Caroline Campos (Cape Cleaners) - Her "Trust Me" Price Turned Out to Be $80/Hour
I found Caroline Campos on Google, where she has 5 stars, and hired her hoping to set up weekly cleanings for my elderly parents (88 and 91).
When I asked for a rate, she said she wanted me to trust her to set a fair weekly price after seeing the house firsthand. Her English is limited, but at the time it didn't feel like a dodge -- it sounded like she wanted to do the first cleaning, then quote a rate that would work year-round across busy and slow seasons.
She arrived at 8:45am with two other cleaners (neither spoke English) and finished at 10:15am -- 1.5 hours total.
When we sat down to talk price, she said "$20 per hour," typing 20 into her calculator, then "3 cleaners," then paused on the number 60. I assumed she was about to factor in the time, so I said, "let's round up to 2 hours -- 60 times 2." She hit ×2, got 120, paused, and then said loudly, "THAT'S FOR EACH CLEANER!" She multiplied by 3 again and landed on $360.
I explained the math out loud -- 20 × 3 × 2 = 120 -- but she didn't engage. Instead she cleared the calculator, typed "60 × 6," and told me I owed $360.
My dad was now awake and was feeling sick (he's on chemo), so I dropped it on the spot rather than stress him out with the details. Later, when I told him what happened, he wanted to call the police. I texted Caroline afterward to point out that she said and typed in "$20/hour", so the total she calculated must have been incorrect. She replied within two minutes with a five-paragraph defense in perfect lawyerly English -- clearly not her first time handling this kind of dispute.
She may be right that without anything in writing, we won't have much leverage if this goes further. But that's exactly the problem: Get her rate in writing before she starts, or you may end up paying four times what you expect! read more
