by someone who has a profile on this site, and one on Care.com, where we found her. We hired her under the name Maria Juarez, which will show up in her criminal background and driver’s check, however I believe she has other names she can go by which I’ll share later.

Initially, Maria seemed really great and came with excellent references, including from someone who lived in the Bucktown area. We hired her on December 9th, and she quit January 5th. Out of 18 days she was paid, she only actually worked 6 1/2. She called in for all her sick days (3), and took two bereavement days as paid vacation. In addition, she was off and paid for all the holidays in December and the beginning of January.

Each time was a different health excuse – the first three sick days were due to a fall she had had. The second two days, which we did not pay for, we due to diarrhea because of food poisoning, which she claimed her doctor told her to stay home for. When we found out she had diabetes, she assured us it was under control and didn’t have anything to do with her previous problems. However when she quit on Sunday, the day before she was supposed to “start fresh”, she claimed it was because her diabetes numbers were suddenly too high, and her doctor had advised her to stay home. This just after sending us a text saying that she was looking forward to starting over. That’s how she would do things – send a text mainly last minute, then pay good lip service and say it wouldn’t happen again. It’s just all too convenient. Obviously, with health stuff, it’s hard to tell and you don’t really want to call a person out on it or pry, but in this case, we should have. And we shouldn’t have paid for sick/vacation time during the trial period. That was a mistake we will not be making again.

When I called Maria’s Bucktown reference to tell her about our experience, she shared with me that another woman had texted her the last week in December saying that she had also hired Maria to start January 1st, but Maria had told her a week before that she couldn’t. This reminded me that when I interviewed Maria, she told me she had no other job prospects, and then when I told her that would would make a final decision mid-week, she suddenly had a job prospect and needed to know from us asap. I thought this was odd, but we made the decision to hire her and started her at the beginning of the week. She made sure to clarify with me that she would be paid for the entire week. She obviously kept this other woman as another possible mark, and perhaps bowed out because she got the money she needed or knew she would be burning a bridge with her reference.

Lastly, a day or two after Maria quit, she removed her profile picture from her Care.com profile, and changed her name to Nina J. She also started changing her profile bio. As well, someone liked the poor review I left her, which means they found it helpful. This all indicates to me that she is continuing to look for work, even though she is supposedly too sick to do so.

We lost a lot of money due to Maria for very little work, and were stressed out with her reliability over the month, during what was already a transitional time for our family. Additionally, we had to pay double to get someone to cover for her. We have a one year old and the fact that she took advantage of us using him is reprehensible. She is not to be trusted.

Names associated with her are: Maria, Nina, Juarez, Sosa, Ovalle. There are probably others. The email she used with us is mariajuarez286@gmail.com. She lives in the Old Irving Park/Avondale area, will say she’s married and her husband works from home, that she has three children and that she’s a career nanny. If you need a picture, I have one I can send to you. This is her profile on this site: https://viathevillage.com/app/nanny-profile/ck3awcx8c001v0tqurhdpcdne

Be on the look out for her and spread the word.

• This topic was modified 2 months, 4 weeks ago by  Alyssa S..

[Sara B.Participant February 19, 2020 at 10:33 pm Post count: 1]

#3810

Alyssa,
I was the woman who Maria backed out on last minute. Told us she was ‘getting divorced’ a couple days before she was supposed to start. She is now on Facebook as Maria Sosa. Everyone stay FAR AWAY from her.

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by  Sara B..

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