nm
She’ll get caught. I pulled a stunt like this in my younger days (though not with kids, and with someone in the same business who was extremely trustworthy) and I got caught in less than an hour.
The drawback of this plan is that she’ll stay the same age forever.
She would effectively become an employer. And when she gets found out, the IRS will come after her for back taxes. Or at least, you could tell her this.
You don’t talk to the cousine who’s not listening anyway.
You talk to the potential sub and say, “Hey, you wanna make triple what my cousine is paying you? Talk to the family directly and offer your services at 25% less than what they’re paying my cousine.”
That ends up being what your cousine is keeping from the subcontracting scam. So your cousine gets nothing, the expected sub makes more than ever, and the family needing a sitter gets a better deal.
No doubt the expected sub will go to the rest of your cousine’s clients and offer the same deal – the same work for less than they’re currently paying, just to cut out the middleman…
—G!
*If you pay this invoice,
I can pay my grocer,
my grocer can pay his tailor
his tailor can pay his sitter
his sitter can buy candy
the candy maker can pay for electricity
the electric company can pay employees
–one of whom is your wife.
Never mind…
Janice, can you pay your husband’s invoice?*
Except Stacy has diabetes!
If the sub wears a Mission Impossible style mask, it just might work.
If something goes wrong, she’s going to get sued, and she’s going to lose, and she’ll be 100% responsible for all the damage her new friend causes.
I suppose she could sue her sub for compensation, no doubt this new immigrant who’s willing to work for $3 an hour is swimming in cash.
What’s her plan for when the parents call the house halfway through dinner and her sub answers the phone? If the parents get nasty and know a cop, your cousin is going to wind up arrested for child endangerment. The charge may not stick, but she’ll spend a night in jail and have an arrest record. That’s what I’d do if a sitter pulled that crap on me.
If she wouldn’t want the homeowners to find out, it’s probably wrong. And it is.
Didja convince your cousin yet, Diamonds02?
I would rat the cousin out in a heartbeat. I’m extremely protective of my house and my cats–to think that someone I trusted (and paid!) to take care of them would farm the job out to some random person I don’t know who may or may not be honest and/or reliable…that just makes my blood boil right there. I can only imagine how angry someone would be if this happened with their kids.
I think you mean more like dibble or fresh. Or dibbly fresh.
In addition to the excellent points everybody else has made, try telling your cousin, “How would you feel if it were your child being babysat by somebody you’ve never met?”
I’m a parent, and just the idea of running home to pick up something I’d forgotten and seeing a stranger there…
I’m going out on a limb and guess that the individual in question is not a parent.
I love it when a plan comes together!
Probably not, but you don’t have to be a parent to realize that people don’t want a stranger to show up when they’ve hired a specific person to do a specific job. I think this is more of a case of idiocy rather than not being a parent (I’m not a parent either, and I wouldn’t even consider doing this).
I talked her out of this. 
I’m so glad that she finally listened to me.
And no, she is not a first cousin. :rolleyes: But a close cousin, nevertheless.
Hell, I’m not a parent but the thought of finding a total stranger looking after my kids, in my house, is pretty awful.