Talk about hitting people when they’re down and out.
The city’s Department of Consumer Affairs (DCA) shut down a Midwood employment agency this week after learning that they had allegedly charged illegal fees to customers desperately trying to find jobs.
Along with closing down Dalia’s Service Agency, located at 1670 East 17th Street off Kings Highway, the DCA also secured $83,000 in customer restitution and fines from the couple running the company.
The couple was barred from working at an employment agency in New York for four years, DCA officials said.
“Today marks another milestone in the city’s continuous, comprehensive crackdown of the employment agency industry,” said DCA Commissioner Jonathan Mintz in a statement. “To any business that still hasn’t gotten the message, I’ll say it again: Any employment agency that takes advantage of job seekers, especially during these tough economic times, will answer to us.”
During an undercover operation, DCA investigators discovered that agency founders Dalia Hen and her husband Nissim allegedly continued to charge applicants between $40 and several hundred dollars in illegal up−front fees before they were put together with possible employers. Some of these alleged shakedowns were caught on video, officials said.
The charges violated both New York State law and a previous settlement agreement made with the DCA when the couple was caught conducting the same scam in January 2008.
Along with revoking the Hens’ business license, the agency must run classified ads in local newspapers for 30 days alerting consumers that they may be entitled to refunds.
The shuttered business must also put the notice in its outgoing voice mail in both English and Spanish as well as post a sign on its premises, in every language in which the agency conducted business, that states that the agency has been shut down by DCA. That sign must remain until the lease is up in the building.
Attempts to reach an employee at Dalia’s Service Agency were unsuccessful as this paper went to press.
