American Institute for Foreign Study 1 High Ridge Park, Stamford, CT 06905

"The au pair program is not a “cultural exchange”. Host families make you work the full 45 hrs a week, paying you 196 dollars a week, taking your weekends making you do house cleaning, pet sitting, gardening, etc. Not a program I would recommend at all."

"I traveled to the USA as an au pair in 2021 and after being an au pair there for 1.5 years, I can say that there is a lot of nice talk and we are sometimes lured there with completely false promises that we would have so much free time, extremely much Traveling and experiencing the American way of life and doing so many things with the host family because we were family members. The reality was different for me, I was in 3 different families and I am of the opinion that children in these families are raised completely wrong and the parents are sometimes completely overwhelmed. I can only speak for my experience with host parents here. Not everyone will be like this but I haven't had a good experience. If young girls really want to go to the USA, I recommend that they don't be an au pair but rather attend a summer camp, as you can also look after children there but you don't have to be there for the host family 24/7. The advisors tell us that they are always there for us, but I am of the opinion that they are only interested in the well-being of the host families and if you ever have to go to the doctor, you should have a lot of savings because you have to pay for everything yourself and wait forever for a refund. I would recommend double insurance."

"prem bibash Devkota"

"*** Breach of contract because the au pair was NOT infant qualified. *** The au pair that we were matched with was NOT infant qualified (did not know anything about caring for a baby and had no common sense as a care taker despite 3 full weeks of training by us -- didn't know that you need to support a baby's head, never bathed a baby, etc.), lied on her application (said she watched many babies at an orphanage, when in fact she said that she worked in "fashionables" when she arrived) and once in America (told her counselor that we were forcing her to work more than 45 hours per week and forcing her to clean the whole house -- both 100% false), stole cash from us (cash gifts that we received for baby's birth), and filed a false police report against us (claimed that we stole her iPad -- though we don't have one and never saw her with one either). Despite all of this, we could not get a refund for the big upfront fees paid to Au Pair in America. The counselors are shady, blamed us for the entire situation after hearing the au pair's lies without hearing both sides of the story first, and company/representatives stopped responding. What a scam. After much back and forth, we were finally able to get a partial refund of $5,885, and then another $1,200... leaving us $1,295 short of the amount paid for one year of contracted services. All of this unfolded in the first three weeks upon her arrival. The good news is that we found out sooner rather than later... Beware..."