Essential Snobbery 101: Between an escort and a chaperone

An industry getting worse

Much as I would hate to observe that recruitment agents have become lazier and more unprofessional, even with the benefits of AI they do not seem to care what they do. It is like they sling shit in every direction with the hope that something sticks somewhere and out of that comes the reward commission for placing a hapless recruit.

For instance, I have had more than a decade-long interaction with this major recruitment agency, they would at least have an old CV of mine that anyone would hope provides some background and history to inform of whether I should be contacted by anyone from the said agency about an opportunity.

That is if the recruitment agent concerned had done any research before using my email address for their scatter-gun activity. I am even surprised I was addressed by name; these emails are usually discourteously impersonal.

Subject: Escort Needed! Apply now [I was first shocked by the email header as the resolved email identity was unfamiliar, that was besides wondering why I would be contacted for any lewd activity as a sex worker which is work that I would hardly qualify for, at this age and not after my prostate gland had been zapped by radioactivity to rid it of cancer. On reading the detail of role, would chaperone have been a better word?]

The email I received yesterday afternoon

[The emphases in the email are as contained in the original with nowt taken out.]

Dear Akin,

Your new company

An exciting and challenging opportunity has become available to join HMP [His Majesty’s Prison nearby] as a contractor escort working as part of a third-party company. This company looks after all maintenance work within this prison.

Your new role

Your new role as a Contractor Escort at HMP [nearby] will consist of 39 hours working Monday – Friday and will involve escorting a variety of contractors and visitors around site, ensuring the strict policies in place are followed. You will be responsible for the protection of inmates, staff and visitors by ensuring these policies are adhered to. Other aspects of the job involve booking in contractor’s tools and supervising them once escorted to their designated working area. This is an ongoing temporary position.

What you'll need to succeed

In order to be successful in this role you will need to pass an enhanced background check conducted by the prison service. This is something we will facilitate upon registration. You will also need to be level-headed, well organised and hardworking person. A security background is beneficial but in not essential for the role.

What you'll get in return

For this job you will receive a competitive hourly rate of £13.68 with 33 days holiday a year. All uniform will be provided. There is a chance for permanent offer. [On the rate alone, I have resisted paying any attention to the derisory offer. The holidays seem generous for the role though.]

Kind regards,

[Recruitment agent name removed]

Recruitment expert in Construction & Property [Their expertise is questionable, at best.]

In all consideration

I could not get this out of my mind, the much I tried as I was both irritated and annoyed, it deserved some sort of response as I did not want my mailbox to be cluttered with such nonsense ever again.

I did consider a very curt reply with a clear rebuke expressing the depth of my indignation, but it probably would have been binned, and though I do not expect a response because such recruitment agents would never have been schooled in the kind of decorum that should make their communication a sign of their professionalism, I tried a different tack in my response, this morning.

With gratitude for the thought

Dear [Name withheld],

I am totally at a loss how any information you might have of me might have inspired my receipt of this job opportunity.

I have a 36-year career in IT, your explanation of how this role relates to my experience would be welcome and helpful.

Otherwise, it is better to first acquire some knowledge of a person's background before filling their mailboxes with irrelevant prospects. That would be the least professional course to take. 

However, thank you for having me in mind for this role, I regret it is unsuitable as I have no appreciation of how useful it is for me.

With kind regards,

[Signed]

The less said beyond this response, the better. However, if the agent does respond, I might update this blog.

I'll take the service, please and keep the compensation

A failure to do

Compensation: the refuge of service providers after the efficient display and demonstration of ineptitude and incompetence in the provision of an advertised and vaunted service you first can afford and pay for, that they have so failed to deliver, you are left both speechlessly askance and quite livid with rage.

You might think I am on the roll with regards to compensations in December, for at first, it was with my laundry service provider, LaundryHeap, with a laundry and dry-cleaning turnout of 24 hours, picking up and dropping off your clothes at your home.

