It's time childcare waiting list fees were banned.

Here is the usual drill when you get those tell-tale lines in a pregnancy test.

Your first feeling is panic – you are having a baby.  There’s a baby is inside you.

Then fear.  I’m not responsible enough to have a baby. 

Then joy.  A baby, I’m going to be a mum.

Then panic again. How on earth am I going to find childcare?

With some councils having waiting lists of up to two or three years it’s a justified panic.

Many will outlay hundreds in non-refundable childcare fees and with some centres charging $150 just to put a child’s name down on a list and some parents putting their children down at multiple centres you can imagine just how waiting list fees can add up.

But are parents being taken advantage of in their quest to find childcare? Should waiting list fees be this costly? In fact should there be waiting list fees at all?

News Limited reports that many parents in NSW are fed up and are taking their complaints to Fair Trading.

A spokesperson for Fair Trading told News Local they had received some complaints about childcare wait list fees over the past year.

“There is currently no regulation of the price of goods and services in New South Wales, and childcare providers are free to set prices as market conditions allow.”

She estimated she applied at 10 centres with fees of up to $100 and she never received a refund.

“I had applied when my son was just six weeks old, I applied for probably 10 or 11 centres but only three ever called me back,” she said.

“The fees were anything from $25 to $100 per centre and when I tried to get the money back we got nothing — not even a phone call.”

Another mum told a similar story.

Lisa Jones of Leichhardt said she too never received a refund.

“I paid between $70 and $80 for a wait list spot — I never got refunded for anywhere,” she said.

“I was told in Leichhardt there was a five-year waiting list and mums were putting their names at 8 to 10 centres while they were pregnant.”

But are the fees justified?

A long way from Leichardt, all the way over in Ontario Canada, waiting list fees have just been banned. Their Education Minister Mitzie Hunter told CBA the ban came into effect to stop childcare operators “taking advantage” of parents.

She called it an “unfair practise”.

"We know that parents and children shouldn't be burdened with any undue hardships, especially when they're looking for child care to give their children the best possible start that they need to succeed," she said.

So if they can do it in Canada why can’t they do it here?

What’s confusing is that not all childcare operators in Australia charge fees for waiting lists.

Some charge nothing at all, while others charge a nominal fee of $10.

Why others need to inflate that out to $100 or $150 doesn’t make sense.

Nesha Hutchinson of the Australian Childcare Alliance told News Local that the fees go towards a variety of administration costs.

“Wait list fees are to cover the cost of doing call backs and mail outs — it is also a way of weeding out people who aren't serious,” she said.

In a time when finding childcare can be a source of great stress for many parents surely you’d be hard pressed to find parents who “aren’t serious” when they put their child on a waiting list.

Lobby group, The Parenthood, have said in the past that they believe said the practice of waiting list fees is a cash grab.

They are right. It’s time it stopped.

NSW Fair Trading say before paying any waiting list fee, parents and caregivers should:

•   Seek information on their place on the waiting list, and consider the likelihood of their child being offered a place.

•   Confirm with the business whether there are any terms and conditions associated with placing a child on a waiting list.

•   Check whether the fee is refundable after a set period if a suitable position does not become available.

•   Make sure any agreement made in relation to the waiting list fee is put in writing, and request a receipt as proof of payment.

www.fairtrading.nsw.gov.au.