Let's Go Global Warning

Hoping to emigrate to Australia, electrician Ben Swinnerton picked a service called Let’s Go Global to guide him through the process.

It seemed legit, not least because the front page of its website carried an all-important Australian Migration Agents Registration Number.

But that number did not belong to Let’s Go Global.

It’s the registration number of migration agent Ana Gomez, who used to work for Let’s Go but says she stopped last December after it failed to pay her.

By the time 27-year-old Ben, from Tamworth in Staffs, discovered this, he’d already given Let’s Go £1,800 by bank transfer, and wasn’t happy with the resulting service.

After two months, he says, the company “went very quiet” and “their replies now are almost non-existent”.

He added: “They are very slow – they have not even carried out a skills assessment.

“I’ve now gone with a company called Go Matilda and they’ve achieved more in three weeks than Let’s Go have in all the time I’ve been with them.”

The Let’s Go website has no address or direct contact details, but did state that it was managed by Seismic Ventures, whoever they are.

When I contacted the site, I heard back from a George McDonald, who said: “We are a small network of independent consultants set up to work remotely under an offshore structure which works by being a purely online network.”

Which tells us nothing about Seismic Ventures, whose name has now been removed from the website.

Let's Go Global

Mr McDonald said that Let’s Go was still waiting for information from Ben so that it could process his case.

“I’m really disappointed that he feels this way and will do everything in my power to right his opinion of us,” he promised.

“I note that he says he has now used Go Matilda which, of course, will have made significant progress towards skills assessment because of the groundwork we had already done.”

But why is Let’s Go using the registration number of freelance agent Ana Gomez?

Mr McDonald insists she gave permission, but didn’t explain why it gave the impression that the number belonged to Let’s Go and was still on their website after she left following a payment dispute.

“We had an issue with her invoicing towards the end of last year and her reluctance to provide timesheet reporting,” he said.

After she left, Ana was locked out of her Let’s Go email account.

Which produced another mystery. Ben Swinnerton received a message from that account from someone purporting to be Ana and saying: “I will be looking after you and your application”, which she could not have written.

Ana Gomez

When I made contact with Ana more than a month ago she did not want me to write anything, fearing that a story might scupper the chances of her receiving overdue pay of almost £2,000.

Now she says: “I guess I am way too nice and I was waiting for them to come forward with payment but I haven’t heard back.

“It’s not true that I was reluctant to provide timesheets.

“They just stopped paying me in mid-December and said that I needed to provide timesheets, which is something I had not had to do before.”

Finally back to Mr McDonald, who emailed to say that Let’s Go has been the victim on an online “nasty brand damagement campaign”, and added: “We are a small and growing company with an abject focus on client service”.

I don’t think “abject” was really the word he meant to use.

Oooohhhhh dear. :-(