A new ploy has emerged on social media recently to trap parents desperate to find a place for their child, as a $200 deposit was requested to visit a brand new private daycare.
In one case noted by Radio-Canada, the Facebook post mentioned a new facility that was to open in Chicoutimi. Five new spaces were available at a rate of $45 per day.
After contacting the parents for a visit, it was after several messages, written almost without errors, that they learned that a refundable fee of $200 was required.
This policy is to cover a fully refundable booking fee in the event of cancellation during the tour, it was written for the benefit of an interested person.
The publication made in a Facebook group facilitating the search for daycare places has caused several parents to react.
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Sarah Gosselin is the mother of two young children.
Photo : Radio-Canada / Julien B.-Gauthier
I saw her post on a daycare Facebook group. I saw that she had left her email because we couldn’t comment on the post, so I contacted her by email, and then later, at some point, as the conversation was going on, she asked me for money to book a daycare visit. […] It wasn’t normal for her to ask me for money to go visit the daycare, said Sarah Gosselin, a mother from Jonquière, who avoided the trap.
A trapped mother
Not everyone was so lucky. A mother from Chicoutimi, who preferred to remain anonymous, paid the sum.
She is ashamed of having fallen into the trap.
We made the payment because she said we had to do it as soon as possible before the end of the week. As soon as I made the transfer, I thought it could be a scam and that we could lose our money. But I trusted her at first, because I thought that, precisely, the girl, I see her name, her profile, but I hadn’t thought that it could be a fake profile. […] Sure, we feel bad for thinking it was true. We feel a little stupid, anonymous mother.
An illegal request, says the OPC
For its part, the Office of Consumer Protection (OPC) is clear: asking for a deposit to visit a daycare or obtain a place is illegal.
The Saguenay Police Department (SPS) has not received any complaints on this subject, but it has been clarified that the subterfuges are numerous, surprising and original.
It is not impossible that this way of doing things will be denounced after the broadcast of your report, wrote Hervé Berghella, spokesperson for the SPS.
