kobrien Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 (edited) I have recently had the displeasure of working for this Immigration agency in the UK.They go under the name of (name removed),but you would know them better asThey also have an association with xxxxx court chambers and they haverecently beenunregulated for mis-selling.It was an open joke that the first website was mistaken for the homeoffice as they had a higher rankingwhen you typed in UK Visa,the company played on this,and the customersometimes paid them money thinkingthey were speaking to the home office.In my time there,there was no real training,we were given a folder andtold that there would bea test at the end of the week,this test never arrived and wasforgotten about by the management.We spent the whole of the second week listening to callsunsupervised,one day would havebeen sufficient,but as one of their websites was banned from takingnew customersthere was a short fall of customers to deal with,this resulted inEIGHT people being sacked.Their sales strategy was to play on peoples fears,if a couple had anotable age gap the advisorwas told to tell the customer that the home office does not like bigage gaps,if there was a visa rejectionthe advisor was told to say that unless they used our company there'sa higher chance of this happening again.The boss of this office,he preferred tell people onthe phone that his name was Michael,(this wasn't his name) each morning he would come into this office that had not been cleanedfor at least a year and ask peoplewhy they were there,he would ask this, around a dozen times,each timehe asked the response he was lookingfor was greed,people responded with 12 different ways to saygreed,lots of money,to buy nice things.....After we were told we were no longer regulated they then gave us a newsales speech whichincluded the line that we use qualified UK Barristers to deal withyour case,the actual reality is less thanstraight forward,when I asked of a name of a Barrister we use,theycould not give one,''Just tell them its(name removed) chambers'', Yes but who,I then got told its complicated.A few days later we were told that its not barristers that deal withthe case,its actually trainee law students,yourcases are given to non qualified students, who are over looked by aqualified barrister,who is the barrister, was my question,itscomplicated came the response.If you have spoken to one of the agents,and they tell you that theyare putting you on hold so they can speak to the legal department,thisis so they can chat to their friends,go to the toilet,have acigarette,there is no legaldepartment,and from what I see they do not speak to anyone,after 5Min's of waiting they then give youthe spiel about the legal department are happy to take on your case.Most people at this stage want a few fears put aside,knowing that ifthey do pay this company a lot of money tosort out their partners visa,here are a few convincers I heard whenlistening to calls...* If your wife is not worth the £1500 I am asking for then I feelsorry for your wife,if your wife could hear younow,I think she would cry,is that what you want ? do you want to make her cry ?* I feel disgusted and sorry for your partner,If I had someone thatreally loved me,I would hope they would prove itby taking care of the visa.Most of their customers were in distress,you could hear it in theirvoice,a lot of the time,the advisor wouldbe acting concerned but laughing at them by putting them on hold andinforming the whole officeabout their clients downfall. The managers number two,would constantly tell people that thecustomers from any African nation,Indian nation,or anywhere which isclassed as poor that the advisor should put the phone down as theyare no good and we did not need to waste our time on poor people.Gold customers is a term used by them, when the person who requires avisa is coming from Thailand,Philippines or anywhere from South eastasia,we were told that even if their partner were not rich, they morethan likely had acredit card and are good to be sold to,talking of selling,one teamleader mentioned the term...IF YOU MAKE THEM CRY,THEY WILL BUY, we heard this in action one daywhen a man in his 50'swas reminded of what it must feel like to be without his wife andkids,and how hard it must be for hiskids sake not to see their Dad,this was all said with a smile on theconsultants face.I don't know if the rumours I heard were true,but before I left,people were saying that because they hadbeen busted for mis-selling,hence the reason they changed websites andnames, the company wasstruggling financially,I must state this was only rumours,but I wouldthink twice before handing yourmoney over to them,if its not for the rumours then at least for their practice.There is no one legally qualified to really assess your case thatworks for them,they cannot give youlegal advice because they do not have legal advice to give,if theycannot get you to buy one of theirinflated packages they will instead try and push a consultancy dateyour way,this ranges from £350 to £600depending on what mood the advisor is in.Make yourself aware of the following and stay clear!Stay clear of these companies mentioned and only use professionals orthose who have been recommended by someoneyou know and not a made up on a review stat. Edited April 7, 2012 by 7by7 Names of companies removed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
7by7 Posted April 7, 2012 Share Posted April 7, 2012 Despite the regulation of immigration advisers in the UK, this sort of thing does still happen. Anyone thinking of using an adviser, whether in the UK or Thailand, should, in my opinion, follow these steps. 1) If at all possible, use one recommended by someone you know and trust. 2) If the above is not possible shop around; compare fees, and the services offered 3) Check any credentials or professional qualifications claimed. If in the UK, check that they are on the OISC list of advisers. If outside the UK, check that they are qualified as claimed, one notorious British agent in Pattaya claims to be a qualified lawyer, but does not appear as such on any UK register of same. He also claims membership of official sounding bodies which do not actually exist outside his imagination. 4) No reputable adviser or agent will have any problems with you doing any of the above. If you are talking to one who tries to persuade you otherwise, or tries to rush you into using them or uses any of the techniques described in the OP in order to get you to use them; run, very fast. See also Visa Agents, read this before using one. N.B. To avoid potential problems, I have unfortunately had to remove the names of the companies involved from the OP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kobrien Posted April 7, 2012 Author Share Posted April 7, 2012 I did edit the names out of the original post but I had issues posting the story on the site,the company have been top on a lot of internet searches for a long time, so please be aware and like 7by7 says,there are some good visa companies out there,I would use one without doubt,just not the one I had the pleasure of working for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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