travel agency, how did we get ourselves into

"Be carefull! Do not trust travel agencies!”

“Do not go to the Colosseum, you will be deceived there!”

We write about how we contacted the Colosseum travel agency

and greatly regretted it (a trip to Canada, Greece and Turkey).

Travel agency "Coliseum"

(Sadovaya street, 1, office 401, 4th floor).

G. Nikolaev, Ukraine.

My boyfriend and I were participants in a program for students and those who had just graduated from university to work in a hotel in a resort area in Turkey. According to the information that the Colosseum gave us, before the moment of departure, we knew the following moments:

1. Work in Sera Palace hotel in Antalya city (5 star hotel)

2. Accommodation in apartments for working staff 5 minutes walk from the hotel, 2-4 people per room (houses / rooms for hotel staff)

3. 3 meals a day at the hotel

4. Salary $450 per month

5. The hotel is located by the sea, that is, walk from our accommodation for 5-7 minutes.

On June 1, 2012, we were informed that a tax of $150 would be deducted from our salary, which means that our salary the day before departure abruptly turned from $450 to $300. It became interesting where such figures came from and why we were informed about this the day before departure. That is, the question was to go or not. We accordingly agreed, since we had already spent money on urgent certificates, a medical examination, translation of documents into Turkish (certificate of good conduct, diploma, etc.)

Upon arrival we were greeted by 2 girls. One of them spoke English and said that she did not know where we would live, in what conditions, where to work and who she did not say either, they promised to take us to the hotel and feed us there. We arrived at 1 pm and until 7 pm we sat in a cafe near the Airport, and this is 6 hours of waiting without food or drink for the rest of the program participants. As soon as everyone gathered, a minibus arrived for us, which took us to our “apartments” for almost 1.5 hours. When everyone saw where they brought us, it seemed that this was an abandoned Mexican area with illegal residents. A crowd of Turks stared at us from the windows of our hostel. The girls and I were taken to the 3rd floor of the building to our room, which had 2 iron bunk beds, with dirty mattresses, and bags on pillows instead of pillowcases. The room was not cleaned, elementary, at least the floor was not washed. It was littered with hair and rubbish. There is no hot water, not to mention the fact that there is nothing even to dry off with after an icy shower, so no one can wash after two days on the road, the sink is clogged with tampons and cotton swabs, as well as the shower itself, which even in flip flops is reluctant to enter. We decided not to unpack because there was nowhere to put them, the only thing in the middle of the room was something that looked like a tent with newspapers - it was probably a wardrobe for 4 girls for half a year. We decided to take a few photos, then went out to look for my boyfriend, and at the same time see where they settled him. In fact, we still have a VIP zone compared to where he was going to live for 4 months. There are no handles on the doors, that is, come in, take money, passports, things, whatever you want, while we are at work. In the middle of the room is a mattress, on which it is even disgusting to sit, let alone sleep. The walls are stripped. There is no light in the rooms (burnt out light bulbs), the shower (dirty pan to be exact) is located near a hole in the floor - the so-called toilet, which does not even have a flush barrel, only a hose in the tap to wash off your affairs while perhaps someone is bathing in the shower. We are educated people, university graduates, with a secondary education of good schools, having a specialist diploma at the end of 5 years at the university, who know English at a good level, and they put us in as if we were just picked up by some homeless people on the street and settled in this , sorry for the expression, "viper"! After we saw it all with our own eyes. Before leaving, we were told that we would write letters stating that we had left the house on our own initiative, that the Turks had nothing to do with it, etc., to which we immediately refused, because it was not our reason. We actually gave away the tickets last money. And we were able to eat fast food and buy a bottle of water for the trip. In general, we slept on chairs at the airport for 2 nights and on the 3rd day around 11:45 we boarded the plane home. Arriving in Odessa, we gave the last money for a taxi from the airport and a minibus to Nikolaev.

This is just what concerns specifically the trip to Turkey. But unfortunately, our story doesn't end there...

We crossed the threshold of the Colosseum travel agency in October 2011 - that's when all our problems and expenses for various programs, paperwork began, as a result of which we never went anywhere, with the exception of the failed train to Turkey, where we are three spent the day at the airport, after which, out of desperation, they were forced to return home. Initially, we submitted documents and paid for the Work and Study Canada program. Payment and a full package of documents were brought to the Coliseum in December 2011. As far as we know, the Canadian Consulate reviews the documents within 2-3 weeks, in extreme cases - a month. But after three months, no information about our documents was received from the Coliseum. For another month, we called almost every day and tried to get at least some information about our documents. We also wrote a letter directly to the Canadian consulate with a request to check whether our documents were submitted and in what dates, after which they called me from the Canadian consulate from Kyiv in early April and asked who she was, from which company she submitted documents, or she herself brought documents to the consulate. In general, we got the impression that our documents were simply lost either in Kiev or in the Nikolaev "Coliseum", or they simply forgot about them and never brought them to the consulate on time. Also, having learned from the Nikolaev "Coliseum" about the refusal of visas, we did not receive any explanatory letter, which would indicate the reason for the refusal. After a couple of days, we nevertheless achieved these documents, however, we still strongly doubt their authenticity. We also have proof in our passport that only on April 19 our documents were submitted to the consulate, where the consular fee was paid. We threw our work and also my boyfriend closed his for two months, but in the end we didn’t go anywhere, were waiting for a refund for the college itself in Canada.

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