Sunday 27 January 2019

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Is this a real job offer?

Please help me in confirming the authenticity of the company called ISFuels (claiming to be based in the USA). Last month the flouted some job vacancies through some local newspapers. I applied for one the position with the believe that the company is planning to set-up a branch here in Botswana.A week later they responded to me by sending a questionnaire (interview) of which I answered and sent back. Three days later they sent me an offer letter but i am a bit skeptical about the whole issue.

You are the fifth person who has approached us about this supposed job offer in the last couple of weeks. Like you, all the others responded to the advertisements, mostly on Facebook, thinking that they were communicating with “ISFuel Inc” that claims to be a fuel company based in Texas, USA. In fact there really is a company called “ISFuel Inc” in Texas but this isn’t who you or the other people have been talking to.

The clues are simple. Firstly these job offers aren’t coming from iSFuels.com, they’re coming from people with free email addresses. It’s also curious that they don’t give a single telephone number. I suspect they don’t want people contacting them and asking difficult questions.

The other clues are in the job offer itself. Everyone has been offered the same job, “Assistant Administrative Manager”, a job that they say offers a monthly salary of $4,800 (nearly P600,000 per year), free “feeding and accommodation”, medical aid, sports facilities, flights, annual leave and relocation. You have to ask yourself, why would a company in a country with over 6 million unemployed people want to recruit someone to a basic level position from the far side of the planet?

The answer is simple. Because they want your money. Some of the other potential victims got to a later stage in this recruitment scam when they were asked for money for a visa fee. That’s what this is all about, the “advance fee” that gives this scam its name. Thankfully, none of the people who’ve contacted us have paid anything yet, but who knows how many other have? Please spread the word to everyone you know.

Where’s my bag?

On Saturday 22nd I went into a store at Rail Park Mall. I put my bag containing my house keys at the parcel counter and was given a disc for my luggage. I went into the store to buy things, but when I went to claim my luggage I was given a different bag from mine and I told the attendant that that was not mine.

She informed her supervisor about the ordeal who started checking the cctv footage which showed me while handing in my bag. Unfortunately the footage can't show how my bag got out. I’m told all this has been reported to their security personnel for assessment but to now haven't heard anything from them since then.

On Sunday I was asked to submit the estimated value for everything that was in the bag. Please help.


I don’t like parcel counters and I don’t trust them. More specifically I don’t trust the stores that have them. I don’t trust them to look after the goods that are left with them and your story is yet more proof of how untrustworthy they are.

Part of the problem is that stores know themselves that they can’t be trusted. That’s why there’s almost always a disclaimer by the parcel counter saying that they take no responsibility if goods left there are lost or stolen. If they don’t trust themselves to look after your property, why should we trust them?

I suggest that we escalate this issue to the senior management at this chain of stores. Regardless of any disclaimer they might have, they still had a moral responsibility to look after your goods with some care. The fact that their CCTV conveniently didn’t record your bag being taken should surely raise their suspicions as well as ours.

Meanwhile, the good news is that they want a list of the items in your bag. That suggests to me that they’re thinking about compensating you. I think they know they’re responsible somehow. You should give them the list and don’t be shy about the value of the items that were in your bag. Include the cost of changing all the locks at your house as well. Who knows who has your house keys right now so you need to be cautious and protect the security of your home.

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