BEWARE - my bad encounter with Roland Employment Agency


For those considering to use his service, A MUST READ..

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Through recommendation, we came to know of his agency and contacted him in late last year to make inquiry for a new maid from Philippines. Throughout the whole discussion, he made it known to us explicitly that his agency fee is high because of the quality of his maids and his services. When queried about his replacement policy, he was evasive and skilfully parried the question. He charges $1950 for his agency fees and the employer also bears the loan of the maid, to be deducted over a period of three months from the maid’s salary.

After identifying a maid, we left and waited for almost 2 months or so, before he or his associate contracted us, said that the maid whom we have selected could not be found and that we had to choose another. This came as a surprise as Roland professed at our first meeting that the maids he interviewed and shortlisted, are exclusive to him because he “kept’ their passports. Apparently, it seemed that wasn’t the case and we were in the fix as our current maid was leaving in a matter of days, Roland was apologetic and requested for another chance at a reduced agency fee of $1650. Naively, we gave him another chance and selected a new maid, X.

When the new maid, X came, all seemed well but after a few days of work, she started to show her attitude and laziness. We also came to know that her biodata was not accurate -X was sacked from her last job as a maid in Abu Dhabi and did not complete the 2-years stint as what was noted in her bio-data. Within 2 weeks, my wife made it known to Roland’s associate on her lack-lustre performance and wavering attitude. Nonetheless, we continue to bear with her inconsistency in work performance and mood swings. Finally, there came a day after close to 50 days under our employment, which she was no longer accepted and was send back to Roland.

Though Roland handled the return of the maid, Florame professionally, he did not respond directly to my wife’s query on the replacement fees for a new maid. After close to 2 weeks, we chose a new maid and then he told my wife on the phone that he will need to charge us another $1300 as agency fees to get the replacement maid. During our conversation, I was informed by him that the rejected maid, X was already transferred to another employer.

We find the request for more money by Roland to be unfair to the employer. He asked for another chance for the agency to serve us at a cost of $1000 replacement fee (after he “reconsidered” our case). He also explained verbally that he had charged the new employer of Florame at a cheaper agency fee. We then decided that after two unsatisfactory experiences, we should look to another maid agency. All in all, we lost $1000-odd to Roland and that is not including the valuable time spent and lost in dealing with him.