The number of visas granted to students from outside the EU is to be cut in a crackdown on abuses of the system, UK Home Secretary Alan Johnson has said.
Mr Johnson said tougher rules would require applicants to speak English to near-GCSE level and ban those on short UK courses from bringing dependants.
He said the rules were aimed at those who came to the UK primarily for work.
Sunday, 7 February 2010
BBC story - "Foreign student visas to be cut by UK"
Full story here.
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Visual illusions
Friday, 5 February 2010
Good news - Uniglobe update
The CEO of Uniglobe, the owners of the franchise that New Era Travel operate, got in touch to outline their position. I've quoted his email with his permission.
There's more.
The consumer did indeed visit the Police, laid a charge and went with a police officer to New Era earlier today and was given a written assurance that he would be paid some of the money today and the rest by the end of the month. The Police have told her that they will put the charge on hold if she honours the agreement. If she fails to... You can guess the (ar)rest.
I think that is perfectly respectable and there's a lesson for consumers here. If you have a problem with a franchised operation and it doesn't get solved quickly then get in touch with the franchise owners because it's their reputation at stake as well. Companies like Uniglobe will protect their reputation and that can only be good for consumers."Thank you for the opportunity to respond. Our top priority at UNIGLOBE is customer service. Without happy customers we and our franchisees have no business (and no right to be in business). That is why over the last 30 years UNIGLOBE has invested significant time, money and effort in developing systems, procedures, policies, training and support for customer focused solutions for franchisees who wish to develop their businesses. However, at the end of the day, it is in the hands (and interest) of each franchisee to make sure they apply these in their own businesses. UNIGLOBE guards its Intellectual Property and Brand jealously and if we find that franchisees are misusing our IP and bringing the Brand into disrepute and are not willing or able to change, then we will remove this right – as we are lawfully entitled to do in terms of our franchise agreement.Unfortunately, to date I have received no confirmation from New Era that they are willing or able to resolve Mr. XXX’s complaint.
There's more.
The consumer did indeed visit the Police, laid a charge and went with a police officer to New Era earlier today and was given a written assurance that he would be paid some of the money today and the rest by the end of the month. The Police have told her that they will put the charge on hold if she honours the agreement. If she fails to... You can guess the (ar)rest.
Revenge of the nerds
I love numbers. I’m a self-confessed numbers freak. A real nerd in fact.
I suppose it helps that I’ve always been fairly good at maths. Forgive me while I boast for a moment. I got a grade A ‘O’ Level in Maths when I was only 14 years old. Boasting over, here comes the reality. That was the only A grade I ever got in anything, ever. My academic life was downhill from there. I’ve never had an A in anything since.
However about the same time as that astounding exam my father gave me a Sherlock Holmes detective story to read and I was hooked. I realised that it was evidence that interested me and numbers are just one type of evidence.
That also started a fascination with illusions, perceptual tricks and understanding just how easy it is to fool people with pictures, signs and symbols. (Take a look at the Consumer Watchdog blog if you really think you can trust your senses.)
OK, given that I am an evidence nerd you think I wanted to be a police officer? Oh no, certainly not. I’ve worked with a number of current and former cops and I understand what they say about police work. It’s 99% boredom and 1% terror. Certainly not the right job for a cowardly Mummy’s boy like me.
These days one of my main interests is the evidence consumer are presented with. There are crucially important issues like store credit and the lies some stores tell us to encourage us to sign criminal credit agreements. Then there are the creative lies told by certain micro-lenders, loan companies and every single Get-Rich-Quick scheme. The problem is what bits of evidence are to be trusted and which should be thrown out with the garbage.
One of the key lessons about evidence is that you have to consider it’s “provenance”. Every time you encounter a fact or figure you need to ask where it came from, what is it’s origin, who discovered it (or simply made it up) and what incentive did the source of the information have for publishing it.
For instance if you look at the marketing material of all multi-level marketing schemes you’ll see very little, if any, evidence of what profit people are likely to make. Even when evidence is produced it’s incomplete or misleading.
In the UK a couple of years ago, Amway, the most famous of all the MLM companies was forced by the courts to disclose “earnings” information about it’s distributors. The information this revealed (small pdf download) was surprising. In the 9 month period between October 2007 and June 2008 a total of 2,384 “Retail Consultants” earned a “Customer Volume Rebate”, Amway’s internal bonus. The average bonus they received was a measly £47 (about P500). However that figure is itself an exaggeration because it only includes those people who actually earned a bonus. As well as those 2,384 people who earned something there was another 3,198 who didn’t earn a single penny. If you include those people the average bonus was even less, around £20.
