November 18: Vijay Kumar exulted when he saw the advertisement in a leading newspaper this July. A Canada-based recruitment company was offering jobs for the taking on board luxury cruise liners, with a tax free income of over $ 2000 per month, free food and a paid vacation all thrown in.

This 34-year-old ex-naval person applied immediately to the Canadian address given. Last week, he received a letter from Sea Cruise Enterprises which enclosed an attractive brochure and `evaluation form'. All he had to do was fill it up and send it to an address in Canada with an evaluation fee of $ 69 (Rs 2553), and he would have a job of his choice. Simple, until Vijay decided to check with the Canadian High Commission.

A notice warning job seekers against Sea Cruise Enterprises greeted him at the door of the Nariman Point office of the Canadian High Commission: `The said company does not have any real jobs to offer. They only defraud innocent applicants by charging a fee of $ 69 to forward information material to them.' Reading the same notice pasted on the doors of the high commission were dozens of other anxious applicants, all of them clutching similar letters.

``I was really happy when I received the letter,'' said a dejected 20-year-old final year BSc student Girish Shah. ``I thought getting this job could help me migrate to Canada and also get a job, until I saw the warning notice.''

``We have been receiving at least 100 calls a day, at least five a minute, enquiring about this company, we are trying to warn them off,'' said an exasperated visa officer at the deputy high commission. The high commission has already warned banks like Canara Bank and the State Bank of India not to issue the drafts and is to shortly inform the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to stop such forex payments. Early last week, Canadian officials began a police verification of the company after receiving complaints from an NGO, the Anti Corruption Council of India (ACCI). ``This is not a Canadian company, police officials there discovered that the company was just a forwarding address for the owner based in Panama,'' said an official at the high commission.The advertisements don't appear to be confined to one country. ``I was sent a clipping of this advertisement from my friend in Jeddah who asked me to apply immediately,'' said 25-year-old marketing executive Firoz Hassan who came to verify the company at the Canadian high commission. ``Fortunately my bank asked me to check the credentials of the company before remitting the money.''

All applicants received the letter dated early November and signed by M Arnoldus, President of Sea Cruise Enterprises, informing them of the employment opportunities in the industry and introducing their `Cruise Ship Employment Programme' for the booming cruise industry. The letter listed a deadline of November 29, 1997 for a response. The `evaluation' form and letters state in fine print `Sea Cruise is a company incorporated under the laws of Aruba. SCE has worldwide processing centres in Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America.'

``The company can always claim that there was no guarantee that the applicants would get jobs at all, saying that they had processed and forwarded the forms but the applicants failed to qualify,'' an official at the high commission stated.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.