Agent Au Pair

My opinion: STAY AWAY from this small, exceptionally badly managed, unprofessional agency. Go with one that knows what they are doing and at least understands and honors the agreement they ask you to sign.

The agency is badly managed. We had 3 LCCs during one year. The best one was the first one who unfortunately left. The rest were absolutely USELESS. One of them sent us an email once a month to check if everything was ok, the other one never did anything — we never met her or heard from her at all.
But one thing stood out the most in our communication with the agency — it turned out they told one thing to us and completely different thing to our au pair on a few occasions, basically lying to both of us. Absolutely unprofessional, to say the least, not even talking about ethics.
Also if you ever want to replace an au pair it would be pretty difficult because the agency is small. For all these reasons I would highly recommend to go with another agency.

I will start by saying Agent Au Pair had introduced us to several great Au Pairs who we will always consider to be part of our family. We have had great experiences, and this review has nothing to do with the Au Pairs placed with us.
Our relationship with Agent Au Pair started in 2009 or 2010. We had several good interactions, even when we needed to make changes. Everything was handled professionally, and with a sense of empathy, which we appreciated.
2014 was not our year in terms of matching. Our first Au Pair could not drive, so we rematched, Our second Au Pair was a terrible fit and lasted only a short time. We got our third Au Pair within a couple months, and it worked great, until our Au Pairs mother needed surgery and had to return home after seven months. No one was happy with that, but we understood and worked to get another replacement.
That is where the professionalism and empathy ended. We did get another great Au Pair, but the process was unprofessional, contentious, and borderline dishonest. As we compared stories with our new Au Pair after the match was completed, all our suspicions of how the situation was handled came to light.
They say you vote with your check book. We have. We have moved to another agency, which cost significantly more. Money well spent. Not only is the new agency more professional, they provide much better support for their Au Pairs. Coming to a new country is not easy, and having a agency that supports the person who is living in your house, and caring for your children is vital. I paid more to avoid Agent Au Pair, but in hindsight, I am getting much better value now.

Thank you Agent Aupair for helping us get organized and situated with an au pair that fits our family perfectly. The placement manager walked me through the process and helped me understand how I could make the best use of my time with my twins by utilizing an au pair. We were reluctant to have someone live with us since we had not done that before but it has been great. There is someone there every morning to help get the kids ready for school and someone every afternoon to help with keeping the children’s room, laundry, dinners, etc., all organized. This allows me the opportunity to spend quality time with my children after school and on the weekends. It’s been 6 months and I am very happy. So much better than having a non-​live in nanny that calls in sick, flat tire, etc. I am able to really focus on my business knowing that my 5 year old twins are well taken care of. And, they have the opportunity to learn a second language from home. Our nanny travels with us from the bay area to the Desert 2x a month giving me extra time to relax on the weekends. Perfect.

I have been with Agent Au Pair since 2011 and have had 2 great au pairs through them. Our newest au pair however has been a disaster and the agency’s response worse.
Our newest au pair arrived from Italy in May 2014, a few weeks ago. At first she was friendly and sweet. On Memorial Day, my family was in Marin and the au pair had the day off. She took my car without permission, picked up another au pair and had a serious car accident on Bush Street after making an illegal lane change. Our au pairs are not allowed to use the car when they are not working and that rule is made very clear to them on day 1. I pay for a bus pass for them so they can get around. When I asked her why she took the car, she shrugged and replied that she did not feel like waiting for the bus.
So, she is young and made a bad choice. It happens. We decided to let her go as our trust in her was gone. Oh, by the way, she wrecked our only car and our insurance company ruled that she is at fault. We pay for the insurance rate hike, the rental car and the new car to replace the damaged one.
But this agency is not a 20 year old Italian kid and I expected more. They are actually moving this girl into a new family to take care of their kids. Beware, Bay Area parents, your new au pair may be this girl who you know little about. I sent them an email to discuss refunding the almost $ 5000 fee that we paid to get the au pair into the US. No response after 4 days.
The bottom line– don’t use this agency, they are passing along damaged goods– an au pair who within 3 weeks of arrival stole our car for a joy ride and wrecked it. Do you really want to trust your kids and their safety to an au pair agency that prioritizes making more fees off this girl over recognizing that she is not an appropriate person to watch small children?

Used agent au pair through 2 au pairs in 2010 – 2013. Overall, they’re nice folks but not too organized and hard to get a hold of once your au pair arrives.
More details:
Matching: They were pretty responsive when we were selecting an au pair. They’ll regularly send you basic applications for review, based on the priorities and quals we were looking for. Despite asking, they didn’t really have much advice on how to choose/​interview an au pair, and when we were looking for our first one, we found that a little frustrating.
Ongoing Support: Our neighborhood contact was pretty much absent once our au pair arrived, and was ultimately fired. Her replacement wasn’t much better. Despite state department requirements for monthly contact to the family, we got 3 emails over 12 months.
Re-​matching: for those who are new to au pairs, this is when you decide to fire your existing au pair, and seek a new one. The agency was very responsive to us, but was not helpful to our au pair. My rating above does not reflect the au pair’s experience, only mine.
We ultimately switched agencies and are MUCH happier. Turns out other agencies offer way more detailed applications (which helped us find a great new au pair) and provide advice on how to interview/​select and au pair. The local contact has been very communicative and returns my emails almost immediately.
Bottom line: they’re the cheapest for a reason.