A willingness to fix

When I used that service in mid-November, 20 out of 58 clothing items were returned in the service window, the rest involved a back-and-forth that ran for 4 additional days with a £10.57 compensation offered at that time.

Blog - Laundered to distress by Laundryheap

I was utterly dissatisfied even after using the service for years, and I resisted posting a review apart from what I posted on my blog, keeping my counsel and holding my peace. Then out of the blue on the first of the month, Laundry Heap contacted me to refund the full-service charge for 38 clothing items that were not returned within the 24-hour service window. It amounted to £184.50.

My globetrotting baggage

Moving on, we had a situation where I arrived in Cape Town 40 hours before my baggage which from the assurance of the captain on my Air France flight from Paris to Cape Town indicated our delayed departure was to allow for baggage to be loaded on the plane. The aircraft left Paris with less than half the baggage of the passengers that boarded the plane when we stood at the carousel a few minutes before 23:00 local time.

Blog - In flights of intermittent piquancy

We learnt that baggage had been left behind before each of us got emails from Air France informing us of the possible circulatory route our baggage would take to be reunited with us by Sunday, we having arrived on Friday night. After filling in a Property Irregularity Report with information of where to deliver my baggage, if and when it arrives in Cape Town, I took to Twitter to follow up on the progress.

My baggage made it to Amsterdam on Friday night and then was put on board a plane in the morning from Amsterdam to Cape Town, to arrive just an hour short of midnight. I heard nothing more and could not contact the office in Cape Town nor leave a message as their mailbox was full.

A disorderly organisation

I assumed my baggage was already in Cape Town, so I made for the airport and through some security to a desk where I was informed my baggage was on the way to my Cape Town address without anyone having contacted me to update me of that situation. It transpired my baggage was still on the airport premises, I collected my 3 suitcases and signed for them.

I then returned to Twitter to remonstrate, wherein I was given a link to claim some sort of compensation. You wonder what for? The T-shirt, the pair of shorts and the sandals, I got to just not be overdressed for summertime in Cape Town?

Then I got a call from Air France to my South African number where I was offered a maximum compensation of £85 and 8,000 Air Miles. I could quibble because the last time Air France forgot to keep my baggage on the same itinerary and schedule as I was, they gave me 10,000 Air Miles and it was a journey to Bucharest and I was reunited with my baggage within 24 hours. But for the fact that I was a premium rate customer with a Platinum Flying Blue card meant this was throwing pennies at me to compensate for pounds of distress. I was unimpressed, we soldier on.

An apartment apart in chaos

Then, we are left wondering what attracted us to the apartment we are staying in for 28 nights in Cape Town because we were no doubt taken in by the glossy pictures and that was about it. The letting agents that injected themselves into the process after we booked the apartment on Hotels.com now have to earn their keep because they have heretofore been sitting pretty and indolent.

The agent who was supposed to meet us to show us around the apartment was not available because of car trouble, then on entering the apartment, we began to see that so many things were not as stated in the details we read about this place. There is a lift in the building even as the material suggests there isn’t as there is a bathtub in the bathroom when we were informed it only had a shower. How do you miss that, except if you have never bothered to visit the property under management?

No cooks ever cooked here

There is no microwave oven in a 21^st Century apartment leaving you wondering if anyone who ever stayed here ever ordered or takeaway or even tried to cook anything with the aluminium pots that had no handles and lids without holders, it got worse when I tried to prepare a salad and there were no kitchen knives.

The wardrobe with two 1.5m rails only had 3 clothes hangers, and though the apartment had a washer/dryer with a 7kg/4kg weighting for the respective cycles, there was no clothesline and there is no vacuum cleaner in the apartment. Considering this is the 5^th apartment we are staying in since we started visiting Cape Town, even we are left astonished that this is the first time we have ever had to complain about where we are staying.

We always try to create a home away from home experience with fully domesticated living, but this is at a stretch difficult in this apartment without considerable remediation that the agent has informed us the owner of the apartment would sort out, we just do not know when and it is the 5^th day of our stay.

