Legitimacy of MALGUS
 

Can anyone confirm to me the legitimacy of the offers made by Malgus Ltd?

I gave a call to BAE Systems in Jerez yesterday. The man in their marketing department sounded very clued up legally and was not saying anything that would legally count as a confirmation.

what he did say is that he could confirm that Malgus have made the *intention* of putting sttudents through their training. BAE Systems also have nothing to do with the offer. They are simply "being asked to train the cadets for Malgus as they do by BA, Aer Lingus etc".

If anyone can confirm the legitimacy of the offer before I commit my £147 for testing and a flight to Scotland that would be great!

It seems almost too good to be true, don't you agree?

All indications say that the offer is legit. Although we appear to be banned from talking about this offer in this forum!!

You would known this already if the previous threads on this topic hadn't been removed!! This is exactly why threads on this topic should remain in the forum - to help wannabes.

rant over

mw

What is on offer?

Malgus are offering 100% sponsorships to 16 applicants to get a FULL ATPL (frozen) for absolutely no cost to themselves. The training will be done at BaeSystems in Jerez. All accommodation and food is included. Do not know if travel to and from is included.

Each applicant is required to pay up front £147. This amount has been arrived at by Malgus as £100 towards training and £47 to Malgus - to cover the cost of staff, advertising and 'other' costs. It has now been established that Malgus are proposing to 'fund' the project themselves.

These are their terms and conditions:
[list=a][*]You shall pay Malgus Limited the sum of £147 (inclusive of VAT)
[*]Malgus Limited shall arrange for you to participate in the necessary basic examinations and tests with a view to proceeding to a full Training Course to obtain a Joint Airworthiness Authority Commercial Pilots License. You will be given at least 2 weeks notice of the date of the first Examination which will take place at the Glynhill Hotel, Renfrew where Malgus Limited have arranged a reduced rate for candidates wishing to stay overnight.
[*]At each stage in the process the examining body will select those candidates who are to proceed to the next stage. The decision of the examining body will be final. Malgus Limited will have no involvement in this process.
[*]If you are successful in reaching the final selection interview, you will have to enter into a further, more detailed agreement with Malgus Limited
[*]For successful candidates, Malgus Limited shall pay the full cost of accommodation and training (with exception of multiple resit fees) to achieve such a license. For the avoidance of doubt, on successful completion of the course there is no obligation to make any reimbursement to Malgus Limited of the sponsorship money.
[*]Refund of fee. If you tell Malgus limited at least fourteen days before the first Examination date of your intention to withdraw from the program you shall receive a full 100% refund. If seven to fourteen days notice is given before the Examination date then you shall receive 50% of the fee paid. Under no other circumstances ( including failure to pass the JAA FCL Class One Medical Examination at the final stage ) will a refund of the fee be granted.
[*]If Malgus Ltd in their sole discretion decide that the project is not viable and decide to cancel the sponsorship offer at any time, all candidates who have applied will receive a full 100% refund of their initial fee.[/list=a]

How do the numbers stack up?

First some assumptions:

• £147 per applicant
  
• £40k per course in Jerez (approx) = 400 applicants
  
• £100 used as basis towards all training costs.

Figures:

Fundamentals:

• To put 16 selected candidates through BaeSystems will cost £640,000.
  
• No of applicants required by Malgus to fund the 16 courses is 6400.
  
• If Malgus get 6400 applicants they will automatically receive £300,800 for their running costs. i.e. £47 from each applicant. (less possible refunds and charges from Parc Aviation).

Now for some other relevancies;

I doubt that we can assume that they will get 6400 candidates in one go. It will take a period of weeks. So they will have on going costs for Parc and for the Glynhill Hotel but they will have revenue which they can turn into further cash, so I think it's clear that they are NOT doing it for altruistic reasons.

They are probably doing it for business purposes only and not solely for the welfare and future of wannabes.

Finally, there will be 6384 disappointed applicants for the 16 that are chosen (399 for) each one chosen.

