Employment Scam
I got a call from a headhunter regarding a Senior Data Visualization and Analytics role. She claimed that she saw my profile on Jobstreet and mentioned that my asking price is within their budget. I agreed to go through the application process.
She explicitly and repeatedly indicated that I would be absorbed by the client 3 months after my start date. I was compelled to push through with my application because the client is known to have above average benefits and good work-life balance. The catch was that I will have to sign an employment contract with the headhunter and commit to 1) having no leaves for a year, and 2) an 8-month bond worth 100k or three times my basic pay. I remember clarifying with my recruiter and telling her multiple times that I won’t sign this unless it’s really for absorption in 3 months because I can’t forfeit my right to have leaves for an entire year and I don’t have the means to pay for the bond if the company suddenly decides to terminate me. She just kept on reassuring me that I don’t have to worry about it because the role is for absorption and the lead time is likely to be 3 months after my start date.
I received job offers a few days after that were beyond my asking price and included 15th month pay, but I had to turn these down.
There was no onboarding session, no desktop, and no login details planned out for me as a new hire during my first week. I was assigned to sit beside a construction area while the regular client employees were stationed in a conference room away from the construction. I had no access to the same software and files that the regular client employees did and I wasn’t invited to inter-departmental meetings. I didn’t have access to the WiFi and my desktop had a strict firewall setup so I had to increase my LTE plan to check my gmail and to google work-related resources.
Apart from the hindrances in productivity and additional expense incurred from limited access, the treatment of regular employees towards a vendor employee like myself was socially degrading. My teammates and I were told that we would be signing into senior roles. Instead, we were treated like assistants to all regular client employees in the department. Some even treated us like we had to grovel so that they would give us a good review. We were misled into thinking that we would, at least, be treated as equals and that absorption was automatic after 3 months.
The lack of job security and leaves made my teammates and I worry constantly as well, especially when covid became an imminent threat to business profitability and personal health. My coworker was required to go on leave without pay for 14 days after coming back from a Japan trip. She wasn’t permitted to work from home. Regular client employees would work from home frequently without question.
My teammates and I wanted to resign as early as two weeks into the job but none of us have the money to pay for the bond amount. Another option was to work for 60 days without pay but none of us can commit to this, especially those with children.
Around two months into the job, my teammates and I finally asked our direct supervisor if we were really going to be absorbed by the client. There was no mention of it at all ever since any of us started and we were too intimidated to ask. He said that he didn’t know and asked HR. Later that day, HR informed him that the client’s HR team will review our performance after a year then decide if we will be absorbed or not.
