POEA cancels recruitment agency’s license for collecting placement fees

A recruitment agency was stripped of its license after the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration caught it collecting placement fees from would-be overseas Filipino workers.

The POEA canceled the license of TCI Recruitment Corp., which it said violated at least thrice the rules on collection of placement fees by licensed recruitment firms.

POEA Administrator Hans Leo Cacdac said the firm collected P45,000 from an applicant for a housekeeping job in Dubai, even without a signed employment contract.

An investigation showed the agency also did not issue the appropriate receipt, and that it failed to deploy the worker.

The second case involved having an applicant pay P60,000 for a job in Cyprus as household service worker.

While the worker paid P16,000 and signed an employment contract and waited seven months, she was not deployed.

The third case involved the deployment of an OFW to Dubai for a job as manicurist, after the agency collected a placement fee of P25,000.

But the OFW, upon arriving in Dubai, was asked to sign an employment contract for a salary of merely P8,000. She did not sign the contract and returned to the Philippines after two weeks.

POEA rules do not allow recruitment agencies to charge or accept any amount greater than the allowable fees prescribed by the Secretary.

The rules also do not allow making a worker pay any amount greater than that actually received by him as a loan or advance.

Cacdac said a land-based recruitment agency may charge and collect from its hired workers a placement fee in an amount equivalent to the worker’s one-month salary.

But collection of placement fee from household service workers is prohibited.

A violation means cancellation of license even on the first offense plus a refund of the placement fee charged or collected from the worker.

It has an accessory penalty of a refund of the excessive fee charged or collected from the worker, the POEA said. — Joel Locsin/LBG, GMA News

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