Co-founder of Wondersitter seeks to place firm in bankruptcy

The co-founder of Wondersitter, the San Francisco company that brokered babysitting jobs between parents and freelance babysitters, is attempting to place the company in bankruptcy, according to court filings.

Wondersitter co-founder Rose Titcomb filed a petition last Wednesday in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of California, seeking to place Wondersitter in Chapter 7 involuntary bankruptcy.

Wondersitter, founded in 2005, helped babysitters find sitting jobs in 12 U.S. cities. Parents would pay Wondersitter in advance, and Wondersitter would in turn pay the sitters after taking a percentage of the payment.

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In recent weeks, Wondersitter faced accusations by more than 100 former sitters in California, Washington state and elsewhere who said they had not been paid in full for sitting jobs going back several months. Some of the sitters, who worked for Wondersitter as independent contractors, say they are owed thousands of dollars. Several have sought to recover the payments in small claims court.

An attorney for Titcomb did not immediately return requests for comment Tuesday. The company’s website is shut down.

The vast majority of corporate bankruptcies, 97 percent, are voluntary and are filed by the debtor, according to Lynn LoPucki, a UCLA law professor who specializes in bankrutpcy law. The Wondersitter filing is among the 3 percent that are involuntary and initiated by creditors, he said. Titcomb filed the petition as a creditor.

If the case were to proceed to bankruptcy, most of the money would likely go to secured creditors — which are typically banks — and not to the sitters. However, independent contractors do have the right to assert wage claims under bankruptcy law. The sitters may be able to recover payments of up to $10,950 per person if the sitting jobs were performed during the 180 days before the bankruptcy petition was filed, LoPucki said.

Wondersitter’s license was suspended in 2014 after the state Franchise Tax Board found that the company failed to file tax returns. The license was never reinstated, but the company continued to operate for years. The tax board can suspend an entity but does not have the authority to prevent it from operating, said a spokesman for the Franchise Tax Board. If a suspended entity continues to operate, the local law enforcement agency has the authority to shut it down, he said.

The San Francisco District Attorney’s Office is investigating Wondersitter. A spokesman for the office declined to elaborate on the scope of the inquiry other than to say it is ongoing and no arrests have been made.

Catherine Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Cat_Ho