The Typical Indian Predator Company Collabera Recruiting

Executive Summary

• This is an analysis of a quote on an Indian recruiting company called Collabera and how they scam US domestic IT workers.

Introduction

Collabera is an Indian recruiting company. The following is a reasonably typical quote of the experienced domestic US IT workers with this company.

This is covered in the following quotation, one of many you can find at this link on Yelp.

Watch Out for Social Security Fraud

Many folks here and there rate Collabera as a “scam”, “the worst”, etc.
Well, turns out that is all true. The only thing I can add is BEWARE of potential identity fraud involving your Social Security number.

When do we usually reveal our full SS#? After we have accepted an offer and are going through the HR hiring process.

This is fairly typical of Indian recruiting firms. They obtain information about US domestic IT workers but not to place them in jobs. They present positions to the domestic IT worker to obtain information. They then do not get back to the IT worker but quickly mine the information provided to the Indian recruiter for whatever they can use. Social security numbers should only be necessary when the position has been accepted, not before the candidate has even begun the process. However, Indian recruiting firms turn the process on its head. One has to wonder what Indian recruiting firms are doing with the social security numbers of domestic IT workers.

Making Ridiculous Things Sound Normal

The Collabera guys (in my case Dushanta Thounaojam, Abhishek Tiwary and Purnendu Shahapurkar) aggressively requested ALL 9 digits of my Social Security even before submitting my resume to the client. I refused to give it them, and after multiple attempts/conversations they said “we would need to go through many levels of our management to make an exception for you”. They came back and said “it was extremely difficult, but we did this huge favor for you, so you need give your SS#” before the interview, then after interview, etc. etc.

This is called gaslighting. Through aggressively requesting information that non-Indian recruiting firms do not ask for, Indian recruiters make it seem extremely standard and make the IT worker feel as if they are being unreasonable. This illustrates the extreme lying that all Indians are capable of doing. It is important not to categorize these issues as being only related to Indian recruiters. All Indians have the built-in as part of their cultural foundation.

Fake Interviews

Thinking this was a real interview, I came to a major bank on Hudson street in Jersey City as instructed, but no one was expecting me; I was not entered into the system by “the interviewers”. I called Dushanta Thounaojam to say that no one knew I was coming; I guess he then contacted someone inside to arrange my pass, and after 30-35 minutes I got upstairs.
(By the way, they said that somebody from Collabera would meet me in the lobby and would walk me in, but that did not happen.) HOWEVER(!), someone (Rajesh or smth like that) met me upstairs and said that was his only job. I think he must be one of Dushanta and Abhishek’s friends who works there. He was probably not from Collabera, but an insider they knew before.

This type of chaos or pandemonium is standard when working with Indians. There are very rarely any apologies. Indian companies, whether recruiting or any other type, are highly chaotic.

More Chaos Ensues

Dushanta Thounaojam and Abhishek Tiwary provided the names of interviewers, but 2 of them were not in the office and the 3rd one, named Ravi, acted like I was not expected/welcome. He briefly talked with me, then said that another guy, Jaikanth, would talk to me on the phone.
After him, Ravi brought another guy – let’s call him Mike – who was friendly, even though he said that he is NOT from that team at all, and was just asked by Ravi to talk to me. At the end of my conversation with him I told him that Collabera guys tried to get ALL 9 digits of my SS#, saying that it is a requirement by the Bank to provide a full SS# of the interviewed candidates.

On its face, this is highly unlikely. Details like this are shared when the individual is offered a job in an American company. Indian recruiters have a standard response to any complaint on the part of the candidate, whether it be the low rate or whatever other unreasonable request the recruiter places upon them that “the client wants.” They use this excuse on virtually any topic that is a matter of dispute on the part of the candidate.

And in just the next section of the quote, we find out that it is not the bank’s policy.

Lying About Requirements from the Hiring Company

Mike said this was not true and he would never reveal his own SS# at this stage. And when I asked him what was his opinion of Collabera, and whether he hires consultants for his team from Collabera, he replied “Oh, no! I am not of a good opinion of Collabera, and I only deal with other staffing agencies.”

This is entirely standard. Indians feel entirely justified in lying to candidates about hiring company requirements to pry information from candidates, which the recruiting company uses for their nefarious purposes.

In Summary

Summarizing for those who did not want to read my entire story: DO NOT DEAL WITH COLLABERA; DO NOT PROVIDE YOUR FULL SOCIAL SECURITY # UNTIL GOING THROUGH HR AND GETTING HIRED BY A R E S P E C T E D ON-SHORE AGENCY.
I hope this does not apply to the on-shore Collabera recruiters; based on my experience, my warning only pertains to the offshore Collabera staff. You can only guess what they do with the solicited SS#’s. Many of you may have already heard about what’s going on with the offshore related IT (and maybe not only IT) business here in US.
BEWARE!

Conclusion

Indian companies degrade the labor market in the US for domestic IT workers. There are numerous violations of this candidate’s labor rights and what is reasonable and customary in the United States. There is no one to report these things to. Collabera will behave the same way with future candidates, and nothing can stop them from doing this. The US system is entirely unprepared to deal with a vast population of Indians working in IT and IT recruiting that has no intention of following any of the generally accepted rules of the US system. To deal with this influx of Indians, the US would have to implement a large regulatory apparatus that would allow non-Indians to report Indians. This agency or agencies would be nearly entirely focused on the regulation of Indians, as the reports of other groups for violating the road rules would be tiny in comparison. None of these things are discussed anywhere but on conservative websites like Breitbart. When the H1-B program is discussed, it is never brought up that there are now so many Indians in control of the livelihoods of US domestic IT workers that are actively lying to them, preying upon these workers, cheating them, and applying the horrific Indian work standards on the domestic US IT working population. For the rest of the media sphere, these behavior patterns are invisible. This means that recent Indian immigrants to the US are getting away scot-free with abusing the domestic US IT workforce.

It should be noted also that none of these quotes are surprising to anyone versed on the topic of Indians in IT. This is not just Collabera; this is standard and universal Indian behavior.

Indian IT Survey Results

To see our ongoing survey, which includes graphs of responses and specific comments from domestic workers all over the world who have had to work with Indians, see the website indianitsurvey.com

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