What's the best background check service for nanny and who pays?
What's the best service for running a background check on potential nanny candidate? I see mixed reviews about the ones offered by commercial nanny search services like Care.com not being thorough or worth the cost.
I'm also wondering who is expected to pay for background checks? On commercial sites, it appears the employer pays for a background check, but with Trustline it appears the nanny/employee has to pay a registration fee?
Dec 10, 2023
Parent Replies
We reimbursed our nanny for the Trustline fee.
Trustline is operated by the state of California and was set up specifically so parents can do background checks on nannies and babysitters since, unlike daycares, the state doesn't require nannies to be licensed. It's very likely that private background check services actually use Trustline underneath. Even if not, Trustline is preferable because it provides additional checks such as flagging nanny names that have been used in identity theft scams. Trustline is free for parents but it's fairly pricey for individual nannies, so I think a lot of parents pay the fee for their nanny to be registered with Trustline.