Care worker job scam charging migrants thousands of pounds – as victim speaks out
One of Britain’s leading care providers has issued a warning after discovering people are impersonating the company in order to charge migrants looking for work thousands of pounds in “fees”.
On the social media pages of all of its more than 150 care homes, Care UK says it is “aware of unsolicited and fraudulent job offers being made, allegedly from our care homes”.
“If you are in any doubt of the legitimacy of an offer; we never ask you for money as part of a job application,” Care UK adds.
The scam – revealed by Sky News – has emerged as the government tightens immigration rules to cut the number of migrants entering the UK.
In the year to June, more than a third (37%) of long-term work visas went to care workers.
Amy, who lives in South Africa, was a victim of the scam while trying to get a visa to move to the UK, where her boyfriend lives. The 25-year-old’s name has been changed to protect her identity.
After seeing an advert offering roles within healthcare, Amy contacted what she thought was a recruitment agency, Zidaan Consultancy, in July.
She received an email stating a five-year certificate of sponsorship and visa processing would cost £4,500.
She decided to apply for care work because it was “the sector where most jobs were available”.
Amy’s real name has been changed to protect her identity
Amy paid an initial £500 “registration fee” and was advised a further £4,000 would be due once her certificate of sponsorship (a document required in order to be granted a visa) was issued.
Zidaan Consultancy then arranged a video interview with someone Amy was told was a representative of Care UK.
In September, she received another email, forwarded from Zidaan Consultancy, saying her interview was successful.
There was a job offer for the full-time role of healthcare assistant on a salary of £23,000 a year.
This message was originally sent by a woman whose email signature stated she was “recruitment director administrator” at Care UK. The same text was sent to 15 other people.
‘Amy’ applied for a job as a healthcare assistant after spotting an advert online
Amy contacted Care UK directly after she was given no further details on how to progress with a visa. She discovered Care UK had no record of her and the woman who had signed the job offer email was not an employee.
“I was very, very upset because it was such a long process to try and get the visa and then when I thought it was going to happen I was so happy,” Amy said.
“Now, all of a sudden it wasn’t even true. It was like I have to start from the beginning.”
Care UK says it has reported at least one company to the Home Office and it is working with the police on a separate investigation.
Leah Queripel, human resources director at Care UK, told Sky News: “It makes me very angry because they’re using Care UK’s name but they’re also trying to extort money from people and that is under our name.
“This does need to be looked at from a government perspective and not for companies to have to be relied on to fix it.”
Job vacancies posted by Zidaan Consultancy online
Under the government’s new immigration rules, all care firms will have to be registered with the regulator, the Care Quality Commission, in order to get sponsorship licences, which allow them to recruit abroad.
But these new rules will do nothing to stop this kind of scam, where people fraudulently impersonate legitimate firms in order to illegally make money from people who want to move to the UK.
The Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority (GLAA) previously revealed to Sky News that exploitation of overseas care workers is its “number one priority”.
Marley Morris, associate director for migration, trade and communities at the Institute for Public Policy Research, told Sky News that a “more effective approach is actually targeting the abuse directly by ensuring higher standards, by resourcing the labour inspectorates properly, by ensuring that people are able to report abuse in a way that protects them”.
“Those, I think, are the measures that are going to deal with the issue rather than measures that are really targeted at just bringing down the overall numbers,” he added.
Zidaan Consultancy is still advertising vacancies for international recruits on its website.
Care UK says Zidaan Consultancy is not a company it has ever used.
Sky News has repeatedly emailed, messaged and tried to call the director of Zidaan Consultancy, Izzah Zidaan, to ask him to formally respond to these allegations. There has been no response at the time of publication.
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We do not tolerate abuse in the labour market and where we identify exploitative practices are being undertaken, we take action.
“The GLAA also work with other law enforcement agencies to identify illegal working, including incidents being reported to Action Fraud.”
England have been crowned Women’s Rugby World Cup champions for the third time after crushing Canada 33-13.
Two tries by Alex Matthews, plus one each from Ellie Kildunne, Amy Cokayne and Abbie Ward sealed it for the Red Roses.
