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Overseas Employment Scams (cont.)
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back to Employment Scams, page 1
Money up front
If ever one single statement should be the cause for alarm bells,
it’s ‘send money now’. In the overwhelming majority
of cases, it is the employers that pay for the services of employment
agencies, not the prospective employee so don’t ever pay
for purely the services of an employment agency up front. Perhaps
in some cases a fee might be payable after you have successfully
landed a permanent position and have actually started the job,
but these would be under very specific circumstances. If you are
considering purchasing a book, guide, or other specific information,
take note of what options you have available to pay with. Payment
by money order should be of a particular concern as payment by
this method offers little in the way of tracing methods or recourse
if payment needs to be reversed. Under no circumstances should
you give out your credit card details or bank account information
from an invitation to do so in an advertisement, or from telephone
solicitation. |
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No physical address given
Most legitimate businesses have a physical address where they can
be contacted. Even many online businesses have a ‘bricks and
mortar’ address offline, and those that don’t can be
traced through a ‘whois’
record (a record kept of the registrant, address and telephone number
of the person or company that own the domain name of any website).
Be wary of dealing with companies that only provide P.O. Box addresses
or no telephone contact details. One thing to bear in mind however
is just because a physical address may be given there are many companies
that offer ‘virtual addresses’ for other companies.
These are businesses that collect mail and offer a postal address
on behalf of other companies. In this manner there can be literally
hundreds of companies all sharing the same physical address and
are nothing more than a ‘front’ for the company.
A good way to check to see if the company you are dealing with is
using such an address is to type the first line or two of the address
into a search engine like Google. If they are using such an address
you will be likely to find dozens of websites (probably peddling
hair loss tonics, get rich quick schemes and the like) listing the
same address as a contact, and you can be sure then that you are
dealing with a virtual address. Choose to remain doing business
with them at your own risk. |
Beware the marketing
speak!
People who make advertising spend a lot of time thinking about
the words, format and style they use to make you part with your
money. They will often use emotive words or phrases like, ‘buy
now’, ‘act soon’, ‘limited time offer’,
etc. Don’t be taken in by such techniques. Beware also the
use of so-called testimonials from previous customers. If an advertisement
uses such testimonials but offers no independent means of verifying
those testimonials then they should be discounted or ignored completely.
If there are contact details for the senders of such testimonials
look carefully at the writing style of the testimonials –
often it can be seen as obvious that the same person writes them.
Be careful of telephone charges
In some cases there will be direct telephone numbers that the
applicant may be required to call for more information. Just because
a ‘free phone’ number is offered doesn’t mean
that you won’t be connected to a ‘pay per minute’
line at some point during the conversation. These have been known
to charge premium rates to the callers telephone account and unsuspecting
people have been responsible for unreasonable telephone bills
as a result. In all cases let the company call you if they are
interested in your business. Be wary of automated calls that simply
spend a long time telling you worthless information – you
could be chalking up a sizeable telephone bill. If you do suspect
such activity, contact your telephone supplier as soon as possible.
Job lists
Another popular scam is for a company to offer to sell you a list
of companies who are known to provide work for overseas applicants.
Bear in mind that many countries have strict immigration policies
for accepting overseas applicants in domestic work, so it is unlikely
that these lists will provide anything of use to you. From the
company’s point of view they are supplying to you what you’ve
paid for – a list. How up-to-date that list is, or how useful
it will be to you is highly debatable. If you are contemplating
purchasing such a list, ask the company for references of companies
that they deal with and applicants who have been successful in
obtaining a job. If they are legitimate they won’t have
any problem supplying you with that information.
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