Should I be worried ... and what can I do?

Piggle, it is soooo simple. Be an employer and you will have an employee. yes, I have to agree with you - it really is as simple as that.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but this one ain't coming back to work for you. She might just make up a new passport and come back to dupe another unsuspecting madam but you have to cut your losses and move on now. If not successful in Dubai, then another ME country... simply because its so easy to get away with this sort of thing! Rule one - when employing a domestic never ever give them advances or any money for emergencies and to top it off, send them off on a plane home. Just sympathise with them if they come up with these sad stories and then continue by saying, have you done the ironing as yet? That will make her realise that you are not there to listen to the sob story.

Piggle, it is soooo simple. Be an employer and you will have an employee.

The thing is, that line about the husband being a drunk and going with other women is quite a true thing, and it does go on. As the maids here take their employers for a ride, their families back home do the same to them and most of the husbands are getting up to bad stuff. These people are uneducated and come from poor areas where abuse is the norm. Once you understand their mindset then you will find it easier to deal with them. I say 'them' and not loosely, but 'they' are mostly alike. Once you have hired the maid, you must let her know in no uncertain terms what will happen if she involves you in her private life. When a maid starts to talk about her 'stuff' or lack of money etc, you should know how to cut her short and end the conversation.

Wow! The 'my husband has had an affair and his lover gave birth to his baby' was a line my former maid used on me (and quite soon after joining our family). Now I wonder, having sacked her many months on, whether it was a lie. Actually, I always questioned if it was true......do they get a 'The Idiots Guide to Dubai Madams' before accepting job offers here??????? Didn't mean to hijack your thread, scotinthelakes. I really hope she returns safely and all is well in every respect.

I had a similar story too, but I'll try and give you the short version. We get a maid from Philippines who is fabulous at first. Then before the summer break, all the stories start coming out: Around May: my husband is having an affair, he's abandoned my 3 children to fend for themselves, all alone in the house, whilst he moved in with his mistress. The mistress is pregnant but he'll move back with the kids.(this was distilled to us over the course of a few weeks) Throughout all this of course we offered a lot of sympathy ... and extra money to help her out. Then she told us she needed to go home, which i agreed to (though I have 2 small kids and work) at first until she told me she wanted to go that same week and could I pay for her return flight. Unfortunately for her I refused that arrangement and told her to buy her own ticket which i would reimburse to her on her return. Guess what: nope, she did't go. And for a while that was the end of it During the summer we booked her a flight home for the month we'd be away. Off we go but husband has to stay behind because of last minute work commitments. 2 wks later, who does he see walk into our garden, with not a care in the world, the maid. She didn't go back home, didn't tell us and I gather stayed to work illegally here during our absence. Husband was fuming, he works for the government and is v strict on all aspect of our lives here being totally above board. Anyway, I come back at the end of summer, expecting a good explanation and of course I got one: she couldn't go home because her husband had threatened to kill her if she did. We naively decided to let her stay and give her another chance - she had 3 kids to feed after all. But then it simply got silly. A few wks later, she walked in in tears saying her husband and daughter had been shot at in a market and she needed money. That's when we finally said enough. We told her we wouldn't renew her visa and she should look somewhere else. She seemed delighted at first and then a while later she came back in tears asking for her job back. We refused and told her to seriously get something else before her visa ran out. She got a job with a family and 3 days after she started she called us telling us she'd left because it was too hard. By that point her visa had run out and my husband was so fed up he put her on a plane back 2 days later.(at least that airfare was not wasted!) Sorry did try and make it short :-) Anyway, all this to say I have cynical when it comes to maids. And I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them when the sob stories come out. My advice to you would be to cover your back and start looking for s/o else - at the moment I'm not sure she's at all worried about the position she puts you in! Give her an actual deadline warning her that if she doesn't return by then you'll have no choice but to cancel her visa ... Good luck!

crikey these maids are fun

I would be glad to....

MoonBean..I think you should share her pic with scotinthelakes. It could have been the same maid...

OH DEAR! I can't help but have a 'hollow' feeling in my tummy reading this thread!! a while back we have hired a Sri lanken maid, spent a fortune on her visa and so fourth. She was good to start off with, then about a week after she had the visa in her passport, things changed, or should I say the real 'maid' came out. Anyway long story short, we got a phone call from her 'uncle' in Sri Lanka saying her brother had been involved in a really terriable accident and she needed to return home....... We bought her a ticket(return) and sent her off for 2 weeks(with some cash). she did not bother letting us know she had arrived. We had to call the uncle a couple of days later to see if she was there. he said he had seen her at the hospital with her brother. After 5 days she got hold of us saying she would be coming back on the agreed date. She text 2 nites before she was due home to say she would see us then, but did she arrive? NOOOOO So we eventually get a text from her saying her parents are really sick and she can not return! we cancelled her visa, placed a ban on her(6 months) and took the situation as our own ignorance and licked our wounds on the money lost on her. It does not end there! about 6-8 weeks later I got a call from her friend here in Dubai saying her father has passed away and she will not be coming back so she wants us to cancel her visa(we had not told her we have cancelled it) I refused to speak to these friends and insisted of she wanted to talk she should call herself. She did call but said she can not come back coz her mom and dad are really sick(really i thought he died!) then she calls and says she wants to come back to work!:\: :\: She adds me as a friend on facebook and last time I checked her prfile pic was of her on an airplane! Cant help but wonder if its the same girl......