Get it right the first time, thanks

Now, this is my view of the issue of compensation, I do not need it, what I need is the service I paid for delivered to the standard and better of what was advertised without my need to complain, except to be appreciative and commend whoever and the service provider for their excellent service.

In fact, you can never fully compensate for a failed or below par service apart from paying back everything with a little more for the distress and inconvenience suffered. In my view, LaundryHeap went the furthest in the compensation stakes, Air France has not acquitted themselves well for the fact that the captain knew he was leaving France without our baggage and that it took that long to get things back to me.

Then 6 hours after I collected my baggage from the airport, I received a message from Air France indicating my baggage had arrived in Cape Town and will be delivered to my address. Honestly!

As for our apartment, we are expecting to be surprised if any of the issues were raised gets sorted out. One thing the agency and the owner of this apartment should avoid is a negative review because I will be honest and that is just the way things are.

If You Could Read My Mind

What are you looking for?

If you could read my mind, what will you do with the thoughts that you find therein? Will you with your knowledge of the predictable and already known seek to change the thought process to suit something else or some other purpose under your own control?

What would you want to influence by knowing what I am thinking long before it is expressed and acted on? Why would you want to pre-empt if not checkmate me at a game of chess having known all my forward moves that you can anticipate them and compensate for each variation in the way I play?

Cheating at the game

The chess analogy brings it to the fore, to seek to rummage through my mind is to cheat at the game, the game of unpredictability, of individuality, of uniqueness and whatever sense of mystery I might have. More so, my thoughts are processed in the confines of mental privacy, I having the choice of what I reveal and what I conceal.

Even with an open book, you can only be on a page or two at a time, you have to flip to other pages, and the order in which you read the book might give you a story or a jumble of incoherent writing. No one reads a book by just reading the last page. You might find out the conclusion from the synopsis on the dust cover, but what is the joy in that, if you have not followed the telling of the whole story.

A poor choice of occupation

In our impatience to unravel and discover we excuse ourselves from the world of mystery and the mystique of the person, we lose the element of surprise and spontaneity, the accident of moments that makes things worth cherishing.

If we were aware that our minds were being read, I do wonder if we would even be rational or out of wanting to thwart or confuse, we become impulsive, disconnecting ourselves from thought to act almost like animals, uninformed of drive, inclination, passion, or intention, we might be groping in the dark and crash shins against the sharp edges of glass-edged coffee tables.

The mind is part of what defines our humanity, to inveigle one’s way into the mind of another is to rob them of agency and dehumanise them. Each person does have enough going on in their minds, I would think that the idea of sitting in the limbo of another’s cranial activity must be an ambition not suffused with elegance or achievement.

Thought Picnic: As Runner-Up Miss Congeniality, I Didn't Quite Make It

For beauty for desire

The modelling agency called to say they found my portfolio online and they were interested in entering me for a contest since I had the figure, the charm and the statistics that will suit the collection that was soon to be shown.

At first, a viewing and photo-shoot was to take place in a few days, but the agent who made the original arrangement had gone on a scouting mission, leaving me in the hands of another who did not seem to know the difference between a bustier and a corset, I was quite patient as we arranged another photo-shoot two days hence.

Looking good on the catwalk

Regaling myself in a shimmering evening gown having spent hours waxing, making-up, having my manicure and pedicure done, with a change of apparel to do a swimsuit, casual and formal showing, I arrived at the catwalk a good half an hour early.

Somehow, the couturier could not be found as messages were left for him to come to receive his guest.

With hardly a minute to the appointed time, he appeared with the director in charge of design and fashion procurement and we got down to the session and the changes.

Somehow, it was a half fitting contest and a half beauty contest, with the other contestant in the running doing her own thing too.

Tearing my hair out

I was to hear soon whether I had been selected but this decision did not come for a week, meanwhile, the modelling agent and the other were displaying levels of unprofessionalism that beggared belief even though I made no point of highlighting that fact, I tried to be less concerned about it, the session with the couturier was very good, I did feel confident.