And remember this. That was their income, not their profit. That £20 was BEFORE they paid all their travel expenses, their phone bills, their internet connection fees and the interest they were paying on their bank overdrafts.
Many Amway cult members will tell you that “Amway has produced more millionaires than any other company”. OK, give me their names. That would be good evidence. However I doubt they can. The same evidence from Amway in the UK for that 9-month period disclosed how many people had achieved the pinnacle of the Amway business, “Diamond” status. That’s someone who has brought in over £50,000. Remember, that’s income, not profit. The total number?
One.
Only seven people in the UK took in more than £15,000 before they paid their expenses.
Let’s go back to the “provenance” of these figures. The source of these numbers is Amway itself, under threat of legal action by the British courts. I’m prepared to accept that the figures are true, just for a simple life. Amway don’t justify their figures but I don’t think they need to. If those are the best figures they can produce I don’t think we need to embarrass them any further. The figures are truly pathetic.
This is one of those situations where a company doesn’t need nerdy critics like me. It’s own data shows how little money can be made from pyramid-structured schemes like Amway.
The good news about multi-level marketing schemes and other ineffective money-making schemes is that I think there are signs of a growing scepticism in Botswana. More and more people are using their critical thinking skills and are questioning things before they commit to them. In fact I think there is an increase in that greatest of characteristics, nerdiness (or is it nerdocity?).
Consumers need to be nerds, or to have a Dial-A-Nerd service available to them. Someone they can call for nerdy, evidential, factual, critical, rational, above-all skeptical advice.
Consumer Watchdog is proudly nerdy and we’re delighted to be part of a growing nerd community.
This week’s stars
I suppose it helps that I’ve always been fairly good at maths. Forgive me while I boast for a moment. I got a grade A ‘O’ Level in Maths when I was only 14 years old. Boasting over, here comes the reality. That was the only A grade I ever got in anything, ever. My academic life was downhill from there. I’ve never had an A in anything since.
However about the same time as that astounding exam my father gave me a Sherlock Holmes detective story to read and I was hooked. I realised that it was evidence that interested me and numbers are just one type of evidence.
That also started a fascination with illusions, perceptual tricks and understanding just how easy it is to fool people with pictures, signs and symbols. (Take a look at the Consumer Watchdog blog if you really think you can trust your senses.)
OK, given that I am an evidence nerd you think I wanted to be a police officer? Oh no, certainly not. I’ve worked with a number of current and former cops and I understand what they say about police work. It’s 99% boredom and 1% terror. Certainly not the right job for a cowardly Mummy’s boy like me.
These days one of my main interests is the evidence consumer are presented with. There are crucially important issues like store credit and the lies some stores tell us to encourage us to sign criminal credit agreements. Then there are the creative lies told by certain micro-lenders, loan companies and every single Get-Rich-Quick scheme. The problem is what bits of evidence are to be trusted and which should be thrown out with the garbage.
One of the key lessons about evidence is that you have to consider it’s “provenance”. Every time you encounter a fact or figure you need to ask where it came from, what is it’s origin, who discovered it (or simply made it up) and what incentive did the source of the information have for publishing it.
For instance if you look at the marketing material of all multi-level marketing schemes you’ll see very little, if any, evidence of what profit people are likely to make. Even when evidence is produced it’s incomplete or misleading.
In the UK a couple of years ago, Amway, the most famous of all the MLM companies was forced by the courts to disclose “earnings” information about it’s distributors. The information this revealed (small pdf download) was surprising. In the 9 month period between October 2007 and June 2008 a total of 2,384 “Retail Consultants” earned a “Customer Volume Rebate”, Amway’s internal bonus. The average bonus they received was a measly £47 (about P500). However that figure is itself an exaggeration because it only includes those people who actually earned a bonus. As well as those 2,384 people who earned something there was another 3,198 who didn’t earn a single penny. If you include those people the average bonus was even less, around £20.
And remember this. That was their income, not their profit. That £20 was BEFORE they paid all their travel expenses, their phone bills, their internet connection fees and the interest they were paying on their bank overdrafts.
