Saturday, May 15, 2010

UNI Strategic Pte Ltd - Trainer Not Paid

This is an email I received from one of the speakers who taught a class for UNI Strategic Pte Ltd in September 2009.

'I am a professor from the United States, and I presented an oil and gas course course for UNI last year September. Like many before me I received an invite from one of UNI Strategic's conference producer.

The email was vague and had little input on the extent of topics to be covered, the level of knowledge or experience of the intended audience. I basically had a free hand in developing the course.

After a few weeks of marketing and sales however, they told me to change the program - not after spending several hours trying to figure out what they wanted.

The workshop itself turned out to be successful and was well attended by all the major O&G operators and service providers. I have still kept in touch with most of the students and have provided further advice and gave brief reviews on some of their projects.

Unfortunately, as of May 2010 [eight months], I have still not received a single cent for my efforts. Most of the students were shocked to hear this as UNI has always pushed them to complete their payments before attending workshops.

The conference producer who I was in contact with has also left UNI Strategic, and eventhough she has tried her best to solve this, I cannot help but put some blame on her. It seems to be common knowledge amongst the producers of UNI's corrupt practices which have been on-going since their inception. I've been told payments and fees are fully handled by the 3 people who own and run the company and nobody else has any say in it.

I feel really disappointed with this treatment, and unfortunately I did not come across the blogs and websites warning vendors, speakers and attendees of them early enough. I have been educating students and professionals my whole life, and have worked with numerous continuing education providers, but this is the first time this has happened to me.

They charge attendees the equivalent of US $ 2500, and made roughly US $ 50,000 for the course I presented, but felt the need to have to lie and deceive and give so many excuses when it came to payments. First they said the person handling payments had left (not true, as no one actually handles it - its all up to 'upper management'). Then they told me they had lost the contract. When finally the contract was sent, along with the bank details, they said it was a busy month.

UNI Strategic, Chairman Wing Tan, CEO Roger Tie and Stacey Yeong, if you are reading this, you could have just told me you weren't going to pay the fees - it would have saved me so much anguish.

For the other trainers or speakers (presently engaged, have yet to present, or that received their invitation) let me warn you that you will not get paid the course fees. If you are able to live with that, with only your cheap flight tickets covered (on horrible schedules/itineraries), then by all means go ahead and present.

If you are like me, if you have given time and effort into preparing the course, travelling, and then presenting the course to the best of your abilities, then I believe you would expect to be paid your dues. The amount doesn't matter to me - its the lying and cheating when vendors have provided services in good faith that disgusts me. UNI Strategic is a fraud.'

As with the links in this earlier post, there is no disputing the fact that all parties - trainers, vendors, hotels, or employees will be victims of UNI Strategic's fraudulent activities. My advice is to get FULL payments BEFORE the course dates itself, or threaten to cancel. Anything less, and you will get burnt.

7 comments:

  1. We are findng the exact same thing. We demanded payment for the first half of our fee up front. We are still waiting for the 2nd half. We will likely have to sue to collect, but not sure how this provcess works in Malaysia. This is the onlky company we have ever had a rpbolem with in over 15 years of speaking gloablly. UNI is very unethical and disreputable.

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  2. UNI Strategic is ridiculous! I was guaranteed half of payments 2 weeks before the course as well, but after presenting have yet to receive a single cent! If only I did a simple searcg on google it would have saved me so much anguish. The whole website listing 'testimonials', 'clients', 'events' are lies as well! There is no way ANYONE would work with them, let alone the 'world's best speakers' if they knew what they in for. And to think they are able to attract the top companies from the Asia Pacific countries. Their lies must be exposed else so many others will be cheated. For those that have been burnt, see this for proof - http://www.pbresults.com/Sales-Blog/article-tip-for-any-prospective-facilitators-who-are-interested-in-working-uni-strategic.html . I think its high time all those that have been burnt to come clean and expose UNI Strategics unethical and downright scam operations. Email all agreements, correspondence, contacts to expose.uni@gmail.com - with enough cases and exposure the authorities will be compelled to raid their offices in Malaysia and Singapore and shut down the scam operation that has already affected so many, and countless others in the future

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  3. UNI Strategic is ridiculous! I was guaranteed half of payments 2 weeks before the course, but after presenting have yet to receive a single cent! If only I did a simple searcg on google it would have spared me so much anguish. The whole website listing 'testimonials', 'clients', 'events' are lies. There is no way ANYONE would work with them, let alone the 'world's best speakers' if they knew what they were in for. And to think they are able to attract the top companies from the Asia Pacific countries. For those that have been burnt, see this for proof - http://www.pbresults.com/Sales-Blog/article-tip-for-any-prospective-facilitators-who-are-interested-in-working-uni-strategic.html . I think its high time all those that have been burnt to expose UNI Strategics unethical and downright scam operations. Email all agreements, correspondence, contacts to expose.uni@gmail.com - these will be compiled an action will be taken. with enough cases and exposure the authorities will be compelled to raid their offices in Malaysia and Singapore and shut down the scam operation that has already affected so many, and countless others in the future

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  4. One of the methods proved work is email the story to all the delegates and cc to UNI's senior management. Tell them if payment not done in due time, more people will know.

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  5. Thanks for all of the warnings. I was asked to develop a course, and was consideing it. Now I am not. I do not need more headaches with internet scams.

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  6. UNI Strategic in the news for SCAMMING SPEAKERS
    Source:http://www.pbresults.com/Sales-Blog/article-tip-for-any-prospective-facilitators-who-are-interested-in-working-uni-strategic.html

    You may contact these 2 reporters from SPH

    Sep 11, 2010

    Events organiser under fire over late payments

    Speakers complain online; firm says fees withheld due to poor showing but all will be paid

    By Liew Hanqing & Carolyn Quek
    hanqing@sph.com.sg
    carolynq@sph.com.sg

    A GROUP of foreign corporate speakers is crying foul over a Singapore company that they claim did not pay them for their services on time as promised.

    A few have even gone as far as hiring debt collectors to obtain tardy payments, after coordinating strategies with others who posted their complaints on blogs, websites and online forums.

    The company, UNI Strategic, an organiser of corporate events, told The Straits Times that it had no choice but to withhold payment from certain speakers because of what it considered poor performance, which it said was detrimental to its reputation. It later said, however, that its speakers would all be paid eventually.

    At least 20 overseas professionals engaged by it to speak at a number of conferences posted complaints on various websites after allegedly not being paid according to their contracts' timelines, which range between 30 and 60 days after an event.

    Speakers contacted said their appearance fees typically ranged from $4, 000 to $8, 000 each. One of them, Mr Paul Cherry, 48, president of a company providing sales training and leadership development, detailed on his website the difficulties he had in getting paid his fees of US$4, 000 (S$5, 370) after giving a talk on strategic sales leadership here in 2008.

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  7. For employee/salary concerns: seek advise and help from Singapore Ministry of Manpower (MOM) and Central Provident Fund Board (CPF). File your claim and complaint with MOM and CPF Board.

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