Conducting offshore software training

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I'm reaching out to the community to seek advice. I'm a statistician by profession. Recently, I was contacted by a person on LinkedIn requesting to conduct offshore software training. He cited the urgency of the matter and wrote,

Hi mnm,

I know this is a little last minute but we have a trainer with visa issues that cannot make training to another country (country name withheld) next week. I was hoping you may be available to help out. The training is 2 days (June 20-21) on Data Science - are you available and interested?
Thanks!

Obviously, this person had checked my LinkedIn profile, so I checked him too. It seemed to appear legit. He was working for an ABC training company with a proper website and phone numbers.

I wrote back to this person asking questions like;

Dear ZZZ,

Thanks for reaching out. Indeed its last minute call. And although I'm available there are a few questions. Hope you can answer them.

Training related Qs

1. What is the training about and I hope you have the training material?

2. What is the training group size and how long each day session will be?

Visa, accommodation & travel arrangements

3. What are the visa & other travel arrangements? Please elaborate?

4. What is the accommodation arrangement?

5. What exactly was the visa issue with the earlier trainer?

6. And finally, what will be the payment for conducting the training.

The person replied saying the following;

So sorry! I had multiple asks out due to the urgency and we had another trainer commit to this training.

Questions

1. Was it a scam or a genuine call? I honestly think the latter because I think I asked the correct questions and I did indicate my willingness to work.

2. On an earlier occasion, I had received a similar training offer to conduct 7 days training, wherein the training provider was providing the accommodation and air-fare but was not ready to bank in training fee per day. They wanted to make payment after training was over. Also, they asked me to apply for a social visit pass to YYY country to conduct training. Was this a scam too?

3. Finally, "Am I asking the right questions Or Am I being too careful?"

Please advise.

manpreet 2 years ago