A Hotel Job in Macau for You, but wait....

When someone approaches you and offers a position for hotel jobs in Macau, do not quickly daydream about earning a good salary and generous tips from clients inside a luxurious casino hotel. At least not yet.

Ensure first that the hotel job in Macau is legitimate and that it is being offered by a person authorized by the hotel company.

Macau at Night
Image from flickr by Allan Siew

The Galaxy Entertainment Group (GEG), a leading developer and operator of integrated entertainment and resort facilities who operates a casino hotel in Macau, informed the Philippine Consulate about cases of recruitment fraud. Illegal recruiters pretending to be appointed agents of the said hotel and casino chain operator are promising hotel jobs to OFWs.

The only authorized recruitment agency by GEG in the Philippines is IKON Solutions Asia, Inc. Job offers made under the name of GEG should go through IKON. Otherwise, you have been duped by an illegal recruiter.

Here are the contact details of IKON Solutions Asia, Inc.

Makati Office
7th Floor Athenaeum Building
160 LP Leviste Street, Salcedo Village
Makati City, Philippines 1227

Tel: +632 840 3252
Fax: +632 840 5829
E-mail
(Employers): contact@ikonlink.com
(Jobseekers): jobs@ikonlink.com

Cebu Office
2nd Floor, RKD Building,
A.S. Fortuna Street, Banilad Mandaue City,
Cebu, Philippines 60147

Tel/Fax: +6332 505 6429
E-mail: ikoncebu@ikonlink.com
Branch Office Authority No.:
0-13-046 (LB) 001B


I found these contact details from ikonlink.com. Any one offered a hotel job in Macau in behalf of Galaxy Entertainment Group should verify with IKON if the job opportunity is legit, authorized and still open.

Overseas Filipino Workers, especially those just starting to be one, should be discerning and very vigilant against illegal recruiters. An extra diligence in knowing more about the position, the company you will work for and the recruitment agency will help protect you from being a victim.


*** Reported on gmanews.tv

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Scam Alert: New E-mail Scam (Phishing E-mail) Targeting OFWs

In a recent news article, the Philippine Embassy in Riyadh warned the general public, especially Overseas Filipino Workers, against a new e-mail scam claiming to be from Philippine embassies, promising cash prizes and asking for personal details.

This new email scam is one form of phishing e-mails used by cyber criminals for identity theft.

Phishing e-mails are used for identity theft.
Image from here.

The warning came about after an OFW wisely approached the Philippine Consulate General in Saipan after receiving such an email. The e-mail is supposedly from the Philippine Embassy in Muscat, Oman informing him of a cash prize amounting to 500, 000 pounds and asking his personal details for him to to receive the prize money.

This website voices the same warning to OFWs, and to internet users in general. Use logic. How can you win in a contest/promo you did not join? It is close to impossible to be that lucky. No government authority like an embassy asks for personal information via e-mail.

Here's a few to things to spot phishing e-mails and avoid being scammed.

The e-mail does not contain your complete name. Regular phishers blasts out these kind of e-mails by the thousands. They won't have the time to know your complete name. Even if they do, it would be tedious for them to send specific e-mails to respective names. As a result, greetings/salutations in these e-mails are generic like Dear OFW, etc.

There are obvious misspelled words and wrong grammar. For many phishers, English is a secondary language.

Links or URLs posted in the e-mail do not really point you to the right website/webpage. You can check this by hovering the mouse pointer over the link/URL. Examine them if they really point to the official website of the embassy it claims to be. Check if there are mispellings, inserted hyphens, reversed letters etc. More sophisticated phishers can put the real link/URL but divert victims to a pop up page or different website.

Even with these tips and those from other websites, no internet user can really be 100% phishing-free, no matter how smart they are. The best defense against phishing e-mails is better judgement.

For those who have taken interest with similar e-mails, the best course of action is to verify directly with the embassy where the e-mail claims to be coming from.

And in case you spot a phishing e-mail, it would be helpful to report it to authorities and share it with friends and relatives. Spreading the word about it will make life harder for these scammers victimize OFWs.

Here are additional resources about identifying and avoiding phishing e-mails on credit card, banking and financial institutions.

- http://www.microsoft.com/security/online-privacy/phishing-symptoms.aspx
- http://banking.about.com/od/securityandsafety/a/phishingscams.htm
- http://webtoolsandtips.com/uncategorized/detecting-phishing-scam-emails/

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The Public is Warned against the Increasing US Diversity Visa Scams

The US Immigration authorities issued a warning against the growing number of attempts to scam people involving the US Diversity Visa Lottery Program.

The US Diversity Immigrant Visa program is a congressionally-mandated annual lottery program for receiving a United States Permanent Resident Card or Green card. It is also known as Green Card Lottery. The program annually grants permanent resident visas to persons from countries with low rates of immigration to the United States.

Scammers are sending fraudulent emails and letters to Diversity Immigrant Visa (DV) program (Visa Lottery) applicants, posing as authorized US State personnel, in an attempt to extract payment.

In an advisory, the US Embassy in Manila warned Filipinos and the public in general about this US Diversity Visa Scam and other visa scams. First of all, the Philippines is ineligible of the said program. And the DV lottery program is free.

One form of the US Diversity Visa scam e-mail instructs recipients to send money via Western Union to a fictitious person supposed to be working at the US Embassy in London. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES should money be sent to ANY address to participate in the DV lottery.

The embassy is advising people applying for US visas to be cautious before deciding to send by e-mail their personal and financial information. Verify first with the authorities to avoid being victimized by scammers and identity thieves.

Know more about the US Diversity Visa Lottery Program and how to protect yourself from scammers via the following links:

http://travel.state.gov/visa/immigrants/types/types_1322.html

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/consumer/alerts/alt003.shtm

http://manila.usembassy.gov/wwwh3023.html

http://manila.usembassy.gov/wwwh3241.html

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Semino Private Hospital Scam Alert: POEA Warning Medical Students/Professionals

The Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) has released an advisory, warning medical students and medical professionals about the Semino Private Hospital- Switzerland Scam.

This recent news advisory from POEA reported a scam luring medical students and medical professionals to a supposed Semino Private Hospital in Switzerland which offers student programs and internship jobs.

A quick search in the internet revealed a seminohospital.com. In the search results description, the website seem to claim a connection to St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. But in the actual website, the hospital is supposedly in Lausanne, Switzerland. Another fishy thing about this website is that their contact emails are mostly from free email providers.

The Philippine Embassy in Berne has verified that this Semino Private Hospital does not exist. Scammers will try to recruit via e-mail medical students for huge allowances and professionals for high-paying medical positions.

Medical jobs continue to be one of the most in demand jobs in the world today. It is no wonder that scammers are targeting a lot of people wanting to land a position in this capacity. If you are one of the people contacted by these scammers, inform the POEA immediately. It is wise to verify ANY medical job offer abroad so as to avoid falling victim to illegal recruiting scams such as this Semino Private Hospital scam.

Image via Wikipedia.

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