So, finally with my patience running out, I made a last enquiry for two reasons, to get an assessment of the session and hopefully to also get a nod about having won the contest.

Congratulations! You’re the runner-up

It was then that I heard that the couturier was quite impressed with my showing but with regrets that it was difficult for him to decide and in the end the decision came down to this, ‘the other model was slightly more suitable from a personality perspective.’

In a two-person beauty contest I was runner-up for Miss Congeniality, I guess I do need a makeover, now where do I start?

Nigeria: MegaNet Resource Limited isn't getting better at this

Address the improper tithe

The MegaNet Resource Limited (MRL) saga continues as changes are made to their website and more emails come into my possession with atrocious grammar and excuses that still do not address some of the fundamental questions I asked in my first blog.

For all that MegaNet Resource Limited has written to date; they have not touched on this particular portion of their original letter.

“Note that, there will be a reduction of 10% of your salary for the first month which will be in a written agreement between you and MegaNet Resource Limited, after that you will have no business with us.”

A justification cannot be found

I am yet to understand the reason and justification for filching the tithe of the applicant’s first month’s salary and whether the clients that have presumably engaged MRL are aware of this arrangement made as part of the contractual process of engaging new employees.

This arrangement is not only improper, it is reprehensible and no organisation should be party to having recruitment agents dip into the salaries of new recruits as the compensation for recruitment services.

A strange medical

I am still not happy with the idea that applicants need to pay up front for a medical before consideration when what should happen is that applicants first get a provisional offer subject to passing a medical examination wherein the offer becomes substantive leading to a probationary period of work that might include inductions and training.

As for the latest letter to come into my possession I will suggest MegaNet Resource Limited find another language for business in which they can be grammatically correct and plausibly coherent, this is a shame.

An “English” letter?

From: MegaNet Resource Ltd

Date: Sat, 2 Mar 2013 06:50:55 +0100

To:

Subject: Chat Rescheduleing

Dear Applicant,

Your recent chat invitation with the HRM of MegaNet Resources Limited has been rescheduled to 5th March 2013 (Tuesday) as a result of the questions and answers that arouse from the invited applicants that was were selected for a CHAT with the HRM in other order to verify the credibility of the company/job due to the FACT that a N2, 200 (Medical Fee) was imposed on them.

We are a Human Resources Consulting Organization with RC 1523321. Our head office is located at 26, Church Rd [Which I note is once again different from 26, Alagomeji Street, Church Rd. And different from the address that was there yesterday – can these people get anything right?], Ikorodu Lagos State. We recruits for banks and Industries Nation Wide, but right now we are recruiting for Unilever Nigeria Plc.

A questionable ploy, still

The reason why the N2, 200 Medical fee was imposed on you is for a Medical Test that is compulsory we carried out on every qualified Applicant we are to post to Unilever Nigeria Plc. and the money can’t be paid at the venue because Unilever does send an investigative panel to monitor the recruitment exercise and we wouldn't like a situation whereby they will think we are extorting money from applicants. The purpose of this chat is to screen the original copyies of your credentials before being posted.

Under normal circumstances, you are supposed to be given a written test then an interview follows, but due to the urgency of the request of for staff from Unilever Nigeria Plc we couldn’t achieve this that is why your CV/NYSC certificate was randomly screen regionally and an invitation was sent to 40 qualified 40 applicant Nation Wide knowing full well that as a Nigerian Graduate you will be able to cope with since an in house training that will be giving given to you.

Therefore, if you are one of those that was selected I will advise you to pay your medical fee and follow all instructions been giving being given to you oin the previous invitation letter to enable us to complete the recruitment process. It’s for your good and ours.

Yours Faithfully,

Dorcas Bode

Sec. [Now the secretary has upended the Human Resources Manager?]

Phew!

Bunglers beyond belief

After all the blogs I have written about MegaNet Resource Limited and the actions they have taken to-date, we can safely say they are bunglers of the first order, unprofessional to a fault and incapable of paying attention to meticulous and essential detail.