England, ranked as the world number one going into the match, were ahead by 13 points by the end of the first half – as they played in front of a record-breaking home crowd of 81,885 at the Allianz Stadium in Twickenham, west London.
(L-R) Megan Jones, Ellie Kildunne and Helena Rowland celebrate at the final whistle after the Women’s Rugby World Cup. Pic: PA
England’s Zoe Aldcroft lifts the trophy as she celebrates with teammates after winning the Womens Rugby World Cup final. Pic: Reuters
England’s Alex Matthews celebrates scoring a try in the Womens Rugby World Cup final. Pic: Reuters
Canada mounted a spirited effort in the second half, but a decent spell of pressure was cut off when Matthews scored her second try of the afternoon.
A conversion took the Red Roses to 33 points, giving them a comfortable 20 point lead over the Maple Leafs.
England’s Ellie Kildunne runs in to score a try. Pic: PA
England’s Tatyana Heard is tackled by Canada’s Alysha Corrigan. Pic: PA
England’s Amy Cokayne scores a try during the Women’s Rugby World Cup final. Pic: PA
The win marks the first time England won the Women’s Rugby World Cup in 11 years, after losing finals in 2017 and 2022.
Among the first to congratulate the Red Roses were the Prince and Princess of Wales, who also praised Canada and said: “You had an outstanding tournament. Both teams should be so proud!”
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer also praised the team and said: “You have shown the very best of England and inspired a generation.”
After watching the game with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, London’s mayor Sir Sadiq Khan posted a photo of the pair while congratulating England.
“Huge congratulations to (the Red Roses) on their fantastic victory,” he said, “another proud moment for women’s rugby.”
‘Pinch me moment’
Speaking to the BBC after being named player of the match, England’s 23-year-old flanker Sadia Kabeya said: “It’s a pinch me moment. It’s been years and years in the making, I am so happy we could pull it off.
“All props to Canada they are a great side and they put up a great fight here today.”
Ward also told the broadcaster: “Honestly as soon as the whistle went I just burst into tears. It’s truly been such a special day. A sold-out crowd at Twickenham. It was electric, in front of friends, family, it’s amazing.
“The last final loss, that was then. This is a new team, this is a new chapter of women’s rugby.”
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Headed into the final, the Red Roses were on a 32-game winning streak and won their seventh straight Six Nations title back in April.
England also won every one of their matches in the World Cup group stages, then secured victories over Scotland and France in the quarter and semi-finals, respectively.
It also marked the second-ever Rugby World Cup final for Canada, ranked second in the world behind England.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney was spotted in the stands. Pic: PA
Canada’s Asia Hogan-Rochester scores her team’s first try of the match. Pic: Reuters
But despite their world ranking, Canada’s women’s team had to partly fund their way to the tournament.
A crowdfunding page under the name Mission: Win Rugby World Cup 2025 raised nearly $1m (£534,000) to help cover the costs of sending the team to England.
How often do migrants successfully fight their removal from Britain on the basis of their human rights?
The clamour from the right for the UK to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights has been growing – even some high-profile Labour figures say it needs reform.
So, I’ve come to an immigration appeal court – unannounced – to find out how it is used by migrants and their lawyers here.
Decisions delayed, outcomes unpublished
I get to the fourth floor of a large court building in Birmingham.
The first case I’m ushered into to see is a 38-year-old Nigerian man. He came on a student visa – but that ran out.
Just before he did, he put in a claim to stay on the basis of his relationship with a woman, who is originally from Barbados but has lived and worked in Britain since 2015.
The judge, who will decide their fate, dials in via video link. He hears the man’s partner has a 17-year-old daughter.
She lives with her biological father, but the couple insist she is so close to the Nigerian man she calls him “Dad”. This is an appeal being made under Article 8 of the ECHR – the right to a family life.
The following day, it’s a different judge – this time he’s here in person.
The man in front of him is appealing against deportation to Kenya. He came to the UK as a baby with his mother and siblings.
As a teenager, he was jailed for almost 10 years for stabbing a man, causing serious injuries.
It emerges that his case is also based on Article 8 of the ECHR. Since leaving prison, he’s fathered a child who has just turned two.
