‘Our fate is unclear’: Indonesian man who paid £1,000 deposit for UK farm job

theguardian.com:

The Instagram advert boasted “Job vacancies United Kingdom” above an image of plump lettuces and the promise of wages more than double most desk jobs in Indonesia.

When Intan (not his real name) saw it on his phone in Jakarta this summer, he couldn’t resist. He was no farmer but, with a wife and children to support, the economics were unarguable.

The ad was from Al Zubara Manpower, a Jakarta-based agency working with a British firm, AG Recruitment to find people to come to the UK to work as fruit pickers.

Over the summer, AG brought more than 1,200 Indonesians on seasonal worker visas to farms supplying most major supermarkets. But not everyone who showed an interest has made it to Britain.

In June, Intan says, he formally signed up with Al Zubaara, and he says the Indonesian agency told him that if he “really wanted the job” he could make a down payment to “guarantee” his place. He paid about £1,000 and hoped that soon he would be on his way.

The money was a lot – more than a month’s wages in his decent job in Jakarta – but the advert said wages in the UK would be up to £1,500 a month, and earlier posts had promised even more.

He says he was told by Al Zubara that he would have a meeting with AG’s managing director, Douglas Amesz, at the start of August to get him signed up and sorted with a visa. But Amesz never came.

Intan had already quit his job and was eager to get going. But as the weeks went by, no job or meetings with British recruiters materialised.

Amesz said he was unaware of this situation and never had any plans to come to Indonesia in August. He also said that a work finding fee, “termed as a deposit or otherwise”, was “illegal both in the UK and in Indonesia and is not condoned by AG in any way”.

Intan says there