We met here with a situation where a company that may well be genuine has operated on the fringes of legality that it is almost impossible not to consider their speciality scamming.

When I compare they are doing to the activities of a similar but better organised recruitment activity by TrippleLink Global Solutions Limited who are organisers of the National Recruitment Fair 2013, MegaNet Resource Limited plays charlatan without dispute.

Pages, charges and videos

That is not to say I do not have some issues with the TrippleLink enterprise considering they have a website that has no detail of their business especially no indication of their Upcoming Events.

If you are going to put a webpage up as a business, make sure it promotes what you do rather than show your business practices as sloppy, uninspired and amateurish.

They will also be charging N3000 for applicants to attend, however, that would be for conference materials and other needs at the fair.

Then as we pay tribute to the inferiority complex that so easily impresses us of foreign things, they published a YouTube video that includes a Text-to-Speech voiceover with an American accent. Shame on them.

The MegaNet Blogs

Nigeria: MegaNet Resource Limited has all the trappings of a scam outfit

Nigeria: They Came to Bury MegaNet Resource Limited

Nigeria: MegaNet Resource Limited and Flights of Fancy

Nigeria: MegaNet Resource Limited and Flights of Fancy

If...

If what we end up doing with regards to MegaNet Resources Ltd (MRL) is force it to stop operating like a scam outfit that it polishes up its act to start operating like a professional recruitment services company, then we would have achieved something for the business landscape in Nigeria.

Besides that, it will become a greater benefit for MRL in the long run and we who have scrutinised, criticised and excoriated their practices can come to a point where we might deign to praise it as the most improved Nigerian recruitment firm by reason of social media activism, but we are a long, long way from that prospect.

What I find interesting is that since we published our misgivings about MRL, they have begun to put up a web presence and started to answer some questions, many of which I say are quite unsatisfactory, but these are early days yet. I have time for this matter and I will devote time to it.

Meganet Resource(s) Limited

In the 3^rd of March 2013, a week after my blog, they launched a website, a blog where they have attempted to present a professional front that looks like props of a desperate outfit fighting for some respectability.

Apparently, as they claim, they have been in business since 2009 and are involved in Staff Management, Professional Resourcing, Talent Management and Fleet Management services.

Herein is my confusion, is it MegaNet Resource Limited (singular) which appeared 4 times in the original email that brought on my first blog about this outfit being a scam or MegaNet Resources Limited (plural) which now appears on the website and it makes you wonder how the Human Resources Manager (HRM) could have gotten the name of his company wrong 4 times in addressing applicants.

Threats?

Then, I only had two comments to my original blog which were addressed in a following blog, however, agents and/or clients of MRL have been more active on this blog, claiming MRL is a genuine business concern and threatening the writer of that blog for making them lose an opportunity for a job prospect.

Address to no place

My second problem is with the Contact Details – They claim to have this address –

MegaNet Resources Limited.
Church Rd. Alagomeji Street,
Ikorodu, Lagos.
P.O Box 67430,
Lagos State.

According to comments in the other blog, MRL is based in Ikorodu town which is to the East of the Lagos metropolis but I have a problem getting my head round “Church Road, Alagomeji Street”, a road on a street, anyway, let us not belabour a point, I can only find Church Street, Ikorodu on Google Maps, all the other permutations of Church, Alagomeji, Road and Street do not seem to have been documented by Google Maps for Ikorodu town.

Then they claim to have a Post Office Box, but no letter will arrive here because a letter has to arrive at a post office box at a particular locality, the way that address is written, it is not referring to a post office box in Ikorodu town or in the sprawling metropolis of Lagos but in Lagos State.

You have to ask if they hired idiots to do this. How can a business not be able to present its visiting address and postal address in a sensible coherent fashion that does not make it look suspicious? These are charlatans whose every attempt at gaining respectability exposes them as worse, they should have kept their peace.

Who is touching you up?