Many Amway cult members will tell you that “Amway has produced more millionaires than any other company”. OK, give me their names. That would be good evidence. However I doubt they can. The same evidence from Amway in the UK for that 9-month period disclosed how many people had achieved the pinnacle of the Amway business, “Diamond” status. That’s someone who has brought in over £50,000. Remember, that’s income, not profit. The total number?
One.
Only seven people in the UK took in more than £15,000 before they paid their expenses.
Let’s go back to the “provenance” of these figures. The source of these numbers is Amway itself, under threat of legal action by the British courts. I’m prepared to accept that the figures are true, just for a simple life. Amway don’t justify their figures but I don’t think they need to. If those are the best figures they can produce I don’t think we need to embarrass them any further. The figures are truly pathetic.
This is one of those situations where a company doesn’t need nerdy critics like me. It’s own data shows how little money can be made from pyramid-structured schemes like Amway.
The good news about multi-level marketing schemes and other ineffective money-making schemes is that I think there are signs of a growing scepticism in Botswana. More and more people are using their critical thinking skills and are questioning things before they commit to them. In fact I think there is an increase in that greatest of characteristics, nerdiness (or is it nerdocity?).
Consumers need to be nerds, or to have a Dial-A-Nerd service available to them. Someone they can call for nerdy, evidential, factual, critical, rational, above-all skeptical advice.
Consumer Watchdog is proudly nerdy and we’re delighted to be part of a growing nerd community.
This week’s stars
- The team at HiFi Corporation. One of our readers went to HiFi Corp just before Christmas to find the place unbelievably busy. Hundreds of last-minute shoppers and lengthy queues. So what did the management do to ease the suffering? They started giving out festive refreshments to people in the queues.
- Breaking news and celebration. Furnmart have just been in touch to confirm that as from this month they are clearly advertising the full credit price in their advertising materials! Good for them!
Thursday, 4 February 2010
New Era Travel - an update
Uniglobe, the owner of the franchise that New Era Travel operate are now involved and are VERY cross with them. The CEO of Uniglobe emailed New Era Travel saying:
"Should I not have a positive response to my request for you to resolve this matter by Friday 5 February 2010 , your franchise license will be Summarily Terminate due to a material breach of contract."Here's a valuable lesson. Franchises are extremely protective of their reputation. If you have a problem with a franchise operator getting in touch with the franchise owner almost always has positive results!
The Voice - Dear Consumer's Voice
Dear Consumer’s Voice #1
On 27th October 2009 I booked accommodation for my wife to stay in Kenya in January 2010 through a local travel agent - New Era Travel (Pty) Ltd and operating under the Uniglobe Travel Agent brand. I paid them a total of P7,695 on 13th November and the booking was confirmed by the travel agent.
My wife arrived in Kenya only to be told that the room was available but that payment had never been received and she couldn’t stay unless she paid for the accommodation which she was forced to do.
When she told me I contacted New Era Travel and they confirmed that the booking had been made but the employee there had no way of knowing whether her boss had actually sent the money to the agent in Kenya as she was on holiday in SA, did not have cellular roaming and had locked all financial information in the safe before leaving for her holiday.
Needless to say the first two days of my wife's holiday were ruined with the stress of the affair. Luckily a fellow colleague paid for my wife with her credit card. I have since reimbursed the kind colleague for her assistance.
When I eventually managed to speak to the manager on her return from her holiday in SA, she simply told me that there were many money transfers that period and that my transfer had not been done. She offered me no apology, nor did she suggest that I would be refunded.
I demanded that she pay me back and I went to her office the same day and was handed a cheque signed by her. I went directly to the bank and attempted to cash the cheque only to be advised that there were insufficient funds.
When I called her she admitted that the bank could not transfer funds from her credit card to her current account to meet the cheque but promised she would have money for me on Friday as she was expecting a payment from government.
Needless to say she received no cheque from government and I still haven’t had a refund.
I have now received a letter of apology from the manager but I don’t think this is enough.
Can you help?
We can try!
This really is outrageous. Your travel agent has breached numerous Consumer Protection Regulations. She’s failed to deliver a service “of merchantable quality”, with “suitable care and skill” and has failed to restore to you the payment you made. Clearly she’s also broken any contract she had with you, and, who knows, she might even have broken her franchise agreement with Uniglobe. Well, I hope she has. I hope that Uniglobe, an international company who franchise their brand to companies like New Era Travel, have some basic standards that they require their franchise operators to abide by.
