Fraudulent Practices in Job Market by Shine.com

We used to receive multiple mails from different sources to be beware of fraudulent calls/practices prevailing in Job Market for vacancies and placements. Initially I thought that small consultants would be doing it to grab money from candidates. In starting of my career in 2002 one consultant had asked money for registration etc which we had denied at that time. In last 18 years I never tried for any paid service for Job. Every time I got offer from open source service portals. Even sometimes I was not serious for job search but got opportunity. In last few months I was honestly trying for job search and got my resume written from an International Consultancy Firms also. Overall after this exercise now I feel that getting the resume written by any professional expert rarely adds any value in it except formatting.  

I started looking for Job actively since January 2020. So updated my CV on 2-3 job portals. One I received a call from lady having name Vaishali on 17/2/2020. She was from Shine.com. She told that most of the vacancies are not advertised in Job market rather shared with Shine.com separately. So they maintain the data of candidates, arrange interviews and help in placements. She informed me that I have to pay a onetime fee of Rs.2655/-. Upon payment of this fees their teams will get activated. Simultaneously she sent me payment link. I too without much thinking paid Rs.2655/ vide their order no-r#IN20200217_309809_130926.

After my payment one person Mr Swaroop Singh from Shine.com called me and asked to pay Rs.10,000 approx. for re-writing the resume and some administrative works. Since I had taken resume writing services so I did not agree. When i asked why it was not informed to me in advance he told that his works starts only after candidates pay Rs.2655/. Then again I called Vaishali and informed that I do not want to go for resume re-write services etc and why it was not informed me in advance. She replied that money will be refunded within 3-4 days. When I did not got any satisfactory reply then I wrote a mail to customer care. Thereafter one Mr. Taiyab called me and I explained him everything in detail. Thereafter one more lady Oshin called me and I had to explain it again. Thereafter Vaishali called me twice. First time she told that money will be refunded and in second call she told that their team is not ready to refund the money.

I came to know that Shine.com is a venture of Hindustan Times. I do agree that executives might be under pressure for target etc so they might adopt some cheap route to convert the lead but no action by customer care is surprising. They neither resolved the concern not gave escalation matrix to take-up it further. Website of Shine.com is too not giving any link of escalation matrix. These practices of shine.com executives will damage the image of their employer and that will be non-repairable.

So I hereby request the management of shine.com to look into such cases and handle them with maturity so that they can improve their brand image. Further they need to upgrade their operational technologically also like call recording etc. Otherwise they will not be able to retrieve the quality data on miscommunication by their executives if any. Since in last call Ms Vaishali denied her initial statement and said that she had explained only resume highlighting services. Finally, if they have taken money on any commitment which they do not fulfill then there must be refund policy.

Further there should be some appellate authority like ombudsman duly appointed by Govt. to take care the interest of unemployed youth. So that some mechanism may be in place to control the unethical practice.