This is not the first time I am writing about job scams but a recent case that was reported in The Star on 14 Mar 2007 certainly took the cake.
When a team of police officers raided a house in Taman Pandan Ria in Ampang, they found 16 youths who were held captive in the house by a syndicate that taught them how to solicit money.
According to the police, the youths – from various parts of the country – had responded to advertisements placed in local Chinese newspapers that promised to hire them as marketing executives and front office supervisors with salaries of between RM900 and RM1,000 per month.
The applicants who were told that they had been successfully hired were then asked to pay between RM150 and RM200 to attend a one-month training programme.
But instead of this training, they were told to solicit for money illegally on the streets, purportedly for charitable organisations. Some of the youths were even taught how to stammer in order to gain public sympathy.
Doesn’t this story sound so typical of a job scam?
A real job advertisement should not require you to pay money for processing your application or training.
Because these youths had been duped to part with the money, they felt without a choice but to carry out the company’s wishes before they could earn their money back.