However, perhaps more importantly, and perhaps more usefully, New Era have also committed a serious offence in this case. As most of us know by now it is illegal to write a cheque when you know you don’t have enough money.
Section 23 of the National Clearance and Settlement Systems Act 2003 states that:
We emailed New Era Travel outlining our understanding of your complaint and asking for a response. Their reply was simple. It said:
We got back in touch with New Era Travel and asked them simply to give us a date on which the consumer would get his refund but it seems that they aren’t responding to us any more.
Our advice is that the time for fooling around has ended. It’s now time for action. Write New Era a letter which you should fax to them. Tell them that they have 72 hours in which they must make a full refund or you will be visiting the Police to lay a charge either for the bounced cheque and for “cheating” as outlawed by Section 310 of the Penal Code.
I’m not sure whether either of these charges would actually stick in these circumstances but ask yourself this. How many companies would like to be seen receiving a delegation of cops wielding lots of paper work and handcuffs? What is that going to do for the company’s reputation?
We all understand that business is hard these days but that’s no excuse at all for just taking someone’s money and spending it, leaving them stranded in a foreign country with nowhere to stay.
New Era must return this consumer’s money without delay.
On 27th October 2009 I booked accommodation for my wife to stay in Kenya in January 2010 through a local travel agent - New Era Travel (Pty) Ltd and operating under the Uniglobe Travel Agent brand. I paid them a total of P7,695 on 13th November and the booking was confirmed by the travel agent.
My wife arrived in Kenya only to be told that the room was available but that payment had never been received and she couldn’t stay unless she paid for the accommodation which she was forced to do.
When she told me I contacted New Era Travel and they confirmed that the booking had been made but the employee there had no way of knowing whether her boss had actually sent the money to the agent in Kenya as she was on holiday in SA, did not have cellular roaming and had locked all financial information in the safe before leaving for her holiday.
Needless to say the first two days of my wife's holiday were ruined with the stress of the affair. Luckily a fellow colleague paid for my wife with her credit card. I have since reimbursed the kind colleague for her assistance.
When I eventually managed to speak to the manager on her return from her holiday in SA, she simply told me that there were many money transfers that period and that my transfer had not been done. She offered me no apology, nor did she suggest that I would be refunded.
I demanded that she pay me back and I went to her office the same day and was handed a cheque signed by her. I went directly to the bank and attempted to cash the cheque only to be advised that there were insufficient funds.
When I called her she admitted that the bank could not transfer funds from her credit card to her current account to meet the cheque but promised she would have money for me on Friday as she was expecting a payment from government.
Needless to say she received no cheque from government and I still haven’t had a refund.
I have now received a letter of apology from the manager but I don’t think this is enough.
Can you help?
We can try!
This really is outrageous. Your travel agent has breached numerous Consumer Protection Regulations. She’s failed to deliver a service “of merchantable quality”, with “suitable care and skill” and has failed to restore to you the payment you made. Clearly she’s also broken any contract she had with you, and, who knows, she might even have broken her franchise agreement with Uniglobe. Well, I hope she has. I hope that Uniglobe, an international company who franchise their brand to companies like New Era Travel, have some basic standards that they require their franchise operators to abide by.
However, perhaps more importantly, and perhaps more usefully, New Era have also committed a serious offence in this case. As most of us know by now it is illegal to write a cheque when you know you don’t have enough money.
Section 23 of the National Clearance and Settlement Systems Act 2003 states that:
"Any person who knowingly draws or issues a cheque… against which there are no sufficient funds in his account at a financial institution on which the cheque or other payment instrument is drawn shall be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding P1500 or 3 months imprisonment or to both."That’s simple enough. Write a cheque that you KNOW won’t be honoured and you really might end up in prison.
We emailed New Era Travel outlining our understanding of your complaint and asking for a response. Their reply was simple. It said:
“We acknowledge receipt of your email. We will advise Mr XXX when his refund is ready.”In other words they will refund his money when they feel like it. But that’s not good enough, is it? New Era have P7,695 of the consumer’s money and they can’t or won’t give it back to him. It’s really unacceptable.
We got back in touch with New Era Travel and asked them simply to give us a date on which the consumer would get his refund but it seems that they aren’t responding to us any more.
Our advice is that the time for fooling around has ended. It’s now time for action. Write New Era a letter which you should fax to them. Tell them that they have 72 hours in which they must make a full refund or you will be visiting the Police to lay a charge either for the bounced cheque and for “cheating” as outlawed by Section 310 of the Penal Code.
