Just a copy of a letter sent complaining about a pathetic excuse of an emigration consultant working for the biggest fraudsters in the industry. See the following: Sir/Madam The above case ID refers. On Thursday 18 June 2015 I had the terrible misfortune of having to deal with one of your employees, Claire Atkinson who has been assigned to my case. Not only did I find her conduct over the telephone to be extremely rude and unprofessional, but very immature, unethical and unacceptable. I have since lodged a formal complaint with the Migration Agents Registration Authority in terms of Section 276 of the Migration Act of 1958. As a direct result of her conduct I am also seriously considering legal action against her personally and IXP for reasons that are explained in detail below. Her conduct was so distasteful that I feel it incumbent upon myself, as what I am sure would be considered a valued client, to not only lodge my formal complaint with the relevant authority as I had indicated to her that I would, but make you, her employer aware of the manner in which she seems to be going about representing the company. By way of introduction, and to set the background against which this complaint arises, I must indicate at this juncture that the poor service which I have received from IXP Visas since my initial encounter with IXP has left much to be desired, to say the least. Very briefly, I have had to engage in all aspects of my emigration process alone from the word go because the assistance has been virtually non-existent from IXP. I arranged my IELTS test on my own, had my skills assessed on my own, and filled in my EoI on my own. This leaves me to contend that IXP in general is in serious breach of our initial contractual agreement as I fail to see a single shred of work which has been done on my case for the last two years. I am therefore seriously considering instituting a civil claim against IXP for this contractual breach. However, that does not form the basis of my complaint, it is merely a contextual outline, but the annoyance evoked in myself by Claire has resulted in my inclination to pursue this matter civilly, as well as personally lay a criminal charge of fraud against Claire, if she is found to be unlicensed and sue her civilly for defamation of character. The real basis of my complaint centres on Claire and her terribly unprofessional and unethical behaviour displayed on the date mentioned above. After phoning your offices six times over the course of the day, I failed to simply get a hold of her, and she simply failed to call me back, after I had been assured several times that she would do so within the next few minutes. Eventually, I resorted to simply emailing my question through to her, which was a very simple and straight forward one, which therefore did not warrant all the avoidance which she engaged in, likely because she does not want to deal with difficult questions. When I did eventually get to speak to her (late that afternoon, after having spent the entire day trying to get a hold of her) she was very rude, disrespectful and unprofessional over the phone. Claire basically just wanted to say whatever she had to say without allowing me to interject at any point, as every time I attempted to get a word in, she was delusional enough to accuse me of screaming. I don’t know what kind of clients she is used to dealing with, because I can assure you, those who simply whisper in agreement on the other end of the line are few and far between. Thus, she got herself all angry and frustrated, basically ranting and raving over the phone, while ironically accusing me of screaming each and every time I attempted to get a word in. This in itself is highly problematic because in any profession, you NEVER speak to a client in the manner in which she spoke to me which was loudly, aggressively and in a very demeaning manner. After saying all that she had to say in her rude and aggressive manner, she then had the audacity to hang up on me before I could respond to any of the rubbish which she had just stated. How very cowardly of her indeed, wouldn’t we all love to scream and shout at another and then simply cut the call before they can respond???? This, in my opinion also speaks volumes about her level of maturity, because surely two mature adults can have an amicable disagreement without getting aggressive. I do not have to agree with everything that she states, but of course we can disagree without matters turning as ugly as they did, well of course that is only possible if both parties have the level of maturity to achieve that, and clearly she does not as she tends to take one’s disagreement with her ludicrous statements personally. Any mature, professional is able extract themselves personally from their work related conflicts, if not then we have serious problems. Such is the case with Claire, I thus insist that one cannot have such a character representing any organisation in this day and age. I am a fully grown man, fully qualified attorney at law, fully qualified educator and lecturer, I have three university degrees and am months away from completing my PhD. Thus, I have absolutely no idea where this Claire character gets off talking to me in the manner in which she did. Even putting all of that aside, you do not speak to human beings in as rude and disrespectful a manner as she spoke to me. It is because of this, that I am well prepared and willing to take legal action against both her and IXP merely to prove a point, because in any event I do indeed have grounds for such action. Regarding the legalities, the following applies: Firstly, in respect of Claire, let me dare find out that she is not a registered and licensed agent (because I find it hard to believe that a licensed one would be as unprofessional as her), I will not hesitate in laying a criminal charge of fraud against her personally because she should not even be talking to me about emigration if she is not licensed.Secondly, I am well aware of your offices layout, thus based on the level of voice she used when speaking to me in so demeaning a manner it is highly probable that others in the office heard her. In a civil matter, all that is required is a balance of probability. I therefore also intend on filing a civil action against Claire, personally, for defamation of character under the law of delict, using an action known as the actio injuriarum. I will rely on the balance of probability that others in the office heard her, and her imputations thus lowered me in the estimation of right thinking persons, generally, which is the legal test for defamation of character.Thirdly, although I was prepared to overlook the appalling service, actually lack thereof from IXP, while I am at instituting legal actions against Claire I may as well sue IXP too for breach of contract since not a shred of work has been done on my case since signing up. In all that time, I have arranged the IELTS test myself, got my skills assessed and completed an EoI. However, I can no longer get into Australia on a subclass 190 or 189 as University Lecturer is no longer on the list of skilled occupations. The best I can do is a subclass 489 in the Northern Territory. Or I would have to use a new strategy, that is, nominate secondary school teacher to be assessed by AITSL and now do the academic IELTS. These are simple bits of information, but the service from IXP has been so poor that nobody ever told me any of this, instead I figured it all out on my own. Also, while you people are wasting my time, I have since successfully been invited to apply under the skilled migrant category for New Zealand, all of which I also did on my own. Clearly, I am no ***, certainly not the *** Claire spoke to me as if I was. Thus, because of her annoying me, if I am to take legal action against her, I might as well take action against IXP as well for their blatant breach of contract. In addition to all of the above, I must point out that this is, after all, still within the context of South Africa. Regarding Claire and the manner in which she spoke to me, as a man of colour, dare I take this matter to the constitutional court and make it an issue of race? I seriously wonder if she would have spoken to me with the same complete lack of respect had I been a white man. She really needs to watch how she speaks to human beings, and if she is unable to do so, then sadly, she has no business working in a profession which earns its keep off working with people. I therefore insist that I be assigned another case manager, as I never want to hear from that rude, immature, disrespectful, unprofessional and possibly racist woman again. I have a strong suspicion that this complaint about her is neither the first, nor will it be the last because clearly she has a lot to learn about dealing with people. She is liable to pull the entire company down with her and her unbecoming conduct.I thus, suggest further that management, for the well being of IXP, seriously look in to the possibility of Claire’s dismissal, under our current labour laws, provide her with three warnings, give her an opportunity to improve, which I doubt she will, then after that you will be well within your bounds to dismiss her. Please do take the time to listen to the recording from our conversation to see just how she dealt with me. How dare she think that she can just speak to me in so rude and disrespectful a manner simply because she was having a bad day and lacks the maturity to put her personal feelings aside when dealing with clients. I have not been reading any of my messages in the portal because I have no interest in hearing another word from Claire because nothing on the face of this earth can justify her terrible behaviour on that Thursday afternoon.If this matter is not addressed timeously I have every intention of proceeding further with my complaint and legal action, merely to prove a point, a situation that could have easily been avoided had Claire treated me like a civilised human being. I will see to it that she will think twice before dealing with clients in this manner again and learn to choose her words very carefully when speaking to clients as is required in any profession. I trust this matter will be resolved
Well said