An estate agent has claimed that a recruitment company tried to fiddle the dates on its emails to claim commission for placing a candidate.
His account of what happened has now gone viral.
Posted on LinkedIn on Wednesday, by yesterday afternoon it had been widely viewed, plus attracted 155 comments and 331 likes.
Benjamin Willmore, director at a well-known south-west London estate agent, wrote: “I’m gobsmacked by the practices of a recruitment company that called me to say they will change the dates of their emails to make it look like they came in earlier with a CV so they can get the fee as it [the CV] has been sent in by another recruitment company too.
“Due to this, the poor candidate has lost out on a job as we can’t be expected to pay two fees.
“Advice to all, do your homework on recruitment companies as they can hinder you in getting employment.”
Among the many responses was one that said: “I’ve had to do the same. Agencies can get really nasty/threaten legal action, etc, and it’s the candidate who loses out.”
Another said: “This has been happening for years.”
EYE did ask Willmore for a comment, but he declined.
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6339099341449494528/
Comments (6)
Recruitment companies have the same problem that estate agents do.
All of a sudden there are MILLIONS of them and they are all chasing the same vacancies.
It seems to me that a lot of jobs are offered on a multi-agency basis because the recruitment agencies all seem to be cutting their own throats in desperation to do more deals at a slowly reducing commission rate.
Seem familiar to anyone…?
I remember in days gone by when there were just two serious players in the property recruitment business (in the South East at least) and I have fond memories of both (in no particular order) Rob and Ian from the 1990’s.
The internet has certainly disrupted the living heck out of that industry.
AND
DO NOT COMPLAIN THAT THEY ARE TOO EXPENSIVE…
That’s the exact same attitude that your clients have when choosing PB (or A N Other online agency).
If you do not feel that they are offering you value for money tell them and change recruitment agency.
Simples!
Nothing surprises me with a lot of so called ‘recruitment’ companies! We just recently had a resignation from a very good employe and was trying to entice them to stay, I contacted our usual recruitment company to inform them of the possible vacancy and low & behold they were texting the employee to offer employment!! they have NO Morals.
A bit like agents trying to tout each other’s instructions? 😉
The candidate has been hired despite the issue. It would not of been fair for her to loose.
Fair enough -all credit to you
If I was the candidate for the job I would see this as a lucky escape of joining an employer who doesn’t value him/,her enough to fight a case over double fees which doesn’t harbour well for the future