Conclusion:

Even if Malgus get enough first time round applicants to pay for one or two courses there will not be enough people left or entering the market for a second round of operating the scheme - the bad feeling from the 1000's of rejects will ensure that... however, where they are going to get over 6,000 wannabes who are prepared to part with £147 is anybodies guess and I suppose if people are desperate enough then maybe, but I doubt it.

Althought the company is legitimate and they are offering a chance to get on a course they require many more people to part with their money to be able to fund it. It is all a bit of a lottery. you have a 1 in 400 chance of getting on a free FATPL course for a £147 ticket but you may think your chances are better than that if you feel you have more aptitude than your fellow applicants.

It could be you... but I doubt it!

[ 12 October 2001: Message edited by: Sir Algernon Scruggs ]

What if Malgus turn round after the interviews and say they couldn't find anyway who was good enough for the position, they are in there legal rights to, and can dissapear with a nice tidy sum. Strange that the company didnt exist up until 3 months ago, and also strange that it became a LTD, do they need financial protection etc? Why not setup as a charity?
This sounds pretty dodgy, particularly when a company that is supposed to be commiting nearly £1 million to training people has a home made website, can't they afford professional website engineers?

Wasn't there a similar thing a year or two ago which turned out to be a scam? I forget what it was called, but there were a number of rather extensive threads on the subject.

And yes, I agree with Rick*****ed - one would have thought that at the very least they would have had a more credible front than the one they present!

However, I don't see anything sinister in their using a limited liability company as their vehicle - though I do think that it would help, considerably, if the details of those involved with the company were made public: ie are they people with a AAA track record in the business, chancers, or known scam artists?

Another warning bell to me is their timing - right now, there are a lot of people out there who were hoping to get on courses which have evaporated. £147 is not too large a chunk of change for them to buy a lottery ticket with ... and I suspect that in earlier years (without the availability of sites such as this where people can share their concerns) many would do so. Yet what makes them think that they have a better chance for their 16 newly minted pilots than all the other airlines that have cancelled their trainee's courses?

Seems highly suspect to me!

It all sounds a bit too much like the Flying Start scam that got much publicity on this forum a while back. Resulting in strange letters announcing the cancelling of the scheme due to sudden illness within the company. Needless to say the company was never heard of again. :p :p :p

Bear in mind that bmi is a part-sponsorship where the successful applicant has to provide £15,000 towards the training. I think this sum may have put more people off than the £50 application fee. Still, I think 6000 applicants is unlikely to happen.

As for Flying Start, I rang OATS at the time and they seemed to think it was on the level, in fact they were very insulted that I suspected it was a scam. Therefore just 'cos a company can fool a flight training establishment it doesn't mean they aren't dodgy,

TB

PS. As far as Malgus making money out of it, will it simply be from the application fees or are they planning to bind people into some horrible contract with crappy pay?

Once you do the sums I think it speaks for it's self. They may get enough people for 1 or 2 to go to Jerez but after that who knows. Those who do apply will probably do so once due to the cost and then where are the rest going to come from.

I would rather put the money towards the substantially costs of gaining a CPL/IR, exams, accomodation etc.....

From I personal point of view I would also be bitter about £147 which I would have to scrape together to probably finance somebody elses ATPL. ( I mean, I know I'm good but with these odd's....)

I'm an instructor at BAE Jerez, and I have been told that the company is happy that Malgus are legit. Malgus themselves are using the money from the selection procedure to fund the courses and have also some kind of support from Scottish Enterprise (but I am not sure if that is financial, legal, business or just moral!).

I believe they have said that if insufficient numbers come forward they will refund the money in full (i guess they won't spend money on tests until they know how many applicants there are).

If they do not get 6400 applicants, they will put a lesser number of cadets through here. If they get more there will be more sponsorships to follow.

I am surprised that this thread is still here as any Malgus threads were being deleted yesterday because Malgus have declined to advertise here and PPRuNe don't want to give "free advertising" - as I was told by PPRuNePOP who closed the threads down.

I was also accused of being a trouble maker for raising that point - but there you go!

[ 12 October 2001: Message edited by: moggie ]

One thing that nobody seems to have noticed is the terms and conditions. If the course is not run it would seem that we get a full refund of our fee. Their website has details of the directors and the company is registered with companies house website.

