Job scam alert in Sri Lanka!

We know that many Sri Lankans seek employment overseas (particularly in the Middle East) and often times, they do this for very petty salaries. But it's their thought that at least that money can be made if they worked overseas, rather than struggle to survive in their own land. Then again, this is not always the case, as there are well-paid jobs too...

Now to the subject of recruitment... We know that recruitment agencies play a vital role in liaising with the foreign employer to send our folks abroad. These agencies seem to be very complex in their operations and a typical recruitment involves communication between various other organisations both locally and abroad.

Sometimes prospective employees (job-seekers) can be misled by the name of the recruiting agent. For example, you may find an old agency that used to offer a great service in the past, continuing to exist, but their services may have turned out to be horrible. The same goes to some old schools that are only popular because of their past but today they're not even close to being descent.


Here's a story... This case is hypothetical. However, I feel that they're very possible. So I'd like you to read through these cases and share your thoughts on this subject. Perhaps hearing your own experiences may be useful to someone else.

 A popular agency offered many teaching positions in a Middle Eastern country (not Saudi Arabia). They even conduct a written test which they called an IQ test. But in reality, this was one of those personality tests that you can find on-line, for free.

Nearly all teachers were selected based on this test. It was rather strange, how one can select teachers without knowing their skill in the subject or without even looking at them.

Subsequently the teachers were told to pay up their advances (a pretty descent amount) to them. At this early stage, the teachers were told to go for their medical tests, submit their passports and get their documents attested by the foreign ministry and the respective embassy. All this meant money. There were people who even borrowed money to carry out these chores. It is a custom for Sri Lankans to sell or pawn some of their belongings to collect cash for such things. Hoping for early departure, some of these people even quit their current jobs. How sad!

The agency denies that they ever requested the teachers to leave their current jobs but they did certainly promise departure within 3 weeks. So what would you expect these folks to do other than quit?

Strangely though, departure within 3 weeks never happened even after 3 months.

A very interesting thing happened during the group interview. Yes, that's what I would like to call it. One of the senior agency staff made a presentation addressing a group of about 50 prospective employees. He said what he wanted to say, and then opened for questions. This is when hell broke out.

Some people asked him the wrong questions (at least that's what he may have felt). Here are some of these questions...

1. Where do we land in that country and who's going to receive us? Answer: I'll check and let you know.
2. What is my salary? Answer: I'll check and let you know.
3. What is my visa category - is it teacher or labourer? Answer: I'll check and let you know. And it doesn't matter.

Like this, there were many questions that brought out the captain-cool-fool "I don't know" answers... In response,  one clever chap who couldn't keep his mouth shut said that if it weren't for the name and fame of the agency, he'd have thought it was a fake or hoax. This got the senior speaker angry.

And now it was filtering time. The speaker requested the names of these interrogators and guess what - yes, he chopped them off... He didn't want any trouble.

Coming back to the ones who were selected... Some months had gone by but the selected people weren't gone yet...

And then it was the day they all waited for... Nope, not the day to go. Rather it was the day to stay! Yes, these selected people now were told that due to a visa issue or something like it, they weren't going.

Apparently, another person was told that the agency discovered that these vacancies never really existed!

Another story was that the overseas recruiter didn't exist in reality.

What now? Will anyone take action against the overseas recruiter (if they really exist)? Will anyone bring the agency to justice? Is this the only case of its kind? Will the agency repeat this? We do not know!

The above is untrue and is only a story, full-stop.

Do you have real story to share? Please comment and share your thoughts. Someone may be helped.

Free Introduction to programming with Pascal

Have you ever wanted to check out what the world of programming is like? Have you ever had the thought of a career as a programmer or developer?

Then I feel you'll like this class - it's online, it's FREE, it's live - not a recorded video; so you may ask me any question during the presentation.

If you're reading this, you're probably interested in learning about programming. All you have to do is click the link below and fill in the form with your details. And expect a mail from me.

Click here to get invited to the FREE training session.


See you soon!

Online Job scams/scandals - Please verify and confirm in your territory.

I'd like to bring to the attention of EVERYONE OUT THERE about a possible scam that spans the world!


In summary, they are:
URL: www.cyberonlinejobs.net
Concept / Theme: Collect money, promising work (from home).

How this drew my attention:
They've been advertising on my site - www.bravoclassifieds.com - under different user names and often with an address linkning to Australia. I never really checked to see if they were valid or genuine.

Here's why I think they're fake:

1. Often the (sign-up) addresses contain cities in Pakistan or India, with the country identified as Australia.

2. In two occasions, I mailed the advertiser back, and requested them to change their details. They never did it.

3. The ads they post vary. Sometimes selling car parts, sometimes offering money-making schemes. They always point to the same link. In certain cases, it's just a forwarded (click-through) link. These ads are still on bravoclassifieds.com for your reference but I'll be pulling them down soon.

4. They've identified several contact 'persons' and locations as franchisees. I checked out the ones in Sri Lanka. One of them is a leading school in Colombo and they probably don't even know that their name's on their site. The other is a popular star-class hotel in the capital city. The strange thing is that both are different locations and the email addresses are cloaked to lead to the same (i.e., school) email address.

Their URL showing franchisee contact details: http://www.cyberonlinejobs.net/asia.asp


Look at the email addresses. Don't click them. Just place the mouse pointer over them. See how they refer to the same location!

5. Finally, they ask for membership fees and monthly fees to 'buy' work!. This is in no way allowed in Sri Lanka.  Some time back, some scammers from India came to Sri Lanka and played out the Sri Lankans before they vanished with a mighty some of money with their 'SEAGUL' work-from-home scheme.