There are arguments made too under Article 3 of the ECHR – which protects against torture and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment – due to the man being diagnosed with “generalised anxiety” and depression.
It will be a few weeks before decisions are made on these cases – and the results won’t be published by the court.
I leave, thinking how opaque the process feels.
It’s also easy to see why some politicians are pointing to the ECHR – a treaty signed after the Second World War to protect the rights of everyone in the Council of Europe – as a barrier to removing more migrants.
Between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals were due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed
Is the ECHR really a barrier to deportation?
“I think there’s a strong kind of political dynamic there which has led to, in some ways, you might say, a kind of scapegoating of the European Convention,” says Alice Donald, Professor of Human Rights law at Middlesex University, London.
She’s not convinced that withdrawal from ECHR would make a big difference to the number of people the UK is able to remove or deport.
“The honest answer is we don’t know, we don’t have enough data to say that,” she says.
“The data that we do have, for example, in relation to the number of human rights appeals against deportation by foreign national offenders, which has been very much in the news this year, suggests that it would really make only a marginal difference.”
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Those figures, published by the Home Office, reveal that between April 2008 and June 2021, 21,521 foreign nationals due to be deported because of crimes they’d committed appealed, and 2,392 were successful on human rights grounds only. That’s around 181 on average per year.
We don’t have figures for how many other types of immigrants are allowed to stay on the basis of human rights. Small boat migrants who claim asylum would usually rely on another convention.
“In terms of asylum claims, it is governed by the 1951 Refugee Convention as a different treaty,” Prof Donald explains.
“There is, of course, overlapping protection with the prohibition of torture in the European Convention… so if the Refugee Convention were still in place, then of course people seeking asylum would rely on that.”
She also believes there have been “a number of erroneous stories or exaggerated stories”.
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Reform would deport legal migrants
Debunking the chicken nugget myth
In February 2025, it was widely reported that an Albanian criminal’s deportation was halted over his son’s dislike of foreign chicken nuggets.
“What actually happened in that case is that it went to the upper tribunal (second-tier immigration appeal court) which ordered that he could be deported. And also specifically said that the evidence to do with chicken nuggets was nowhere near the level required,” Prof Donald says.
What leaving the ECHR would mean
Withdrawal from the ECHR would mean the guarantees it provides would be removed for everyone in the UK, not just migrants.
It not only protects the rights to life, liberty, fair trial and freedom of expression among others, but also prohibits torture, slavery and discrimination.
Pulling out of the treaty could also breach the Belfast Good Friday Agreement – though some say such an outcome is avoidable.
However, in a country where immigration is the top issue of concern for voters, there are some who now think that is a price worth paying.
The King and Queen will meet the new Pope during a state visit to Vatican City next month.
The couple will join Leo XIV, who was elected pope earlier this year after the death of Pope Francis, in late October to celebrate the 2025 jubilee year, Buckingham Palace said.
The Catholic Church typically marks a papal jubilee every 25 years.
Charles and Camilla‘s visit is expected to celebrate the ecumenical work by the Church of England and the Catholic Church, reflecting the Jubilee year’s theme of walking together as “Pilgrims of Hope”.
The King is Supreme Governor of the Church of England, a role which dates back to Henry VIII, who named himself Supreme Head of the Church of England after he was excommunicated by Pope Paul III and broke from the Catholic Church in the 16th century to marry Anne Boleyn.
The King and Queen had a meeting with Pope Francis just 12 days before he died.
The King and Queen meeting Pope Francis before his death. Pic: PA
Their historic state visit to the Vatican in early April was cancelled due to the then-pontiff’s poor health, but they managed to visit him privately during their trip to Italy.
The meeting with Francis, in what would be the final weeks of his life, was arranged at the last minute and took place on their 20th wedding anniversary on 9 April, with the pontiff wanting to personally wish them a happy anniversary.
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In an official message released following the news of Francis’s death on 21 April, the King said he and the Queen were “most deeply saddened”.
In May, Charles sent a private message to Pope Leo XIV congratulating him on his election, Buckingham Palace said.
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