Angelique:

I employ very pretty married ( separated now) phillipine helper.

After couple of weeks of adjusting she seemed to be ok at first, now 6 month on she is constantly on the phone, she is very open about her use too. My problem is that I need to rtn to work in 6 month and my baby will be 2yrs old then. I worry she might run off to meet her bf... Or bf's...
She is open about her bf too and I can't stop it as its her life and I don't have a problem if she can do the job.
I don't know if I am being over anxious about my helper doing silly things because of her bf's.. ( got few..)
Her work is slow but I can close one eye.. She is timid compare to other stubborn helpers.

Can someone let me know if their helper was ok with similar problem looking after baby alone?

I have no family who can keep an eye other then 93yrs old amah who live too far and of cause too old..

Hi

I think in your case where there isn't any other family member(s) around .not thinking of sending your kid to full-day care facilities but chooses to keep the maid, the following should be done:
1) Get a nanny cam; and
2) Forbid use of handphone completely in the day during your absence.

Coolkidsrock2:

I have an agreement of the Do's and Don't's in both English and Bahasa. Ex-maid signs on both version. I walked through the key ones with her as well.


Whilst it is legally not enforceable, at least I can remind her that it is in the agreement.

I always remind my maids that no one is indispensable, including myself. Once an ex-transfer maid told me at 6am she wanted to go home and went back to her room to sit. I managed to do the standard morning stuff of getting and sending kids to school before bringing her back to agent at 9am. Take public transport even so that will reach agent at 10am when they opened.

Hi PHMummy'

I think your maid is really defiant & is climbing up your head already.

Time-table simplied one as you mentioned she can not accept. Your agent & you have a clause on dos & don'ts for her that cannot use HP during the day she also say she \"don't know\".. and want to use hp anytime she likes...my colleagues who are very experienced employing maids for years say that if maids can not stop using hp during the day anytime 999 % have boy friends calling or smsing them..in the day.!

I agreed with Lynette Soh's suggestion -you buy time and wait till her \"loan\" finished ,then cancel work permit and send her home. Can not transfer this kind of maid or else another employer suffers. Unfair to another Singaporean . Even though we have to buy airticket, new insurance package and pay MOM work permit costs etc.....we have to accept it because everybody employing maid now has to face this as required by MOM (We can't blame agent, to be fair)...what to do..But important is can not give the maid the impression that she can climb up our head because we pay her salary & we are the authority ..

Myanbamboo:

Hi


Agency fees are really variable amongst maid agencies because MOM leaves it to free market competition which is a double-edged sword-good for employer and also bad for employer if you got into the shoes of an unethical agency.

MOM' rulings on agency fees ... charge on maid.... not MORE than two months of the maid's salary ...\" for the placement services rendered in Singapore to the maid. ......MOM says that the \"agency fee\" ..agent can charge on his employer-client ... should have no limit??

Theoretically, it seems that every maid agent can charge maid two months salary, it than follow logically that the maid agent can and should also charge employer-client an agency fee of an amount if not more than, but at least also of two months of maids salary so as to be fair & equitable ....

But if we are a right-thinking person with a bit of basic intelligence , we can figure out how can a maid agent charge a maid two month salary as agency fee which is at least $430 x2= $$860 ( For fresh Myanmar maid with basic salary of $430 ..) $450 x2=$900 ( For fresh Indo maid with basic salary of $450) , $500 x2 =$1,000 (For fresh Filipino maid with basic salary of $500) but charge employer only $ 488 , $588, $$688 , $799 which is far below the least amount of maid's agency fee of $860 charged on a poor Myanmar maid ?

How could it be logically possible that a maid agent ..... can afford to charge employer very little & low \"agency fee\" ... when the employ first-time employing a maid and then followed by giving \"Free Agency Fee replacement \" to us , ... again?

Maid agencies charging low agency with bad maid loan being pushed upward are clearly 99.9999% unethical blood-suckers..and they must be manipulating their financial account to provide cheap maids to cheap employers looking for as cheap an agency fee...??

If these maid agencies can do such cruel acts to maids , it is only logicaly possible that they will not be kind to us.. and will also \"sabotage\" bad employer... by instigating maids to run away to make sure that the employer will loss the \"Loan balance\" and pay for what he or she is supposed to have paid as agency fee in the first place? It is highly dangerous to employ a maid with \"big loan\".

Is there anything going seriously wrong..??

Hi, regarding the above , I fully agreed.

Maid agencies , particularly those with many branches, many staff, very high operating costs to pay and yet can charge employers very low \"agency fee\",charge maid very big \"Loan\" can suck the bloods of the maids & give you honey first and then get you into serious troubles later while you have no recourse at all!

This is ONE group of maid agencies MUST AVOID -

GREAT EMPLOYMENT AGENCY -6 demerit points
GREATLINK EMPLOYMENT AGENCY- 12 demerit points
NETWORK EMPLOYMENT AGENCY- 6 demerit points

GREAT & GREATLINK GOT 6 & 12 demerit points from MOM and under MOM investigations, so NETWORK opened , just a few months ago only in Feb 2014, and got 6 demerit points from MOM already.

These 3 maid agencies are mainly operate in Bukit Timah Shopping centre and Katong centre. They belong to same group , transfer bad maids to one another, offer cheap \"agency fee\" to employer to pay big loan for maid first.

One employer employed a maid from them ( Network employment Agency) with a big loan 7.5 months work for only a while say that daughter is very sick, must go back immediately and will come back, but never come back. the loan never refunded because the maid turn around and complained the employer very bad employer to make her work for another house. The employer's 7 months loan went into the drain !

So please avoid this type of agency.