No placement fee? No such thing, says POEA

Beware of unsolicited e-mail offering hospital jobs in North America or Canada with “no experience required” and “no placement fees,” the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) on Monday warned jobseekers, calling it another another illegal recruitment scheme perpetrated by Internet scammers.

“These scammers have access to the personal data of applicants on job search sites and any e-mail informing an applicant of having been selected for a specific job he or she did not apply for is undoubtedly a recruitment scam,” said POEA chief Hans Leo Cacdac in a statement.

Cacdac said the scammers use e-mail to offer jobs in prestigious hospitals in Canada and the United States “without any fees” except for medical exams and the “visa interview coaching.”

One such e-mail, Cacdac said, offered jobs at Stevenson Memorial Hospital in Ontario, Canada, with  “No placement fee. No processing fee. No salary deduction. No show money. No experience required. Free accommodation and food allowance.”

Cacdac, however, noted that the e-mail sender, a David R. Purvis, used a free hushmail.com e-mail account “instead of the hospital’s Internet domain name smhosp.on.ca.” The letter’s introduction was also copied from the actual website of the hospital, he said.

The POEA chief said the Stevenson case was similar to a previous scam where an e-mail purportedly from Fraser Health in Canada  offered  jobs in exchange for a P3,750 fee for the “Canadian Embassy Interview Coaching.”

The real Fraser Health, which uses the Internet domain name fraserhealth.ca, denied sending the e-mail, Cacdac said, adding that advice on how to get working visas to Canada was readily available on the Citizenship and Immigration Canada website https://www.cic.gc.ca.

Cacdac said immigration consultants could not engage in recruitment unless they were duly licensed by the POEA. He also urged job applicants to forward suspicious e-mail to [email protected] for investigation.