Watch out for bogus B.I.A. agents..Filipinos beware!!

Prospective Filipino migrant workers to the United Kingdom (UK) will be the target of internet scams operated from that country, the Department of Foreign Affairs quoted Philippine Embassy in London as saying on Sunday.

Philippine Ambassador to the United Kingdom Edgardo Espiritu said criminal syndicates normally claim to be officials from the British Border and Immigration Agency (BIA), a unit of the British Home Office that oversees the management of migration to the UK.

The criminal syndicates carry the official address of the BIA in their internal communications but use email addresses obtained from commercial internet and email service providers, Espiritu said.

Payment for their service is then required to be coursed through legitimate commercial money remittance service providers which operate from many cities in the Philippines.

He also said that other criminal syndicates use the names of other British or Filipino government agencies in their fraudulent activities.

"Filipino workers who have received invitation to work in the United Kingdom through the internet are advised to consult with POEA (Philippine overseas employment authorities) to verify if the recruitment agency is licensed to deploy workers to the UK," Espiritu said.

"If payment is being required before deployment, the public is advised to consider the transaction as suspicious and discontinue dealing with the recruiter," her added.

There is an estimated 200,000 Filipinos in the United Kingdom, many of whom are employed as nurses or care givers in the British national health system.

The UK adopted last month its new Point-Based System of managed migration which makes entry into the British workforce by non-European Union workers more closely monitored by the authorities