Many young people who purchased working holiday packages say they were left far from home, stranded with no jobs, according to a joint investigation by the public broadcaster, CBC and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
The travellers aged between 18 and 30 say they booked packages promising accommodation and jobs from a company called Global Work & Travel Co. with offices in Vancouver, London and Surfers Paradise in Queensland, Australia.
Hayley Patterson, 22, of Toronto and Juliet Jackson, 22, of London met why they arrived in Surfers Paradise earlier this year, expecting to start work right away. But there was no job. After a few days, the company told them one of the businesses it worked with had four positions open in a Melbourne restaurant, 1,700 km away.
They took a 22-hour bus ride and when they got to the restaurant the manager said he didn’t know what Global Work & Travel was, and the jobs had been filled a month before.
Patterson said several other travellers she met in the pre-booked hostels “felt the exact same way we did. I think we had about 12 other people there with us, and they had all not received jobs.”
The company said it deals with 5,000 to 10,000 travellers a year and that only five per cent file complaints.
Canada’s Better Business Bureau says it has received 13 complaints in the last year. In Austrailia, the Office of Fair Trading for Queensland says it investigated 22 complaints about “misrepresented employment opportunities” and will refer the case to the attorney general.
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