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.
