Recruiter suspended for overcharging

Philippine Overseas Employment Agency (POEA)

MANILA – A recruiter was suspended by the Philippine Overseas Employment Administration (POEA) for overcharging fees.

About 20 Filipino factory workers filed separate complaints against Lexus Incorporated for overcharging at the Manila Economic and Cultural Office (MECO) Labor Affairs in Kaohsiung on July 2014.

According to POEA Administration Hans Leo Cacdac, the workers allegedly said that Lexus asked them placement fees ranging from P90,000 to P130,000. The workers also signed employment contracts with a monthly salary of about P28,000. Moreover, the agency did not give receipts for their payments.

Cacdac noted that a recruitment agency is only authorized to collect an amount equivalent to one-month salary from its hired workers, exclusive of documentation and processing costs.

The Section 2 b, Rule 1, Part 6 of the 2002 POEA Rules and Regulations prohibits “charging or accepting directly or indirectly any amount greater than that specified in the schedule of allowable fees prescribed by the Secretary, or making a worker pay any amount greater than that actually received by him as a loan or advance.”

Filipino job seekers should not patronize licensed recruiters that do not follow the government’s placement fee, Cacdac advised.