Complaint Review: CSMC in Dubai - Internet

Please beware of CSMC, they will rip you off.

We are a university institute based in Europe (Spain) specialising in Defence and Security. We have a hard-earned reputation working the the Armed Forces and Police Services of Spain and other countries.

In 2012, CSMC contacted us because they wanted us to design and deliver a full cycle of corporate security seminars to their clients in Dubai: nine one-week seminars with highly specialised lecturers flown from our country. Simultaneous translation was provided. The contact was originally worth EUR 229,000 (USD 316,500) and they duly signed a legally binding purchase order (to no avail as I was soon to discover).

These guys gave us a very hard time from minute one. They simply do not operate in a Western way, they make you work a lot (imagine the challenge), do not reply to emails and change think at the very last minute. We obviously asked for a first down payment of EUR 10,000 (USD 13,800). They first send a scanned money transfer voucher, but the money never arrived. Finally, four days before the first seminar was due, the payment arrived.  The seminar finally materialised in September 2012 and we sent a team to Dubai. 

The second and third seminars of the series were cancelled a few days before the starting date, to our dismay, damaging our reputation with our lecturers and associates who had done a great deal of preparatory work. However they did confirm the fourth in December. We made it clear that we were to be paid immediately upon arrival, but they were all promises and in the end they never paid anything else. They left us with two unpaid invoices for the first and second seminars, worth EUR 8,878 (USD 12,300), not to mention the rest of the purchase order, for which we had geared our operation up. We obviously covered the generous fees promised to our team (this was Dubai, you know).

Beware of a Mr. Farid Alderi, a Mr. Hussein and a Ms. Fatima they are very charming and make all kind of promises, they may even fly you in at their expense to discuss a business, but in the end it will cost you money. They are not even Emiratis, they are Jordanians of Palestinian origin (or so they said). They use the allure of magnificent Dubai to trick you into thinking that you are going to do great business with them. But they will have no qualms in stealing from you. (You can look up Farid Alderi CEO CSMC Group in linked-in. There is with a good picture of him).

We tried every convincing argument to claim our dues, after a while they simply would not even have the courtesy of replying.

 They simply would not pay their last tow invoices, saying they were not satisfied (our average satifaction rate is 92%). This was rubbish, furthermore we have subsequently found other European companies that have been left with overdue invoices.

Unfortunately our legal options were all more expensive than the amount due, so at least I wanted to warn others. PLEASE do not do business with these people. They do not deserve the benefit of the doubt and you will feel as outraged as we do.

Note: Expect a furious defamatory rebuttal from CSMC, then decide carefully who you want to believe.