Next, they provide a reason for why they are charging for the medical examination which they say is compulsory. Their words: “The N2,200 is for a Medical Examination that is compulsory we carried out on every qualified Applicant we are to post to our client company and the money can’t be paid at the venue because some of our client company do send an investigative panel to monitor the recruitment exercise and we wouldn't want a situation whereby they will think we are extorting money from applicant. The purpose of this chat is to screen the original copy of your credentials before being posted.”

I will not bother myself with grammatical corrections but if their client checks to ensure they are not extorting money from the applicant, does the client known that the applicant signs away 10% of their first month’s salary as part of the chat where original copies of credentials are examined? Whose account is that 10% paid into?

MD, we need you now

The moneys are paid into the HRM’s account because, “Is for easy access of fund to pay our medical expert because the MD is not around at the moment to sign a cheque for withdrawal of fund from the company's A/C and the request of staff from our client company is very urgent.”

This is interesting because it makes you wonder of the medical expert who might well not be a qualified medical doctor will be touching up people as if to give them a clean bill of health or even fail them and still walk away handsomely rewarded.

This should be a business to business transaction; the reputation of MRL should be such that the medical expert knows they will get their money from the company because whenever the Managing Director returns, all bills will be made good.

Charlatans

The more I look at it; even charlatans running an outfit on a shoestring will probably do a better job. Should there not be signatories to the company account and why does it not involve the accountant? Too many questions arise as to how MRL is run and by whom.

Again, from what I said at the beginning, Meganet Resources Limited has a long way to go for its activities to be viewed as professional, their rather limp effort leaves much to be desired. I am not out to get MRL but an organisation that fails to get its house in order will be a subject of public ridicule.

Do I think MegaNet Resource(s) Limited is a scam? – It looks like one, it operates like one and I have not been convinced it isn’t one. 

Nigeria: They Came to Bury MegaNet Resource Limited

Speaking up for MegaNet Resource Limited

Within 5 minutes of each other today I received comments pertaining to the blog I wrote four days ago about MegaNet Nigeria Limited.

I had good reason to think and suggest that the outfit was a scam and I laid out my case as to why it had all the appearances of a confidence trickster’s front to fleece people of their meagre means in return for an unconfirmed and improbable posting with Unilever Nigeria Plc.

Chinedu wrote: “Meganet Resource Limited are not scammers, my brother got a job through them. According to him he said the job was a contracted one been given to Meganet Resources Limited from an insider in the said company. Investigate properly before writing.”

Tosin then wrote: “Is it every job that requires you to pay that is a scam. Though I know it is improper but with the type of world "Nigeria" we find our self many things do happen. Well I have heard of Meganet Resources Limited and they are for real, I don't know the reason why people will be calling them 419.”

Act local but always think global

I will answer each of the claims made here because the issues need to be addressed as clearly as possible to raise the standard of business activity especially in Nigeria.

Now, MegaNet Resource Limited might have thought the sphere of their business is within a local community of people they could access via email whose interest in whatever they claim to be selling or offering a service for will be central to just Lagos.

Nothing could be further from the truth, much as any organisation can seem to act locally, they must think globally, no act that can be communicated in this world is local anymore, it risks at all times global scrutiny and those acts will be measured by the standards the scrutiniser deems are reasonable, fair, just and above reproach, regardless of where they reside, it is not a cultural or regional thing, anymore.

A fish rode a horse

Chinedu claims his brother got a job through them, I cannot vouch to either Chinedu or his brother and MegaNet Resource Limited (MRL) which is most affected by this matter has not put out a disclaimer with regards to the seemingly questionable practices I highlighted in my orginal blog. Chinedu will have to realise that I require a greater burden of proof than a flippant comment.

The provenance of the job supposedly contracted appears to have breached the transparent and somewhat professional channels one would expect both firms to have adopted. In fact, the lack of process and procedure would mean that MRL was most likely doing their own thing with the even greater possibility of prospective employees being sent on the wild goose chase for jobs which may or may not be existent since there was no clear official procedure involved.

