Watch out for fake house help agencies
The setting up of agencies for house helps is gradually giving way to other unscrupulous people taking advantage of the system.
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In the past, there was nothing like agencies specifically providing house helps for people who needed their services in their homes.
People had helpers from their hometowns or through relations and therefore very easy to trace their backgrounds.
However, due to the rural-urban migration and the increased awareness of the education of the girl-child, most people are not giving out their daughters to stay with people to work as domestic servants.
Currently, some people have formed agencies and they charge agency fees ranging between GH¢100 and GH¢ 300 cedis. Usually, the interested person has to make payments before the agency will make a house help available.
Other agencies also prefer to take the entire first salary of the house help or take their money in two instalments from the house help when paid to make up for the agency and other administrative cost.
Some of the well-established agencies keep record with details of the house helps so that in case of a problem, they can help trace the whereabouts of the helper involved.
Unfortunately, some fake agencies have also joined the bandwagon and what they do is to go round collecting agency fees without bringing the said helper.
Mrs Dela Akrong, who recently fell into the trap of one of these fake agencies, told The Mirror she saw an advert with phone numbers which stated that interested persons could call in case they needed a house help, gardener or a driver.
“I called the agency and a supposed agent came to my office and requested that I paid GH¢ 200 as agency fee to enable him bring me a house help who hails from Oda.
Initially, I didn’t want to part with any cash until I had seen the girl but he assured me he would use part of the money to travel to Oda to bring the girl so I gave him. Since then, I have never seen nor heard from him. His phone is always off,” she narrated.
Auntie Mary, a retired educationist, also lamented over how three different agencies collected money from her but ended up not delivering as expected.
According to her, the first agency based in Achimota collected GH¢100 from her but later told her the girl they wanted to give her had refused to accept the job opportunity.
“They didn’t refund my money to me. A friend gave me another contact of an agency located on the Spintex Road.
They also collected money but brought along a certain young lady they claimed was to work for me. After the introduction, she decided to go and bring her belongings and that was the end.
The third person, however, started work but after paying her first salary to the agency as agreed, she left unannounced”.
Apart from the fraudulent antics of some of the agencies, some house helps also teamed up with their boyfriends to rob their bosses.
Recently, the case of a young lady who poses as a house help went viral on social media. According to reports, the lady going by the name Hannah Asare was brought in by an agency by name BJ based at East Legon.
Unfortunately, after barely a week of Hannah’s stay in the house, her bosses returned from work to find out that she had disappeared with a Toyota Corolla, a flat screen television, an iPad, phones and other household items.
A report to the police revealed that she was part of a syndicate of car hijackers who was on the wanted list.
ASP Joseph Darkwa, who is the Public Relations Officer of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Ghana Police, in an interview cautioned people against such fake agencies.
According to him, ideally it was very important for people to conduct a criminal background check with the police before bringing an unknown house help to ones home.
“With a professional criminal check, you would prevent the incident of living with a robber pretending to be a house help, gardener, driver, nanny, watchmen, shop attendants among others,” he emphasised.