Overseas job seekers warned vs Web offers
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration office. Photo from www.poea.gov.ph
MANILA, Philippines—The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has reiterated its warning to overseas job applicants to be cautious when considering employment offers through the Internet.
POEA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac, in an advisory, said he received a report from the Philippine Embassy in Lisbon about cases of Filipinos who had been victimized after receiving e-mails from companies and law firms supposedly in Portugal offering jobs and promising to process entry visas or work permits after the payment of fees by money transfer.
Cacdac said unscrupulous individuals were posing as representatives of reputable Portuguese companies using the firms’ information from their websites but replacing their contact information.
The Philippine Embassy in Lisbon cited the case of a Filipino who was offered a managerial position in Grupo Salvador Caetano, a major Portuguese company.
“The company clarified that the employment offer was not real and that they had received several other reports of bogus job offers using the name of their firm,” the embassy said.
According to Cacdac, these unscrupulous individuals require payment of fees for entry clearance certificates, international overseas employment certificates and affidavits of guarantee fund, all of which are not required by Portugal.
“In other cases, the e-mail recipient is asked to transact with designated travel agencies that will process the necessary documents and visa required for the job contract,” he said.
Prestigious companies have their own human resources departments that always require personal interviews and rarely hire employees through the Internet, Cacdac reminded jobseekers.
“Any unsolicited job offer through e-mail which requires the payment of fees for testing, language seminars, documentation and processing of visas is a sure sign of a scam,” he said.
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