Appear professional or else

I did enough investigation and if MRL were an organisation worth its salt, it would have a website, the protagonist will have a proper email address rather than a gmail.com email address and the email sent out will have an office address for MRL. This kind of activity is not meant for tyros and MRL’s activity in this regard was so amateurish, it had all the trappings of a scam.

You are either professional or not and when you are not professional, others cannot be responsible to giving you an image you do not possess.

Advance Fee Fraud?

Answering Tosin’s question, the answer in my humble opinion is Yes. If you have to pay for your medical examination and forfeit 10% of your first month’s salary one has to ask if MRL was indeed engaged by Unilever Nigeria Plc in the first instance and whether Unilever will want their global brand to be associated with what is evidently, suspect, underhand and to put a finer point on it, atrocious.

Now, Tosin does agree that the demand for money is improper and then tries to justify it to the situation, circumstance and location. Well, what is improper is improper and any organisation engaged in improper activity is unprofessional, probably fraudulent and needs to be excoriated in Nigeria and anywhere else their activities come to light.

Another point I must mention is why the money is paid into a personal account rather than the company accounts of MegaNet Resource Limited.

An abuse of position

We cannot continue to tolerate a society where those who have information and access use it to gain additional undue advantage of others to unfairly enrich themselves at the expense of the desperate and the vulnerable.

If Unilever Nigeria Plc did engage MRL, I do believe MRL would have had a contractual engagement for their services and that service would have been fully paid for by Unilever.

If MRL in producing they contract failed to fully account for the costs of recruitment with the view of pilfering and tithing the first month’s salary of the successful applicants, they should not be in the recruitment business.

They came to bury MegaNet

In my view, the comments posted by Chinedu and Tosin have literally buried MegaNet Resource Limited in ignominy and exposed the charlatans who have run a haphazard unprofessional outfit that has gotten by on the lean and the questionable for so long until it came under my purview.

MegaNet Resource Limited might well be a going concern, as to its viability conducting business with questionable practices; it does not have much of a future.

With regards to my original blog, I have not be persuaded that the MegaNet Resource Limited for all that is know about them is not the healthy front for an unhealthy scam activity – they have got their work cut out and I am not backing down from the impression formed by reading their original email to a prospect.

Finally, I reviewed the comment source and found both comments came from the same IP Address: 41.203.67.54, even though it appears the comments are from 2 different people with different email addresses. See the graphic below.

Nigeria: MegaNet Resource Limited has all the trappings of a scam outfit

An atrocity of conmanship

I just received this link in a DM (Direct Message) on Twitter and it exemplifies that atrocity of conmanship that bedevils vulnerable and desperate job-seeking Nigerians who some have found heartless schemes to exploit without conscience.

It is bad enough that the quality of English leaves much to be desired but I really do worry about how many schemes like this have had people go on a wild goose chase after jobs that don’t exist dangled as treasures within reach to relieve people of the very little they have.

The malevolent deviousness of this matter beggars belief and it is incumbent on every well-meaning person to expose all the miscreants involved in what I also believe is a scam – if it is not a scam, then the people involved will have to repudiate this so publicly with a media publication or else, we should all take it as given – A Rotten SCAM!!!

A scam, if I ever saw one

The body of the letter sent out as an email appears below. My comments are in italics or parentheses.

With reference to your application sent to MegaNet Resource Limited, after much analyses [shouldn’t this be singular?] of your CV, we are pleased to inform you that, you have been invited for a brief discussion with the HRM of MegaNet Resource Limited for immediate posting to Unilever Nigeria Plc.

[There is a great likelihood that no CV was sent; MegaNet Resource Limited is a front and Unilever Nigeria Plc. did not engage this company as a recruitment agent. Besides, no indication is given of the role applied for.

There is however a Meganet Nigeria Limited, it is NOT MegaNet Resource Limited.]

You have to ask, why?

Note that, there will be a reduction of 10% of your salary for the first month which will be in a written agreement between you and MegaNet Resource Limited, after that you will have no business with us.

