Couple Says Nanny Service Employee Tried to Steal Thousands of Dollars

A San Francisco couple says a woman employed through a nanny service tried to steal thousands of dollars from them, according to the Fremont Argus.

The couple, Aaron Lewis and Binbin Wang, had hired the woman to take care of their twin toddlers. But on Jan. 2, they logged onto a home computer and saw that the woman tried to steal thousands of dollars and transfer funds from online accounts. She also created a fake email address, tried to erase her web browsing history and damaged the computer beyond repair, the Argus reports.

The couple says the nanny service, Bright Horizons Family Solutions, have not properly addressed the problem, according to the Argus.

That company says the employee was contracted via Fremont-based Med Staffing, one of the many subcontracting agencies Bright Horizons works with. Bright Horizons told the Argus that they worked with the couple to make police reports and will reimburse the $57 the couple paid for the nanny, but can’t do anything beyond that.

A spokesperson for Bright Horizon told reporters that they require their subcontractors to conduct background checks, and that they have never had complaints about any of the Fremont staffing company’s employees in the past.

Med Staffing declined to comment to the Argus.

Though the nanny has not yet been charged with any crime, the couple has since hired an attorney who is in settlement talks with a firm representing Med Staffing.

“They allowed a criminal to come into our home and turn our lives upside down,” Lewis told the Argus.

According to the Argus, the couple are both physicians at Kaiser Permanent in San Francisco and hired the nanny to watch their twins while they were both at work. Several hours into their shift, the couple was notified by PayPal that the online commerce company had blocked someone from transferring $2,500 from their account.

When they came home that night, they found their computer was damaged. They later learned that someone also tried to use Wang’s debit card to transfer funds and that someone had created an online bank account in Wang’s name on Jan. 14.

A cyber investigator linked some of the activity to an email address of a woman with the same first name as the nanny, the Argus reports.

Read the full Argus report here.