By Daisy CL Mandap
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| Fernandez allegedly collected at least $112k but offered no real jobs |
Nine Filipina domestic workers have complained to the
Consulate about losing at least $112,000 from a former staff of an employment
agency who allegedly offered them non-existent jobs for their male relatives
back in the Philippines.
They identified the alleged scammer as Mila Bodomo
Fernandez, a resident of Smithfield Street, Kennedy Town, who used to work at the ACJ International Recruitment Services
Company with an office in Excellente Commercial Building
on Jaffe Road,
Causeway Bay.
Consul Paul Saret, head of the assistance to nationals
section, said his office would consolidate the statements and ask each
complainant to sign an affidavit before forwarding them all to the police for
immediate action.
Fernandez allegedly offered jobs ranging from yacht
maintenance staff to houseboy or gardener, and prodded the complainants to
apply for their male relatives back in the Philippines, saying she had many
employers waiting to hire them.
She allegedly said the offered salary ranged from $5,000 to
$7,000, and all that the applicants needed to pay initially was $3,000 and a
further $1,000 after their work visa was released.
With another group of applicants, she allegedly collected
$3,500 each for those without a Tesda training certificate, and $2,500 each for
those who already had it.
One group of complainants said they paid Fernandez a total
of $32,500 in February this year, after which she promised them their relatives
would already have their work visa by May.
Another group made up of 13 applicants in the Philippines who are represented in their
complaint by a longtime Filipino domestic worker in Hong
Kong, remitted a total of $43,719.90 (converted from peso) to
Fernandez’s HSBC bank account between April and June this year.
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| Remittance receipts issued to applicants all show Fernandez' name and bank account number |
Fernandez allegedly asked the applicants for their bio-data
and copies of their passports but never sent them employment contracts, or set
up any interview with their prospective employers.
Months after the promised deployment in May did not happen,
the first group said they asked Fernandez to just give their money back, but
she stopped taking their calls and have blocked them on messenger.
At least one of the complainants, C. Delfino, said in a
sworn statement she submitted to the Consulate on Oct 27 that she met Fernandez
after ACJ managed to place her with a new employer in December last year. Delfino also said she made her second payment to Fernandez in the ACJ office, but the company manager was not around.
But when Fernandez allegedly started hiding from them, they
learned from the company that she had been sacked because of similar complaints
from several other people.
The SUN managed to contact Fernandez at the mobile number
supplied by the complainants, and she did not deny taking money from them.
However, she gave the same excuse that she told all of them: that all the
employers who were supposed to hire their relatives had backed out.
She was unable to respond when asked why not one of the
applicants was given an employment contract as should have happened from the
time they gave her money.
Fernandez also vaguely spoke of using the money she
collected for buying air tickets, but could not say who the tickets were for. She
just said she was willing to pay the complainants back, and in fact, had
started doing so by installment.
This claim was vehemently disputed by A. Alday, who after being
meeting Fernandez through a mutual friend, got 13 relatives and friends in
Iloilo to apply for the promised jobs.
“Urgent daw mga amo kaya pinipilit niyang magbayad agad, at
kung ma delay ang payments sasabihan nya ang aplikante na e- cancel nya ang application,”
said Alday in her sworn statement dated Oct 30.
But when it became clear that there were no real jobs were
waiting for them, the applicants, who have remittance slips to prove their
payment to Fernandez, began clamoring for a refund.
Alday said that to date, Fernandez has refunded only $3,750
of the more than $43,000 she collected from them.
The unlicensed recruiter has reportedly been making up all
sorts of excuses for not paying back, like she’s sick, or she was still trying
to cash a cheque.
The last time she bugged Fernandez about paying up, Alday
said “Kahapon sabi nasa hospital siya at today sabi in a critical condition ang
mother nya. Lahat isasali sa kasinungalingan nya.”
One time, Fernandez allegedly said she was at home sick, but
only hours later, Alday said she saw her near World Wide House, fully made up
and dressed to the nines. Fernandez allegedly ran away when she saw Alday
taking pictures.
Like Alday, Delfino has worked in Hong
Kong for a long time, 22 years to be exact. All these years, she
said she never fell for a scam, and was never in debt, so that the $16,000 she
paid Fernandez had come from her life savings.
Two years back, she said she nearly got looped into a
similar ploy by the disgraced former employment agency owner Ester Ylagan. But
she backed off after failing to get a sign from God on whether she should cough
up the required $10,000 for a tempting job placement in the UK.
She now wonders why her sixth sense failed her, or why she
forgot to ask for divine intervention again, when a bigger part of her nest egg
was at stake.
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