So, I don't have any positive report about these people (perhaps it's one person).

Spread the word and stay alert!

M.I.Z. Khalid
Teacher, Solutions developer

PS: If anyone of you readers have something to say about this scheme/scam, please post your thoughts here. Please be genuine/honest. You're doing the world a favour.

MS-Windows - You can get HACKED for hitting F1

His everyone... This is an alert aimed at all WINDOWS - Internet Explorer users. In short, this is the message:

If you are running Internet Explorer, watch out for any pop-up messages that request you to hit F1. This is reported to be a hack attempt by the website trying to take control of your computer.

For more information, visit this link:

Full Story

Happy computing!

Edi Al Adha (Hajj festival) 2009

First, the facts:

Eid-Al-Adha (The celebration of the Hajj festival) is scheduled for Friday the 27th of November, 2009, Insha Allah. Yes, I'm referring to the DAY AFTER ARAFAH.

Based on the sighting of the new moon (crescent) of Dhul-Hijjah (or the Month of Hajj), the Saudi Arabian government has reported that, today, Wednesday the 18th of November, 2009 is the FIRST day of hajj. And as such, the day of Arafah is fixed for the 26th Thursday.

It is on this day that those who are NOT on hajj (i.e., the pilgrimage) will observe an optional fast. And the people around the world (i.e., those who are NOT on hajj), will celebrate the Eid with a morning prayer on the 27th.

And now to the problem...

It is rather unfortunate that despite all the information about the sighting of the new moon, some people try to look for it in their own locality. As a result of this ignorant act, they miss the correct day of Hajj. It is common in countries like Sri Lanka that people tend to practise the Eid "a day after the actual Eid" and no one seems to notice the issue.

Well, at least some of us are trying to do it the right way, and I hope those of you who read this will also agree with me that Eid should be on one ONE day across the world.

More on the Eid can be found here.

Eid Mubarak!

Twitter overload?

Strange, but it happened just now (as I write this message)...

As I tried to retweet the news item about pirates in Somalia, the twitter.com site hung up on me. Is this really a genuine overload, or another one of those horrible DDOS attacks? I hope with all sincerity that this is only temporary and that things will return to normal.

It was only in the recent past that I helped a client of mine in the US to recover from their DDOS attack. It was 'an experience' for me and I was shocked at how someone had 'planted' an entire folder that promoted a certain type of drug.

I just don't understand what these fellows get out of this entire horrid exercise!

Let's hope things default to normal soon!
Khalid

PS: For more info on this I'll be making a detailed post either on this blog or on my site www.marhaonline.com. Keep in touch!

Why I like Cambridge (CIE)

At first it was personal, but eventually it became a trend. Let me spill the beans...

First some background. When I started teaching the GCE Advanced Level (A/L) Computing subject in 1993, we called the examining body ULEAC (University of London Examination and Assessment Council). Then the following year I began teaching the GCE Ordinary Level (O/L) as well and its examining group was called ULSEB (...School Examination Board) - I'm playing this off my cuff and I hope I've got these abbreviations right.

Then in the late '90s, BTEC joined hands with the UL folks (at Steward House, Russell Square) and they called themselves 'Edexcel'. This was (possibly), in my own opinion, one of those synergies for survival like we saw with Lotus and IBM, Siemens and Fujitsu, and HP and Compaq in the past. Anyway, the issue was that as the turn of the century approached we (teachers AND students) had quite a few hiccups with the examination boards. At first, we dealt with the Department of Examinations, Sri Lanka, as the intermediary with Edexcel and subsequently, the British Council in Colombo took over the chores.

By this time, I had already taught a few students for both the AQA and Cambridge examinations as a private tutor. I was highly impressed with the standard of the examination, the structure of the paper and most importantly the Attitude of the (CIE) examining board. I've nothing personally against either of these examination bodies, but here's a simple example.

In searching for a solution to the different issues we had back then, I one day emailed the wonderful, (late) Dr. Fred Burke of CIE (Cambridge International Examinations). I hadn't seen him and didn't know anything about him then. And I was truly amazed at his attitude when he replied within a couple of days and requested me for my (institution's) postal address to mail me syllabuses, papers and the works.

Before long, Dr. Fred was in Sri Lanka and addressed us at the British Council in Colombo. I was on a war-footing... I wanted a change. So I (tried to) convince the schools I worked with and everyone at that time had excuses for not making the switch. Finally, it turned out to become a trend, and today, most people (even reluctantly) are switching to CIE.

Once again, please be reminded that I have nothing against other examining boards. In fact, I still tutor some students for Edexcel examinations. Now, here's why I like CIE.

1. Quick response - good admin feedback.
2. The examination style is simply wonderful - at least with my subject - Computing.
3. The cost of sitting examinations is far less, particularly where the A/Ls in one shot is concerned.
4. Edexcel dropped Computing and brought in Applied ICT (which I disregard as an A/L subject).
5. Computing with CIE is available TWICE a year while Edexcel's Computing was only once a year. Of course ICT from Edexcel is also available twice every year now.

End note:
In the recent years Edexcel was 'acquired' by the Pearson Group, which is not connected to the University of London. They are a company known for online testing systems in the past.

In the mean time, two weeks back, CIE made a bad move - a really bad one. They 'down-sized' their awarding scheme to only a top few 'world class' students. As a result, almost stubbornly, some have decided to revert back to Edexcel.

Phew! What a world...