Malaysia Kini.com
Jan 26, 11
We got a maid from Cambodia through a big local agency, located in Petaling Jaya.
We were "lucky" because our maid was very young (she told us she was 18 although her passport said 21, and she later told us that her real name was not what was in the passport as well) and therefore we managed to teach her English and even some Malay quite easily.
Unfortunately, she was very childish, watched a lot of TV, played a lot with our two-year-old daughter's toys, refusing to wake up on time, arguing back, etc.
We were OK with the childishness but could not put up with the waking up late (even past 8am,) and arguing back, as these actually caused problems as she would delay cooking our daughter's food, and was sometimes even unable to sweep and mop our small apartment before my daughter woke up.
We mentioned these problems to the agency and they "frightened" us by saying if we wanted to change the maid, we would need to wait a long time and we have to pay a lot of extra fees (About another RM2k, in addition to the over RM8000 that we already paid).
Because of this, we decided to just keep her as we could not afford to fork out so much more to replace a maid we had for just a week.
We did take her again after about six months for them to "counsel" her about waking up early ( We only asked her to start working before 7am, although the agency actually said maids should wake up at 5:30am everyday).
However, about a month later (seven months after she came here), we realised that the maid was switching off our CCTV and making calls to Cambodia while everyone was asleep (we received an RM900+ bill).
This also explained all the small things like missing expensive ice-cream, etc from our fridge. We confronted her and she denied this.
We explained to her that the CCTV has a 15 second record time after there is no movement, and we know she always approaches the CCTV before it suddenly stops recording (just before each call was made).
She just kept quiet. We checked her phone book, and true enough almost all the numbers that were called from our houseline were in her book.
She also had the word 'camera' on the same page. We decided we had to send her back to the agency. My wife checked her bag before we left and found that she had stolen quite a bit of my mother's jewellery, and stashed it in one of her bags.
We sent her back and the agency said they would look into the matter. A few days later, they called me back to say that she admitted to doing everything and asked if we wanted to take her back.
I told the agent that we do not know what else she did when she switched off the CCTV and the fact that she did all this to us even though we treated her like our own daughter, made it impossible for us to take her back again.
Then the agency said they will arrange to send her back, but I would not get any form of compensation, not even the RM900 for the bill).
They said that the agreement is such that they (Philimore Agency) are not responsible at all for the maids, as they are sent by foreign recruitment agencies.
I pointed out that Pin (our maid's name according to her passport) had already told us the name of the foreign agency in Cambodia.
The agent was a bit surprised that I knew this and sounded angry with our maid for telling me this.
I guess the agency is now going to send her to one of the 35,000 waiting families (according to news reports), and charge that family another RM8,000+, thus earning RM16,000+ for bringing a cheating thief to Malaysia.
The agent also told me that if I made a police report, the police can issue me a summons for allowing my maid to "run away", which is quite ridiculous as the maid is with them.
I would just like to know if there is any way for me to recover any part of the roughly RM9,000 (over RM8,000 for agency fees & loan and another RM900+ for the phone bill) when the agreement is completely one-sided.
If I cannot, then I just want to let people know how I was cheated and how, if they are not careful, they could end up getting Pin (probably with a new name and passport) after waiting on the "maids list" for some time. I do not want others to be disappointed like I am now.
Kenny
We got a maid from Cambodia through a big local agency, located in Petaling Jaya.
We were "lucky" because our maid was very young (she told us she was 18 although her passport said 21, and she later told us that her real name was not what was in the passport as well) and therefore we managed to teach her English and even some Malay quite easily.
Unfortunately, she was very childish, watched a lot of TV, played a lot with our two-year-old daughter's toys, refusing to wake up on time, arguing back, etc.
We were OK with the childishness but could not put up with the waking up late (even past 8am,) and arguing back, as these actually caused problems as she would delay cooking our daughter's food, and was sometimes even unable to sweep and mop our small apartment before my daughter woke up.
We mentioned these problems to the agency and they "frightened" us by saying if we wanted to change the maid, we would need to wait a long time and we have to pay a lot of extra fees (About another RM2k, in addition to the over RM8000 that we already paid).
Because of this, we decided to just keep her as we could not afford to fork out so much more to replace a maid we had for just a week.
We did take her again after about six months for them to "counsel" her about waking up early ( We only asked her to start working before 7am, although the agency actually said maids should wake up at 5:30am everyday).
However, about a month later (seven months after she came here), we realised that the maid was switching off our CCTV and making calls to Cambodia while everyone was asleep (we received an RM900+ bill).
This also explained all the small things like missing expensive ice-cream, etc from our fridge. We confronted her and she denied this.
We explained to her that the CCTV has a 15 second record time after there is no movement, and we know she always approaches the CCTV before it suddenly stops recording (just before each call was made).
She just kept quiet. We checked her phone book, and true enough almost all the numbers that were called from our houseline were in her book.
She also had the word 'camera' on the same page. We decided we had to send her back to the agency. My wife checked her bag before we left and found that she had stolen quite a bit of my mother's jewellery, and stashed it in one of her bags.
We sent her back and the agency said they would look into the matter. A few days later, they called me back to say that she admitted to doing everything and asked if we wanted to take her back.
I told the agent that we do not know what else she did when she switched off the CCTV and the fact that she did all this to us even though we treated her like our own daughter, made it impossible for us to take her back again.
Then the agency said they will arrange to send her back, but I would not get any form of compensation, not even the RM900 for the bill).
They said that the agreement is such that they (Philimore Agency) are not responsible at all for the maids, as they are sent by foreign recruitment agencies.
I pointed out that Pin (our maid's name according to her passport) had already told us the name of the foreign agency in Cambodia.
The agent was a bit surprised that I knew this and sounded angry with our maid for telling me this.
I guess the agency is now going to send her to one of the 35,000 waiting families (according to news reports), and charge that family another RM8,000+, thus earning RM16,000+ for bringing a cheating thief to Malaysia.
The agent also told me that if I made a police report, the police can issue me a summons for allowing my maid to "run away", which is quite ridiculous as the maid is with them.
I would just like to know if there is any way for me to recover any part of the roughly RM9,000 (over RM8,000 for agency fees & loan and another RM900+ for the phone bill) when the agreement is completely one-sided.
If I cannot, then I just want to let people know how I was cheated and how, if they are not careful, they could end up getting Pin (probably with a new name and passport) after waiting on the "maids list" for some time. I do not want others to be disappointed like I am now.
Kenny
5 comments:
stupid clean your own home. For God Sake, you lived in a damn apartment. In America, we call people like you poor.
love your story. very interesting.
should not hire uneducated peasants.
hamona hamoot
This is one side of the story. Of course Kenny will say all the good things about him and bad things about the Cambodian maid. People should wonder why she run away in the first place and sheltered by her agency? It meant she has been abused or badly treated. Many stories come out of Malaysian maids are stories of abuses, rapes and maltreatment by their employers. Some have been physically beaten and mentally tortured. Some came home with psychological damage and some has become permanently mental.
Philimo cheated me the same way. Cambodian maid with very bad attitude & doing everything not supposed to do. They give wicked smile when u eat or drink something at home as though they added things in your food. We as employers pay them but get such treatment by maid. Philimo dont take responsibilities & i suffered all damaged cost yet need to pay full fee for replacing maid. Where can i find a good agency that dont cheat?
You paid RM 8000 - UPFRONT - for a maid??? Are you kidding? From your lengthy post, you clearly don't seem to understand that you exercised extremely poor judgement.
Consider this a very expensive lesson and learn from it.
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