Abuse at Sittercity? Childcare industry leader Zenobia Moochhala allows Erika Morrison to claim they “don’t know any details” about ongoing practices, even as Sittercity claims to have retained records of all details

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Erika Morrison and Zenobia Moochhala at Sittercity: Parents are saying it’s Morrison’s and Moochhala’s job to know all the details, especially when parents have been telling Sittercity for so long

“Trust” is the first word you’ll hear parents use when describing what’s most important to them when choosing which organizations they count on to help them find childcare.

A 2021 article published by Brandeis’ International Business School made it sound like Sittercity’s CEO, Zenobia Moochhala was rushing in to save families from their pandemic childcare needs and provide a living wage to caregivers.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite appears to be the case when we review families’ pandemic experiences with Sittercity.

“In the middle of the pandemic with our budget tightening, we were counting every penny and decided to cancel our Sittercity membership after one month, but Sittercity kept secretly charging our kids’ grandmother’s shared account for 19 months without sending a single invoice, receipt, or bill the entire time. When the debit card Sittercity was charging finally expired, Sittercity emailed us about billings for the first time in 19 months, asking for a new credit card to charge every month. We were shocked to find they had been secretly billing us for years.”

When the business ethics editorial board reviewed this claim, it reached out to Sittercity and received multiple responses from Erika Morrison, manager of Sittercity’s “Customer Success” team. She never chose to disclose her real name, going only by ”Erika M” but the picture she used in her email matched another picture with the name Erika Morrison. Morrison ultimately stated that she had full confidence in her team to “resolve this with the customer directly” and ”within one business day.” However, the customer’s issues are still unresolved.

Sittercity leader Erika Morrison, empowered by CEO Zenobia Moochhala (tasked to merge Bright Horizons with Sittercity), continued to claim ”I don’t know any details about the experience [the business ethics editorial board is] talking about, and would highly suggest the customer reach out to the team to resolve the issue. There are no other comments to be made since this experience pertains to a customer” even after Sittercity had already received dozens of explanations, unanswered communications, and questions from both the business ethics editorial board and the customer themselves, specifying the issue in no unclear terms.

When explaining to Sittercity earlier in the week, that an article would be published this Sunday regarding the abuse, Erika Morrison stated ”we do not solve through media representatives” and reiterated that all issues are dealt with within one business day. This issue has been known to Sittercity for much longer than one business day and remains unresolved. Perhaps Morrison and Moochhala will want to acknowledge the details now. Perhaps Morrison and Moochhala would like to pay attention to the details of a media inquiry now, and to stop Sittercity’s abusive practice of secretly billing young families for years without providing a single receipt or invoice.

The customer provided proof of multiple instances when they attempted to cancel their subscription, but Sittercity’s ”Customer Success” team had systematically claimed they never received any emails from the customers, up to the day that the business ethics editorial board reached out to them.

The Sittercity customer ended up getting billed for 19 months for a service they could not and did not use; a Sittercity service the customers believed had already been canceled.

When the business ethics editorial review board reached out to Sittercity to inquire how many inactive customers they were billing on a monthly basis, Sittercity declined to answer.

The customer had this to state, ”fortunately there are Federal, Trade, and State laws put in place to prevent this type of abuse. We are absolutely shocked that Sittercity would choose to ignore us and give everyone the company line about how they intend to keep billing inactive accounts that customers believed were canceled, without providing any receipts or invoices, apparently for years on end. Sittercity has really exposed their abusive practice. If they aren’t going to fix it for us, it means they aren’t fixing it for anyone. If they are claiming they ‘don’t know any details’ even after and while we are clearly explaining the details, it means they don’t want to acknowledge or fix their abusive practices. We plan to take this to court if necessary. We want to stand up for the apparently millions of families that this could be happening to. This is a matter of principle and TRUST, and when it involves undelivered services for our kids, un-invoiced, no-receipt stealth draws from their childcare budgets and ultimately their college funds without our knowledge, we all have a lot to be angry about.”

UPDATE (March 14, 2023) Sittercity Leader Erika Morrison continues to claim her team has ”helped” the customer “since last week,” however the team has done nothing to help the customer, only telling the customer that Sittercity’s email systems (which handle subscription cancellations) do not work as they claimed because they are all ”tied together,” and admitted that Sittercity did not provide any invoices or receipts after the customer’s original cancelation date, but continued billing the customer nonetheless, and are refusing to provide any refunds for amounts billed. Furthermore, Sittercity encouraged the customer to dispute the charges with their bank, rather than to offer the customer a refund. The business ethics editorial board has reached out to Sittercity for a comment from CEO Zenobia Moochhala regarding Sittercity’s practice of not providing receipts or invoices for years on end as well as seeking comment on the issue at hand but unsurprisingly, Zenobia Moochhala has not responded. The business ethics editorial board has also reached out to Sittercity parent company Bright Horizons NYSE:BFAM, Sittercity founder Genevieve Thiers, and speakers bureau Chartwell Speakers, and has received no response.

If you or your family has been abusively billed by Sittercity after canceling a subscription, believe Sittercity owes you a refund, or continue to be billed by Sittercity without your knowledge, please reach out to the business ethics editorial board by emailing team@lifeandnews.com with the subject title ”Sittercity Childcare Abuse”

4 COMMENTS

  1. I had the same issue. My family and I signed up for Sittercity. We used it one week and then called in to cancel. They never canceled and kept billing for years. They never sent a receipt or an invoice for all those bills.

    • They aren’t a Silicon Valley company. They are Chicago trash run by a bunch of idiots. Go look at their BBB reviews. Garbage.

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