Dubai: A teacher in India said he was offered a dream job by a fake school pretending to be based in Dubai. All he needed to do was send around Dh3,500 ($945) to process his ‘employment’.
Mujeeb Haider, a teacher in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, was suspicious of the generous offer, which included over Dh10,000 in salary and allowances, “a brand-new car” and “customised cooks”.
Haider, 39, had been browsing vacancies in Dubai online when he came across an offer by Gulf International School Dubai.
There is no such school listed in Dubai. Its contact information is not valid and it appears to be using the logo of a real school by the same name in Saudi Arabia. There is no active website for the ‘school’, and a Google search result for it instead points to a real school by the same name in Saudi Arabia.
To follow up his doubts, Haider asked an acquaintance in Dubai to look into the matter and he concluded the offer was a fraud.
“When I applied to the position, I was sent a questionnaire and got selected. I was surprised they accepted me without even a phone interview or cross-checking my documents. When I looked at the total package, worth around Rs500,000 (approximately Dh27,000) per month, I said it shouldn’t be so much, not even for a principal. They also wanted me to send $945 for my visa to Dubai, which I believe is not the way real employment is processed in Dubai,” Haider, who teaches mathematics in grades nine and 10 at a semi-government school, said.
“I came to know there are many fraud job offers made against some kind of payment, which is against the rules in Dubai. I’ve been a teacher for 27 years and I’ve held some well-rewarding jobs, but I had never heard of an offer like this for teachers,” added Haider, who lives in the state capital Lucknow.
