01/01/2006
International Manpower Connections has a powerful story to tell, in which it represents itself as the victim of a company that didn't hold up its end of the bargain they struck. As a result, eight complaints were filed with the Better Business Bureau against it over the past three years and the same number of lawsuits filed against it.
The Encino company, formerly known as Asia Pacific Placement Bureau, recruits physical therapist graduates, mainly from the Philippines, to become credentialed and authorized to come to and work in the United States. Their story, according to their attorney, who has just recently responded to seven of those complaints, is that Locomotion Therapy contracted with IMC for IMC to recruit, credential, and obtain work visas for 90 therapists for them back in January 2001. By November 2002, IMC had fulfilled its performance for 59 recruits and some of those had been hired.
At about that time, Locomotion had a change of management, after which IMC says their relationship "broke down" and the new management "stonewalled" IMC, although we aren't told specifically what happened. Soon after, IMC sued Locomotion, after which IMC learned that Locomotion was owned by another healthcare company that was presently in bankruptcy reorganization. IMC then filed a claim in the bankruptcy proceeding.
Last April, IMC's attorney informed us that a settlement agreement was being executed and that Locomotion would then honor their original contract with IMC. The attorney's August response to the individual complaints was, also, that the suit had been settled and that Locomotion would honor its contract to hire the 90 therapists recruited through IMC.
Although this resumption of performance under the contract ends IMC's story, their complainants probably don't see it as a happily-ever-after ending for themselves. Lourdes Arroyo, an Occupational Therapist, for example, made a $1,000 down payment to IMC in October 2002, more than three years ago, and was promised a job in Chesapeake, Maryland. She and a friend, who also paid $1,000, waited the required six to eight weeks for their contracts, then several more months, then, the next April, learned that others had applied as early as 2000 and 2001 and were still waiting. Indeed, neither Arroyo nor her friend ever got either a job or a refund. IMC ignored their calls and emails.
Dexter Maganda, 29, a physical therapist who is related to IMC's owner through his wife's cousin, paid IMC $2,500 because they told him they could help him get a job. Maganda was already in the U.S., but unemployed, his papers being processed through an attorney at the time. He referred two of his friends in the Philippines to IMC as well, and he believes one friend may have paid as much as $3,000.
But later, he says, "They [IMC] kept asking for money, and I became suspicious." He complained to the Better Business Bureau. IMC kept telling him they would return his money in the next week or so, he says, but nothing ever happened. He's been waiting since August 2004. Although he's called them since he learned of their settlement with Locomotion, his calls have not been returned. Nor has his $2,500.
Maganda says he's given back $800 of his own money to one of the friends who lost money to IMC, but he's afraid to return to the Philippines because he's embarrassed. "They go to the Philippines to recruit," he says of IMC. "There are hundreds of victims in the Philippines . . . dreaming that they will be able to come to the U.S. as physical therapists and nurses."
IMC collects money not only from clients such as these, who are seeking employment, but also from clients on the hiring end. And neither are all of those satisfied with IMC's services.
One such dissatisfied client is Darryl Hurwitz, who owns Alternative Rehabilitation Services, of West Palm Beach Florida. Hurwitz contacted IMC (then Asia Pacific) to find Philippine therapists because, he says, the U.S. is not graduating enough of them quickly enough to fill the need for them. The agency that credentials such candidates referred him to IMC, who told him they had therapists available to come to the U.S., including one client already credentialed and ready. Hurwitz paid them $1,200, but "The whole situation didn't go anywhere," he says. "There was always another story, always something that needed to be done."
Because of the limited number of H-1B visas available each year, Hurwitz says, they were "running against the clock to apply for this visa." But "because of the complete mishandling of the situation by these individuals, we missed the deadline." Also, he says, the lawyer who was supposed to be doing the paperwork turned out to be only a legal assistant. "The net result was that they stopped returning telephone calls, never did anything, never returned my money."
We, too, doubt a happy ending to this story for anyone except, perhaps, IMC. We're skeptical that all the blame for failing to secure jobs, failing to secure employees, failing to return calls, failing to make refunds, and stringing clients along with excuses and false promises, belongs to Locomotion. And we're skeptical that the resumption of the contract reported by IMC's attorney will mean anything to those who suffered damage from their relationship with IMC. Even a job at this point is not likely to satisfy those who needed and expected a job months ago or years ago. And the attorney's report of settlement makes no mention of refunds.
Based upon our experience with this company, we rate it an "F." In this case, that probably stands for "fairy tale."
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