[This is no doubt the piece de resistance, it gives the impression that a job has been secured and it has to be illegal and fraudulent for a recruitment agency to charge both the customer and applicant for the same service, if they were genuinely engaged by Unilever Nigeria Plc. The idea that there is a contractual agreement to fleece the applicant of 10% of their first month’s salary and then abandon the applicant is almost convincing in its intent that it looks like the a work of genius. If Unilever engaged MegaNet, I will like to know what they think of this.]

Meanwhile, you are hereby invited for a brief discussion with the HRM of MegaNet Resource Limited.

This is a requirement to meet you in person and review your credentials.

A gathering of the fleeced

Please find details of your invite below:

Date: 27th February 2013

Time: 9:30am

Venue: University of Lagos Multi-Purpose Hall (Main Campus) Akoka.

[An open venue with no links to either Unilever or MegaNet, they might be expecting a crowd but really, this beggars belief. Now, where is MegaNet based? Don’t Ask.

You can be sure that many will be gathering here and suddenly find kindred with many others who have been parted with their cash with no respite, recourse or succour but a stark slap of reality on the bare cheek and curses that will go no further than the strength of the breaths of their mouths.]

Required Materials: You should come along with 2 passports [passport sized photographs, I think this means], original copy of your credentials and the invitation letter for security check point.

[To really show that you’ve been had. I feel so sorry already.]

What will I pay to see you caught?

Note: You are to pay the sum of N2,200 Naira for [a] Medical [examination], as [an] external doctor will be at the venue and a file will be opened for you that will comprise your entire document including the medical result that will be taking to the place of your posting.

[What humiliation, a doctor will examine applicants in a multi-purpose hall in the presence of other applicants? What kind of medical tests will be conducted there? Why can’t Unilever or MegaNet foot this bill? Why do applicants have to pay out of their own meagre resources with no guarantee of compensation to apply and qualify for a job?

Is this not a variant of the Advance Fee Fraud scheme? You pay up for a service you are not guaranteed to get from a stranger who is more persuasive than the serpent in Adam's Eden.]

Find details of the account number below:

Bank Name: Ecobank

A/C Number: 0803043511

A/C Name: Adesanya Kayode

The culpable banks

[As usual the essential collection bucket of the scammer is a bank account especially where banks are usually derelict in monitoring nefarious activities of confidence tricksters who clear out the accounts long before the conned comes to and launches a complaint with the bank.

I dare say, banks by reason of their lack of vigilance, carelessness and negligence inadvertently aid and abet money laundering and fraudulent schemes granting anonymity to crooks who find the intermediary services of the bank a good front for a bad scheme.]

Please, come with the Teller to the venue, we don't accept money at the venue. This is for security reasons due to previous experience.

[One can only wonder what previous experience apart from someone coming to the realisation of this atrocity and demanding their money back on the spot – money in the bank is literally impossible to reclaim without extraneous means.]

Yours Faithfully,

[Faithful to his scheme and insincere to your plight.]

Adesanya Kayode

HRM

This, my friends, is a SCAM

I am at pains to find the professional import of this enterprise apart from it being a well-crafted scheme to fleece the vulnerable and desperate of their meagre resources.

It is my intention to expose such machinations which on scrutiny look too good to be true, cajoling and inveigling like a slithering venomous snake looking for easy prey.

As I happen to be involved in contractual engagements with Unilever in the UK, I will be asking their management of the veracity of this subject, because even if MegaNet Resource Limited has been engaged by Unilever Nigeria Plc for a recruitment drive, how they are going about it is reprehensible, wrong, atrocious, audacious and scandalous.

Tell Mr. Adesanya to take a hike

I can see no reason why MegaNet Resource Limited should not be put out of business forthwith and Mr. Kayode Adesanya exposed as a scamming fraud.

Thanks to TheWordSmith on Twitter for intimating me of this scam, there are no two words to it, it looks like a scam, it reads like a scam, it is crafted like a scam and it lacks the trust elements that would make us think otherwise – a scam, is a scam, is a scam and this my friends is what it is – A SCAM!!! I have responded to the comments to this blog here.