Safety and Security

The vast majority of au pairs and host families using Kangaroo Au Pair are genuine and trustworthy. However a small minority may be scammers looking for ways to get money from au pairs or host families. For this reason Kangaroo Au Pair has put in place measures to help prevent this. Please ensure that you read our recommendations below and DO NOT SEND MONEY to anyone that you do not know.

What Kangaroo Au Pair does to protect our users

Safety for our users is at the top of our agenda at all times and it is for this reason we try and ensure the trustworthiness of users by doing automatic and random checks on user profiles. We do this by:

• Checking completeness and plausability of profiles.
• Checking all unusual user conduct.
• We make users aware of scammers and methods of scamming as soon as we hear about them.
• We delete profiles of dubious users/scammers.

What you can do to protect yourself against scammers

Families

Do not send your money to au pairs under any circumstances. The following are some of the more common methods used by scammers to get money from families:

• Your prospective au pair phones from their departing airport looking for money. Do not send them money even if you need the au pair to start working for you immediately. This is a ploy to get money from you and the au pair will not come to work for you anyway.
• Never pay travel expenses for au pairs in advance. Travel expenses are the responsibility of the au pair. Some families agree to pay the travel expenses for their au pair. If this is the case, pay your au pair for their travel expenses when they arrive in your country.
• If an au pair seems perfect in every way, this is probably too good to be true and you should steer clear of this person. They are probably not a genuine au pair.

Au Pairs

NEVER SEND MONEY TO FAMILIES!! This the most important message when it comes to dealing safely with families. Under no circumstances should any family ask you to send them money. If they do so, please let us know and we can remove them from the website immediately.

The following are some of our recommended methods to protect you from scammers:

• Beware of families who offer you a job without asking knowing much about you or asking you many questions.
• Make sure to talk to a family on Skype or by phone a few times before accepting an au pair position with them.
• Make sure you can see a family's profile on the KangarooAuPair.com website. If they are not on the website then they either do not exist or have been suspended from the site.
• Do not give any family personal information such as passport numbers or mother's maiden name. The family does not need this information and they are probably scammers.
• Be wary of travel agencies looking for money from you. Do not under any circumstances transfer money via Western Union or MoneyGram to so called 'travel agencies'.
• Be cautious of offers that are too good to be true! For example if a family offers pocket money way in excess of the norm. Inevitably this is a scammer and you can be sure that they will try to get money from you. Find out how much the normal au pair pocket money rate is in your host country and expect to earn this rate of pocket money.
• Be very wary of families who offer money in addition to pocket money.
• If a family offers pocket money way in excess of the norm, this is a scammer.
• Be cautious of contact via Facebook or other social networks.

We recommend you check this page regularly for updates. If anyone contacts you looking for money or you have concerns about any user on the KangarooAuPair.com website please contact us immediately at support@KangarooAuPair.com.