I called. The agency we are currently with has you pay about 50% upfront and then two additional payments of about 25%. But you were right, they do this to prevent people leaving the program. It just sucks because it's not us trying to get out the program, it's us not wanting to continue after an au pair leaves because we don't want to pay a rematching fee. (We can't help if a girl decides she wants to run off with a boy or gets homesick.) They did also share though that they are changing some of the refund policies, so we will see. At the very least, if it's not the family's fault they are in rematch, then the family shouldn't have to pay a rematching fee.

Is it billed monthly for 12 months? Ours had an option to pay over time, but it was like six payments that you had to pay over the first five months. I think they did this to prevent families from bailing in the last few months of their 12 month contract.

We have hosted several pairs of successfully in the past and have always paid the program fee 100% upfront, thinking that we would get a full refund if we ever wanted to the program. We had challenging experience and, although it is advertised as a full refund, we found out with Cultural Care it really significantly less.

Due to this, if we do continue with the program, we will pay the small fee in order to be able to pay the program fee monthly. My question is if we pull out the program, we won't need a refund because we're only paying monthly. Is this correct? We just would be done because they don't know us anything or is there some stipulation that keeps us tied to them?