I’m not sure whether either of these charges would actually stick in these circumstances but ask yourself this. How many companies would like to be seen receiving a delegation of cops wielding lots of paper work and handcuffs? What is that going to do for the company’s reputation?
We all understand that business is hard these days but that’s no excuse at all for just taking someone’s money and spending it, leaving them stranded in a foreign country with nowhere to stay.
New Era must return this consumer’s money without delay.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
The Voice - Dear Consumer's Voice
Dear Consumer’s Voice #1
I would like to take this opportunity to share my experience of bad customer service and seek advice and assistance towards the matter.
I bought bricks from a General Dealer in Moshupa sometime in 2008 on three separate dates. I bought a total of 1,327 bricks. 880 bricks were delivered on two separate occasions in the same year.
As of now the outstanding number of bricks (447) has still not been delivered and it is more than a year now. I have contacted the sales person on several occasions and what she told me is that the manager/owner is always out but she keeps on reminding him and it seems to fall on deaf ears because he never says anything. As a result I ended up purchasing bricks from another Dealer.
All I want is a refund because they have failed to honour the sale and I no longer need bricks because the house is being roofed.
Can u help?
Sometimes the Consumer Protection Regulations aren’t the best weapon you can use to protect yourself. Yes, the Regulations offer you protection in this situation. They say that a supplier must deliver a service with “reasonable care and skill”. They say that a supplier must supply goods that “match any sample or description given to the consumer”. They also say that a supplier has failed to meet minimum standards of performance if they fail “to promptly restore to the consumer entitled to it a deposit, down payment, or other payment”.
All of these protections could be used to deal with this general dealer but I’ve got a better suggestion.
I think you should write your general dealer a letter explaining that he has failed to deliver the bricks you paid for. In the letter give him the number of bricks you paid for and the number you received. Do the maths and work out what he owes you for the bricks he failed to deliver. Then give him 7 days to give you the money you are owed. Warn him that if he fails to do so you will take whatever legal measures you see fit.
Then sit back and wait. If you get your money then everything’s fine. If not then you should go to your local police station and accuse the general dealer of stealing. Mention Sections 263-281 of The Penal Code to the police officer. Give the officer a copy of the letter you wrote to the general dealer and leave it with them.
Let’s see if a visit from our boys and girls in blue will encourage the dealer to do the decent thing!
Dear Consumer’s Voice #2
I received an email saying that I had won a prize. The email said:
“MICROSOFT COOPERATION MANAGEMENT WORLDWIDE LICENSED LOTTERY PROMOTERS ARE PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE A WINNER OF OUR ANNUAL MS-WORD LOTTO LOTTERY CONDUCTED IN AFRICA BEING THE HOST OF THE EVENT FOR THIS PRESENT YEAR 2010 SOUTH AFRICAN FIFA WORLD CUP MEGA JACKPOT LOTTO WINNING PROGRAMS… YOU HAVE THEREFORE BEEN APPROVED FOR LUMP SUMS OF US$M 1,900,000 00(ONE MILLION NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) PAYABLE IN CASH”
Can this be true?
Thanks for sending this very long email over to us. Firstly, no, it’s not true. This is a scam.
The clues are there.
Firstly, Microsoft and FIFA don't give away money to total strangers. They never have done, they never will do. They certainly don't contact people out of the blue and offer them money.
What’s more, lotteries don't work like this. The only way you can win a lottery is by actually entering it. You simply can't win a lottery you haven't entered.
All of the email addresses they are using are either free ones (like live.com) or fake ones. One of the addresses they give is "info@standerdcharteredbanknet.com". Look closely and you'll see they haven't spelled "standard" correctly. I checked the address and found that it's from a domain name that they've registered with Google. I forwarded details to Google for their action and heard back from them that they’ve “taken the appropriate steps as necessary to resolve the issue”.
If you look closely at their email they also give a postal address. However the address has a UK postal code but says it's in South Africa. Also the phone numbers they quote are all re-directable cellphone numbers, they don’t seem to have a single land line. Hardly what you would expect from Microsoft and FIFA, don’t you think?
Like all scammers their English is very poor quality. There are many spelling and grammatical errors in all of their messages, again curious if they really were from such big companies.
