Six things to check before you pay for a job abroad

Before you hand over a single rupee, ask two questions:

What is your licence number?

What is the approval number for this job?

An agency doing this properly will answer both without hesitating, because both are on paper already. An agency that changes the subject, laughs it off, or tells you the numbers come later has told you what you needed to know.

They are two different numbers, and you need both

A licence says the agency is permitted to send workers abroad at all. An approval says this particular job has been cleared — this employer, this country, this batch of workers.

A licensed agency can still put you on an unapproved job. That is why one number is not enough. Ask for both, write them down, and check them against the Department of Foreign Employment before you pay.

If you cannot check them yourself, ask somebody who can. A relative with a smartphone and twenty minutes is cheaper than the alternative.

Read the contract before you pay, not after

The contract should say, in writing: the employer’s name, the country and city, the job you will actually do, the salary figure, the hours, who pays for your ticket, who pays for your visa, who pays for your accommodation, and how long the contract runs.

If it is in a language you do not read, do not sign it on somebody’s spoken summary. Take a photograph of every page and have it translated by a person who is not connected to the agency.

A verbal promise is not a term of employment. If the salary you were told is not the salary written down, the written one is what you will be paid.

Your passport stays with you

An agency may need your passport briefly to process the visa. It does not need to keep it, and no employer abroad has a right to hold it once you arrive.

If your passport is taken and not returned, that is not paperwork. That is the thing every warning about foreign employment is about. Keep a photograph of every page on your phone and a printed copy with your family at home, before you travel.

Every payment gets a receipt with a name on it

Not a number scribbled on a page. A receipt showing the amount, the date, what it was for, and the agency’s stamp.

The legal maximum an agency may charge changes, and it is not the same for every destination, so do not take anybody’s word for what it is — including this page. Ask the Department what the current limit is for the country you are going to, then compare it to what you are being asked for.

If you are asked to pay in cash with no receipt, the amount is the smaller problem. Without a receipt you cannot prove you paid anything at all.

Urgency is the oldest trick there is

“The flight is Thursday.” “Only two places left.” “Another man is ready to pay today.”

Real jobs abroad take weeks of paperwork. Anyone compressing that into a decision you have to make this afternoon is not doing you a favour — they are removing the time you would have used to check. That is the point of the pressure.

Nothing that is genuine gets worse because you took two days to verify it.

Write down who to call, before you leave

Put these in your phone and on a piece of paper in your bag:

• The Nepali embassy or consulate in the country you are going to

• A family member who has copies of your contract and passport

• The agency’s office number and the name of the person who handled your case

• Your employer’s address, written in the local language

People who get into trouble abroad are rarely people who had these written down and could not use them. They are usually people who had nothing written down at all.

The short version

1. Ask for the licence number and the job approval number. Check both.

2. Read the contract, translated, before any money moves.

3. Keep your passport, and copies of every page.

4. Get a stamped receipt for every payment.

5. Slow down when someone is rushing you.

6. Write down who to call before you fly.

None of this makes going abroad a bad idea. Plenty of people do it and it works. It works far more often for the ones who asked the two questions at the top of this page.