Lincoln Royal Cruises - Beware of the scam!

A number of people from India have contacted us with a request for more information about Lincoln Royal Cruises. Here's what we found out:

Lincoln Royal Cruises is a scam. People behind the scam advertise a number of positions in India. They even organised a recruitment event on the 22nd and 23rd April 2017 which was attended by about 1000 job seekers.

They claim the company was formed in 2012 but their website was launched just in April 2017.

No one within the cruise industry has ever heard of a cruise line called Lincoln Royal Cruises. Ships pictured on their website belong to other cruise lines (Cunard).

According to their website the full company name is "Lincoln Royal Cruise Ltd". The UK Companies House (official registry of all limited companies registered in the UK) has no records of such company. They do not provide a company number or VAT number that could be easily checked.

Lincoln Royal Cruises give the following address as their registered addres: "Brayford Wharf KL, Lincoln, LN6 2YW, United Kingdom". However, there are no offices belonging to a company of such name in the location.

It is not possible to book a holiday with Lincold Royal Cruises through any travel agencies anywhere in the world. This is a clear sign on its own that the company is fake.

The list goes on. We are absolutely confident that Lincold Royal Cruises is a scam.

They do not charge any fees

This is correct, they make it clear they do not charge any fees. This is only to mask themselves as a genuine cruise line. It is illegal in the UK to charge the candidates.

However, they work with a number of associated companies who do charge and Lincold Royal Cruises make it clear you have to pay for their partners' services to apply for jobs.

For example, they require all candidates to take a medical test (12,000 INR), English language test (15,000 INR), CDC/STCW certificate (35,000 INR), etc.

Candidates are referred to different agencies and companies that provide these tests and certificates. However, these are fake as well and any certificates issued by them are worthless.

The only point of this scam is to get money from innocent (and often desperate) job seekers. This is how they do it.

What if you already paid them?

If you already paid them, report them to your local police. We estimate they got away with millions of Rupees stolen from hard working job seekers in India. Many had to take loans to pay them.

Do not report them to us. There is nothing we can do to help you.

You may consider getting together with other victims and hire a lawyer. Again, this is something we are unable to assist you with.

We are working on taking their website and social media pages offline. Hopefully this is accomplished soon.

More information

We received an email from a person from Goa that we'd like to share with you. We are keeping the person's identity private to protect him.

There is a new type of scam in Goa and Karnataka for a non existing cruise liner that exists only on internet.
Its called Lincoln Royal Cruises. the website address is https://www.lincolnroyalcruises.co.uk/

There were interviews conducted in Goa with advertisements appearing in prominent dailies of the states of Goa and Karnataka
the advertisement is attached in the mail.

The licence for recruitment and interview in India is given to Pushpa Enterprises who are execting it through Devine HR solutions owned by Gautam Mukesh who conducted interview along with Rajesh Dhaktode both from Mumbai.

Everywhere it was mentioned only one thing" Free Interview no fees charged". Around 2000 candidates arrived at 6 am on advertised dates and surprisingly all got selected. I was one of them. Prior to the day of interview candidates had to take a token number for interview by submitting 2 copies of cv and educational documents, experience cert. etc. to Arabian Training Center (ATC), a Goa based recruitment and training center also accomplice in the scam.

Candidates had to surrender their passport once selected. Candidates were asked or rather I say forced to go for ILO medical test at a prominent medical centercalled Grace in Margao Goa by paying Rs 12000 INR in order to get offer letter. The test usually costs only 3000 INR at other Director General of Shipping approved centres by ATC.

Later through our contacts some candidates came to know ATC was making a killing by sending candidates for medical via commissions. So I got suspicious and started digging more into this Lincoln Royal Cruise.

I tried to search for all info. Luckily upon finding registration history of website it was clear it was a scam as we all came to know about name of the comapny on the day of interview, the website strangely was registered in the month of April 2017. They provided facebook and linkdin page link which were also April registered.

I started writing mails to UK address email and even called UK and US offices - no one replied to my email or calls. I went to search physical address - the company is not existing at that address infact it's address of a college in Lincoln.

I called US telephone numbers, they get routed to Canada.

I checked physical address of all places mentioned they turned out to be fake.

Now post submitting the medical report candidates were asked to sign affidavits at arabian TC premises mentioining ATC did not pressurise candidates to do test at Grace which was again a lie as we were handed the slips with name and address to go there and no other place.

Lastly I contacted Gautam Mukeesh of Devine HR and asked him why photographs of Cunard vessels are posted on the website. What is the name of Lincoln vessel and IMO? He blocked me on Whatsapp after replying that Seagate 2 is name of Lincoln vessel not yet registered and some other partner vessels which turned out to be small yachts and not a cruise ship (admin note: even these small ships do not belong to Lincoln Royal Cruises). Vessels shown on website are fake and even booking of cruise holidays is fake.