This is just another example of a "419" or "advance fee" scam. At the very last minute, just before you think you are about to receive this non-existent money, they will demand money from you as an "advance fee", either a bank charge, a lawyer’s fee or some sort of transaction cost. That's when they disappear with your money and are never to be seen again!
Do yourself a favour and delete the email, and all other emails like it immediately.
I would like to take this opportunity to share my experience of bad customer service and seek advice and assistance towards the matter.
I bought bricks from a General Dealer in Moshupa sometime in 2008 on three separate dates. I bought a total of 1,327 bricks. 880 bricks were delivered on two separate occasions in the same year.
As of now the outstanding number of bricks (447) has still not been delivered and it is more than a year now. I have contacted the sales person on several occasions and what she told me is that the manager/owner is always out but she keeps on reminding him and it seems to fall on deaf ears because he never says anything. As a result I ended up purchasing bricks from another Dealer.
All I want is a refund because they have failed to honour the sale and I no longer need bricks because the house is being roofed.
Can u help?
Sometimes the Consumer Protection Regulations aren’t the best weapon you can use to protect yourself. Yes, the Regulations offer you protection in this situation. They say that a supplier must deliver a service with “reasonable care and skill”. They say that a supplier must supply goods that “match any sample or description given to the consumer”. They also say that a supplier has failed to meet minimum standards of performance if they fail “to promptly restore to the consumer entitled to it a deposit, down payment, or other payment”.
All of these protections could be used to deal with this general dealer but I’ve got a better suggestion.
I think you should write your general dealer a letter explaining that he has failed to deliver the bricks you paid for. In the letter give him the number of bricks you paid for and the number you received. Do the maths and work out what he owes you for the bricks he failed to deliver. Then give him 7 days to give you the money you are owed. Warn him that if he fails to do so you will take whatever legal measures you see fit.
Then sit back and wait. If you get your money then everything’s fine. If not then you should go to your local police station and accuse the general dealer of stealing. Mention Sections 263-281 of The Penal Code to the police officer. Give the officer a copy of the letter you wrote to the general dealer and leave it with them.
Let’s see if a visit from our boys and girls in blue will encourage the dealer to do the decent thing!
Dear Consumer’s Voice #2
I received an email saying that I had won a prize. The email said:
“MICROSOFT COOPERATION MANAGEMENT WORLDWIDE LICENSED LOTTERY PROMOTERS ARE PLEASED TO INFORM YOU THAT YOU ARE A WINNER OF OUR ANNUAL MS-WORD LOTTO LOTTERY CONDUCTED IN AFRICA BEING THE HOST OF THE EVENT FOR THIS PRESENT YEAR 2010 SOUTH AFRICAN FIFA WORLD CUP MEGA JACKPOT LOTTO WINNING PROGRAMS… YOU HAVE THEREFORE BEEN APPROVED FOR LUMP SUMS OF US$M 1,900,000 00(ONE MILLION NINE HUNDRED THOUSAND UNITED STATES DOLLARS) PAYABLE IN CASH”
Can this be true?
Thanks for sending this very long email over to us. Firstly, no, it’s not true. This is a scam.
The clues are there.
Firstly, Microsoft and FIFA don't give away money to total strangers. They never have done, they never will do. They certainly don't contact people out of the blue and offer them money.
What’s more, lotteries don't work like this. The only way you can win a lottery is by actually entering it. You simply can't win a lottery you haven't entered.
All of the email addresses they are using are either free ones (like live.com) or fake ones. One of the addresses they give is "info@standerdcharteredbanknet.com". Look closely and you'll see they haven't spelled "standard" correctly. I checked the address and found that it's from a domain name that they've registered with Google. I forwarded details to Google for their action and heard back from them that they’ve “taken the appropriate steps as necessary to resolve the issue”.
If you look closely at their email they also give a postal address. However the address has a UK postal code but says it's in South Africa. Also the phone numbers they quote are all re-directable cellphone numbers, they don’t seem to have a single land line. Hardly what you would expect from Microsoft and FIFA, don’t you think?
Like all scammers their English is very poor quality. There are many spelling and grammatical errors in all of their messages, again curious if they really were from such big companies.
This is just another example of a "419" or "advance fee" scam. At the very last minute, just before you think you are about to receive this non-existent money, they will demand money from you as an "advance fee", either a bank charge, a lawyer’s fee or some sort of transaction cost. That's when they disappear with your money and are never to be seen again!
Do yourself a favour and delete the email, and all other emails like it immediately.
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