Archive for December 14th, 2009
Saving Your Money before Losing it To Fake Visa Providers
Are you a national of a developing country aspiring to make your way to Europe or USA? If yes, then you must be very very careful against scammers who offer jobs over the internet and rob people of their money. Following is what happened to me earlier this month.
Browsing the job site www.godubai.com, I found a call for staff for a hotel in London called Embassy Hotel London (the listing is still there as I write these lines under the title Job Offer in the job listing). The e-mail address to apply was mrs_loveth_bill@yahoo.co.in. So I applied for the position of a receptionist and was accepted for it after an online aptitude test (conducted via email). I received an employment contract via e-mail and signed it, scanned it, and sent it back. The hotel’s resource manager Edmund Burton asked me to contact a consular Gerry Robert in UK at permit@worker.com about getting my work permit to UK. I was happy and never thought of being deceived at that time. My e-mail to Gerry was replied by the guy who sent me an application form and asked to pay him 200 pounds as work permit processing fee. Interestingly, he asked me to pay the money to one John Nicholas Lindsay (which I now suspect is Gerry’s real name) in London. I sent the money via Western Union on Friday, November 16, 2007. Gerry acknowledged receiving the money.
On the 5th day after the money was sent, Gerry wrote again telling me that the immigration office has approved my coming to London for work but I must pay another 330 pounds to get my International Vaccination Certificate that will allow me to use health facilities in UK and also would cover travel tax and airport terminal fee. Knowing that my friends who went to UK couple of months back were not required to pay these charges, I called the immigration office in London. It turned put that the numbers which Gerry (or John Nicholas Lindsay) and the hotel staff used with their names in the e-mails were all UK mobile numbers. I knew at once that I had been taken in for money. After browsing the web and doing some research, it was clear that this Gerry/John uses a real postal address of the immigration office but his won cell phone number along with his name and fake designation as immigration consular. I contacted my friend Irfan (who is in UK) and asked him to confirm if there actually was such a hotel called Embassy Hotel in London. I am awaiting his response. Calling back Gerry/John, I told him that I wasn’t going to pay anymore and that he better refund my money or else I’d bring the matter to London Police. I’m not sure if I can exactly do that while living here in Pakistan. But I felt like warning others like me who are dreaming of flying to UK or the Developed West. For everyone who is living in Asia, I must beware him/her against paying anyone in UK or any country besides his/her won for getting a visa. The work-permits and visas are issued by the embassy or high commission of the target destination in one’s own country. No one, if interested in not losing his/her money, should pay any person outside his/her country. Also, beware of people who give a cell phone number instead of regular office line (in UK the cell phone numbers start with the digit 7)
Following are the cell phone numbers of people who appear to have robbed to of my money.
Gerry/John Nicholas Lindsay
+447024098974
+447024023328
Embassy Hotel London (if it exists)
Phone: +447024033396
Fax:+9447024075967