POEA Administrator Hans Leo J. Cacdac recently revealed another come on used by fly-by-night immigration consultants to attract unsuspecting jobseekers by promising them overseas employment supposedly without payment of fees other than for medical tests and visa interview
coaching in the Philippines.
According to Cacdac, the scheme starts with an unsolicited job offer through e-mail to nurses and caregivers apparently from legitimate and
prestigious medical facilities in Canada or the United States of America.
Cacdac cited an e-mail supposedly from Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Ontario, Canada and forwarded to the POEA, which informs the recipient
of her selection as staff nurse and/or caregiver, and details on the application procedure and payment process.
Cacdac said the offer could be hard to refuse for some applicants looking for overseas jobs. The e-mail said the workers would not be
charged any fees except Php3,888.00 for “visa interview coaching”, and Php5,000.00 for medical tests.
“No placement fee. No processing fee. No salary deduction. No show money. No experience required. Free accommodation and food
allowance,” the email sender assures the worker.
“But by examining the e-mail, one can easily conclude that it has footprints of an employment scam. The introduction of the letter was copied from the actual website of Stevenson Memorial Hospital. The sender, David R. Purvis, used a hushmail.com free e-mail account instead of the hospital’s internet domain name smhosp.on.ca,” Cacdac added.
“These scammers have access to personal data of applicants in job search sites and any e-mail informing an applicant of being selected for a specific job he or she did not apply for is undoubtedly a recruitment scam,” Cacdac said.Cacdac also clarified that immigration consultants cannot engage in the recruitment and placement of Filipino workers for overseas jobs unless they have a license from the POEA, otherwise they are violating laws on illegal recruitment.
The administrator said applicants for Canada need not pay hefty fees for advice on working visa from immigration consultants because they are readily available at the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website http://www.cic.gc.ca.
“All the forms and information that you need to apply for a visa are available for free on this website. If you follow the instructions in the application guide, you can complete the application forms and submit them on your own”, says a blurb on the website.
Cacdac said the Stevenson case is similar to Fraser Health’s which also recruits nurses and caregivers through e-mail for supposed employment in Canada and asks applicants to pay Php3,750.00 for “Canadian Embassy Interview Coaching”.
He said he has ordered the POEA anti-illegal recruitment branch to investigate further whether the two are related or operated by the same group of scammers.
The real Fraser Health in Canada, which uses their domain name fraserhealth.ca, has denied the e-mail came from them. The fake company with non-existent jobs also used a hushmail.com account.
Cacdac is urging job applicants who have received such recruitment emails to forward the same to info@poea.gov.ph for verification and proper action by the POEA.
