Help please

[melboghdady]

Hello all,
I'm Mohamed, a house officer (medical trainee) from Egypt.
I have applied for a job (medical assistant) in a hotel in London.
The employer interviewed me & i passed the interview.
He sent me a contract to sign.
He told me that the hotel will support my work visa & provides me with all documents to that visa from England embassy in Egypt.
After that, he sent me 2 PDF files, the first is the "visa application form" & the second is "Application for a grant of leave and residence work permit under TIER 2"
The employer asked me to pay 390.50 £ via western union to " James reeves", his address is 8-kingdown orchard- Hyde road swindon- wiltshire sn2-7rr- United kingdom
My questions are,
- Is it possible to get a work visa in England in my case? &
- Do you think that this opportunity is real or i'm being cheated?

Thank you,
Mohamed

[arsenal49]

are you in england? where was your interview conducted?

try calling the hotel where you will (suposedly) be working and see if you can ascertain that the job exists and that the interviewer works there.

DO NOT wire the money!

if he is legit, than the official process is:
i)employer files an application to ukba to get certificate of sponsorship.
ii) he will fwd that certificate number to you, which applicant would use in tier 2 application. at this stage, you are suppose to provide necssary docs.

the way you have explained this...leads me to conclude he is a scam artist!

do your research before trusting the guy

[melboghdady]

Dear arsenal49,
I'm outside England (I'm from Egypt).
The interview was in the form of 16 questions in a word file. I types the answers and send him back & he told me that i was accepted.
I have already send an email message to the hotel about if the job opportunity already exits or not? but unfortunately they didn't reply.
By the way, i didn't send him any money yet.
I will copy/paste his response when i told him that i suspect him, please see below
-----------------------------------------------
His email response was:
The procedures of payment are written in the mail sent to you by the
British immigration services.The processing of your traveling
documents are done here in the UK.
The payment is to be made by western union and you will scan and send
the filled visa and residence/work permit forms with the details of
payment back to the British immigration services via their email
address.

After which they will notify you that they have started the processing
of your traveling documents. As soon as they finish the processing of
your traveling documents they will contact the hotel and your
traveling documents will be sent to the British Embassy in your
country where you will collect your traveling documents.

Do just keep us updated as soon as you have scan and send the visa and
residence/work permit forms including the details of payment back to
them, so we will ensure that the documents are ready within
five(5)--six(6) working days.


Hope to here from you soon.

----------
Thanks you very much,
Mohamed

[madona587]

I can gurantee you this is a SCAM. Whenever someone you don't know mentions "Western Union" alarm bells should ring

Like Arsenal suggested i recommed you directly call the hotel which offered you the job and confirm and no employer ever asks you for money. This is plain scam. Never ever send money, First they will take your money then they will steal your identity

[Greenie]

Sounds like a scam to me.

[arsenal49]

also, extract as much of his details as possible out of him like bank account etc etc.

Then forward these details to your british embassy saying he is a fraud. that should teach the scammer!

[geriatrix]

The address mentioned is occupied (apparently) by a firm of solictor(s) specialising in immigration - Permits2Work Limited. The company is registered under company number 04265379.

Do note that the company website does not provide names and details of the owner(s)/partner(s)/senior executives.

Questions:
1. Have you ever spoken to the person on phone? Or all communications have been through email?
2. Who is the person you have been communicating with? Where does he work or who does he represent?
3. Has he given you his UK contact details (address, landline phone number, work email ID)?
2. Have you ever called a UK phone number to speak to him? Or is he the one always calling you?

It is quite possible that the person you have been communicating with has nothing to do with the company mentioned above, but is only using the address to give you a false impression that he is somehow associated with or representing the company! As everyone else has indicated, asking for money via wire transfer surely indicates an attempt to scam.

IMHO ...

[stephalphs]

I can assure you that this is SCAM. Do not even bother wasting your credit to call him.
Western union = SCAM
Advance fee for job = SCAM
Saying they will process the visa and sent to your British embassy = SCAM

Everything spells SCAM so please don't bother. Anybody can pass their interview. If its that easy to get a job through email interview, am sure everyone will have a job.
Goodluck and please do not forget, its SCAM

[t1s2010]

It is called 419-fraud (Name comes from Nigeria law 419).

You can get the details at WIKI.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advance-fee_fraud

[Kitty]

Something very similar dealt with recently by the Guardian's consumer page:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2011/oc ... offer-scam

When we contacted the hotel group, Luca Magni, Baglioni's brand and communications adviser based in Milan, said he was aware some websites are offering fake jobs at the London hotel. "We have already reported the situation to the UK and Italian police and they are taking the necessary measures to counteract this unfortunate situation." He said that an alert has been added to the Baglioni website.