• Home
• /
• World
• /
• Gulf

Fake online firm takes jobseekers for a ride

DUBAI -An online recruitment company has duped thousands of Indians and Bangladeshis of their money by promising them lucrative jobs abroad.

Saturn Jobs apparently pilfered thousands of dirhams from job seekers from these two countries by offering them fake jobs in countries such as Japan, Malyasia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore.

The modus operandi of the conmen seemed straight out of a Hollywood movie. A UK based company, Saturn jobs set up its virtual operations in Dubai (www.saturnjobs.com) and targeted job seekers in India and Bangladesh. Renting an office space in the city for only a period of 25 days (18.12.2003- 13.1.2004), Paul Marks, the apparent mastermind behind the scheme then proceeded to place advertisements in some of India's leading dailies (Times of India and The Hindu) inviting job seekers to apply through the company's website for placements abroad. An offer letter was then dispatched to the unsuspecting victims, without an interview of any sort, citing that the job was theirs, provided they pay a processing fee of 75 pounds (Dh495), which would cover visa charges and air tickets.

The fees was then asked to be transferred to a UK bank account (Barclays Bank, Account Number- 40231142) and failure to do so would result in a forfeiture of the job offer. The website listed no contact numbers and only a Colin Simpson (Recruitment Officer) liased with the job applicants. The website itself was created with the specific extent of cheating as it was created last year and the domain name would expire in November of this year. The company gave specific instructions to the selected candidates to contact them through email only and gave no contact or fax numbers.

Thousands of unemployed people were thus duped this way and once the company made enough out of this con, the alleged Mr. Marks absconded and left the country.

Speaking to Khaleej Times about the company's fraudulent practices, Mohammed Hilal Al Muroushedi, Director of the Compliance Division, Department of Economic Development (DED), said that since Saturn Jobs was not registered with the DED, the company was operating illegally from the city and that an investigation was being carried out regarding its activities here.

"The setting up of any business in Dubai requires a license from the DED and this particular company did not have one. We received complaints from the UAE External Affairs Ministry regarding this scam, and we are conducting a full-fledged investigation to ascertain how big this operation was. Since the office space leased to the company was by Self Corp., another company in the Emirates Towers, it was their responsibility to ensure that a proper license was issued to Saturn Jobs and they should have come to us for this. Since they did not, we are planning to send them a letter of enquiry asking them on what basis they gave this space to Saturn Jobs," he said.

When contacted by this paper, Self Corp. said that they were receiving thousands of calls from beleaguered relatives of job seekers here, asking them the whereabouts of Saturn Jobs.

"Unfortunately, we do not have Saturn Jobs' forwarding address or contact numbers through which we can help these people. We are receiving hundreds of calls everyday and have received many more letters as well but all we know is that they have closed their operations from here since the past 2 months," said the company.

The company made tall claims on its website that it had provided nearly 17,000 successful placements in the last twenty years and many people fell for this trap.

Mr. Al Moroushedi added that since the company officials have absconded, the matter is out of their jurisdiction and that in most probability the case has become a legal once now. "If it was up to us to refund these poor people their money we would, but since this Paul Marks has already left the country, there’s nothing much we can do about it. People should probably take this matter up with the police who may be able to help them out," said Mr. AL Moroushedi.