As far as I can add up if they get around 700 people they can send 2 people to Jerez. not counting any fees to parc etc. so possibly they need 800 to send two to jerez and pay parc and still have a sum left over to pay their staff and bills etc. Its not the best offer but its on the table now and I for one cannot stump up the 32000 wanted for other sponsorships on offer. If not enough people apply will it still go ahead? I doubt it and I guess then it wont happen again.

WWW seems to think their legit so I guess its worth a shot.

Good luck to all

Hi all again

Just got off the phone with Malgus, as has been said they confirmed that the more people they get into the tests the more they can train. They didn't give any numbers etc but did stress the refund policy to me.

Apparently they are trying to advertise on pprune but have been told that all advertising slots are full for the next few weeks or so. Does anyone know if this is true?

Still Seekingfirstjob!

I can say nothing more on this topic.

WWW

Dear friends

Once, a long time ago I used to frequent this site just as many of you do now. I stopped using the site over the past year as there were always the un-named people behind the scenes who decided to edit and control this, supposed, open speech forum.

I think that the un-named are at it again and their target is Malgus. I dont know what the problem is but if they are not letting Malgus advertise and stopping all threads about them then somebody somewhere must be taking this personally.

I for one am with Moggie who says let Malgus topics be discussed in open chat and let them advertise if they want.

As Malgus are a business then advertising must be the key to success.

I really hope that the attitude of those in charge of this site is not that of malice as they are harming any chance for the Malgus offer to work.

Don't get me wrong I think that PPRUNE is a great site for all us aviators to chat on but I just get sick of people controlling what we are allowed to see and read.

Sincerely

Seekingfirstjob.

You lot must be mugs to fall for this.

It may well be a sound company but the whole premise is that there will be one place for every 400odd applicants.

Thats rubbish odds. Add your travel costs to the 4 sessions and you are looking at wasting well over £200 apiece.


You WON'T be the one to be selected will you. Lets face it:

a) They will only get enough applicants to send one or two people.

b) Of those one or two there might be one or two who apply who are in some way connected with the management of the scheme. A son of a friend of a friend for example... Oh sure he will have to pass the tests.... no question of him seeing the papers beforehand... and he was very good at interview.... completely impartial selection. Cough.

Get real people. If these people are airline pilots as they have claimed then you can bet their bottom dollar they have either friends or family members who want to be airline pilots like them. They went to the pub one night and came up with a most cunning idea for financing that ambition.

I wish I had thought of it first.

And they can be all above board about it. The only rule broken might be showing someone a test ahead of it being taken and then picking someone at interview whom you already know.

Neither of which is going to get anyone in jail or even found out.

Hey - presto, an ATPL course for the son/nephew/best mate.

There is no way this scheme is going to run for years and years is there...? There are only about 450 new pilots a year in the UK and they need this many just to send slightly less than one cadidate per annnum.

Wake up Boys and Girls - the coffees ready

:rolleyes:

Well. What a suspicous man you are Vref +50. Shame on you.

WWW

I paid a lot of money to BAE for one of their spoof schemes in the past, in which no one ended up getting jobs.

Never heard of them, but the old adage "if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is" springs to mind. (As well as "there is no such thing as a free lunch; you don't get something for nothing", etc)

Its good to see that this thread hasn't been deleted yet, thank you oh god you tells me what to think.

Sorry folks just letting off steam

I was in the same mind as VRef + 50 until I spoke to Parc Aviation. They are running the selection scheme and Malgus has nothing to do with it.

The odds are bad but hey for 147 pounds you *could* get a free licence.

Who knows may be I'm suckered in too, but I can see how it would work.

BAE seem to say that they have nothing to do with the sponsorship also just to provide the training

may the comments roll on!

Spoke to Scottish Enterprise today - much consternation as they cannot understand why they should be backing something which isn't benefitting Scotland - or even involving Scottish based training. That said, they were rather surprised to hear that BAe is no longer at PIK!

Wasn't Flying Start also allegedly Scottish based?

What's their website url - and the names of the people involved?

The thread won't be deleted. Email me if you have something to get off your chest.

WWW