The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is requiring Care.com, a platform for gig workers in the elder-care and childcare space, to pay $8.5 million in refunds for deceiving caregivers who were looking for jobs, and making it difficult for families to cancel their paid memberships.
The agency said on Monday that the company’s marketing messages misled customers about the number of jobs that were available on its platform and the amount of money caregivers could expect to receive. As part of the settlement, Care.com is being required to back up its claims about the number of jobs on its site and provide users with a simple way to cancel their paid memberships.
Separately, the FTC also said that the company made it very complicated to cancel memberships, sometimes guiding users to multi-page questionnaires and warnings, and ordered the company to provide a “simple cancellation method.”
Care.com released a statement saying it settled with the FTC to keep its focus on helping families and caregivers, despite originally being “fully prepared to litigate for the next several years if necessary.”