Guest Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 Ive just found a job ad. in a UK newspaper for telesales in Bangkok. Evidently selling Commodity Options to Australians on the phone from Bangkok. Lots of money (commission) being promised. Does anyone have experience of this company. It is called, 'South East Asia Trading Systems Ltd'. They are offering free flights and accomodation from the UK. It sounds very tempting but Im sceptical. Any comments appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PhordPhan Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 If it sounds too good to be true... it probably is. Cold-calling (as we call it here in the States) is very difficult work. Would you buy an investment from somebody who calls, out of the blue, at dinner time? Neither would anybody else, hence the large commissions. Plus, why, if they're marketing to Aussies, aren't they conducting business from Oz? Why LOS? Sounds fishy to me. I'm sure this advice is worth exactly what you paid for it PhordPhan PS - This reminds me of a movie. When you get a chance, rent Boiler Room. The movie itself isn't that great but the scenes of these crooks telemarketing bogus stocks from their little phone bank are great. And probably not that far from the truth! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
whosyourdaddy Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 This is very very common in LOS. There are many companies who hire expats to call Oz. The calls they are making are illegal in oz so they base it out of here and run a watts line to aussie. They actually do sell stocks. Mainly pre IPO stocks. The employer buys about 1million dollars worth of a long shot high publicity stock. Ex. the cure for AIDS, changing water into electricity. The chances of these things actually succeeding are very very remote, but they sucker alot of money out the the assies and move on to the next stock. They change stocks about once every 5 weeks or so. It is a scam. Not sure exactly how it works, but my uneducated guess it that they artifically raise the stock value and make a profit. not sure. Guys I know who do it finding unrewarding but earn more than teaching and can stay in LOS. No work permit though Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 I have hearEd some quite bad things about people who have worked in that business. People not being paid their commissions etc and people being arrested and deported. If its totally legit why not base the operation in Australia, or is it because Thailand had none of the strict regulations that Oz has. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
khunsanuk Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 Hi, One of my friends does this kind of stuff and even though he keeps insisting it is all legal, I have serious doubts. I have heard some stories/rumours about these places, and what kind of people own/run them, and I certainly will not get involved. Sanuk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 21, 2001 Report Share Posted July 21, 2001 apart from being a boiler room style scam it is very illegal also here in thailand. like all of these scams they are allowed to go on for some time until they are heavily cracked down, loads of people getting arrested. 10 to 15 years ago it was selling your travel cheques, before that smuggling gold from thailand to nepal and india. we had the business of accompanying thai women to japan and hong kong to work there, until recently it was bringing iranian and chinese illegal immigrants all over the world. another scam which appears every few years is the free city map scam where small businesses are lured into advertising in these maps given out for free in big hotels, advertisement based magazins given out for free...and of course the old sell your passport. what most of these scams have in common is that only the professionals make the money (sometimes), the rest looses money, gets into legal problems, into prisons, into big time problems with very uncomfortable people... in the long run teaching english is a safer bet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 22, 2001 Report Share Posted July 22, 2001 quote: Originally posted by whosyourdaddy: guess it that they artifically raise the stock value and make a profit. This is often called a "pump and dump" scheme. It is highly illegal in most every country that regulates its securities markets. You'll usually see this sort of thing in so called "penny stocks" where a security that has traded at .0025 cents per share suddenly spikes to a buck or two a share with no change in the fundamentals. But it typically wouldn't work with a pre-IPO since those stocks are not yet publicly traded -- their initial offering price is set by the underwriter(s), typically large brokerages which operate as a market-makers. It might work with a company that's self-underwriting their IPO, but those are sketchy to begin with and rarely successful. db Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stickman Posted July 22, 2001 Report Share Posted July 22, 2001 A lot of these jobs are dodgy and I would be very careful... Posing as financial consultants or telesales reps, these companies are involved in all sorts of diodgy stuff. One recently got busted in the Philippines... If is sounds too good to be true, it probably is...and any job that is that easy to get is probably not worth while... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 22, 2001 Report Share Posted July 22, 2001 Thanks for all your advice and comments guys. Tempting as it is I will give this one a very wide berth. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yehtmae Posted July 23, 2001 Report Share Posted July 23, 2001 The guys who run these outfits are the scum of the earth. Those who work for them are not much better. If you're the sort of guy that would enjoy selling your own grandmother, you'd probably like this as a career path. Otherwise forget it. You'll find lots of informations about these cold calling scams on the Australian government securities exchange website. (www.asic.gov.au I think) (Incidentally, the group of people behind one of these operations also owns and operates an otherwise respectable upscale pub/restaurant here). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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