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Maid Contract Renewal 2019

Another year, another headache. Since the article on how to renew maid VISA + contract received so many hits, I thought of just updating it to reflect the most current procedures.

a) Fomema

Fomema now has given options to do alternate year after the third year of checkup. So for instance year 1,2 and 3, then year 4 you can skip, year 5 do, year 6 skip and so on. Else, if you are like us, just do it each year. It doesn’t take a lot of effort and health is everyone’s rights.

So head over to https://portal.fomema.my/

Register worker – for some reason, workers registered previous year is not saved.

You can’t use worker code. So remove worker code and re-register again and it should work.

Pay online around RM191 and if you are like me, paranoid about credit card, just use FPX and select your bank.

Once paid we are done, print the invoice and details. We will need also the Fomema medical form by clicking the trans_id in red.

Make sure your insurance for the maid has been paid as well.

Check the portal again after a few days and you should see “Suitable, please proceed to Immigration. Thank you”. DO NOT PROCEED TO IMMIGRATION. There is nothing for you there. It’s a trick.

b) Renew VISA

There is not much difference from previous procedure. Just go over to the Myeg website, login, click on immigration and “Maid Permit Renewal”.

There you need to key in all the details of your maid, make sure you get everything correct. Including your IC, which has ‘-‘ in them.  I would suggest to collect through the e-service centre due to convenience.

You will end up paying around RM631 for the maid renewal.

MYEG may call you or they may not, but within a week, you should go ahead and just ping them to check. Once the Visa is ready you can head over to their new office @ Empire City. Just take your IC and maid’s passport, no need maid.

It takes a little getting used to. When you drive into the parking, just drive straight all the way until you hit a junction.  You will see a sign in front of you.

 

 

Like all things in Malaysia, do not follow this sign. Just park your car around here, and walk to the right of this sign, going diagonally. You will eventually come upon the entrance to MyEg. You need to register with the guard, get a tag then take the stairs to downstairs one flight, then take the elevator to Ground from there. It’s a very roundabout way to enter the building, so obviously its very poorly thought of. Empire City seems like a real mess.

Once on the ground, just enquire one of the guards for MyEG and he will direct you to the turnstiles where you use your tag and just head towards the new office.

MyEG new office is super different from their old place. Their old place in BU was like a trashy public motel that charges per hour. This new place is VERY professionally done and super impressive. Even more impressive was the service (granted I went on a weekday, off peak). Just take a number, and get called, pass the maid’s passport and your IC and you are done. Wait for around 15 minutes or so, and they will ping you and you now have a new VISA. SUPER! Well done, MyEG!

c) Renew VISA

Renewal of contract needs to occur every two years. I’ll admit, you probably can get this done yourself, but it depends. For me, it just seemed more convenient to get the agent to help out. I paid around 1.5K all in, which, again, could be saved but I think it’s fine.

So Contract. First of all get your documents ready.

a) Most recent contract, original, not photocopy. To be save, just bring all the past year contracts

b) Current insurance certificate (renewed)

c) Current insurance receipt

d) Current maid passport (and any old one if she has)

e) Employer’s IC

f) Maid

Photostat all of it (not the maid of course, silly) It’s important to bring the maid because you need to sign!

Set apart one day – Unfortunately I got held up in a jam and only arrived at the embassy at around 9.30 am. Previously we did it in half a day before lunch we were done when I reached at 9 am. By 9.30am the embassy was full and we were in trouble.

Don’t wear slippers! Wear shoes!

Once there, I met up with my agent, she gave me a bunch of forms to sign and so I went ahead and signed. She basically settled everything for us, including submission etc. As employer, you can leave already and go back to work. The maid technically can also leave but she needs to stay there in case her signature doesn’t get through. Also, if both of you leave, you need to arrange with your agent to get back the contract and passport. What I did was to just leave after signing and then arrange Grab for her to go back. She finished almost at 1.45 pm. So the moral of the story is to GO EARLY!

So another year is done. It’s not cheap! The whole process sets me back almost 2,300MYR, but thats the cost of upkeeping a maid these days.

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Renewing Maid Permit – Part 2

For a golf blog, strangely one of the higher hits article is one I wrote in November last year for renewal of maid permit in Malaysia: http://gilagolf.net/gilalogy/renewing-maid-permit-in-malaysia/

Hence, it’s proven at the utmost ineptitude of our public services that so many people are at lost on how to renew their maid’s permit in Malaysia.

This year, we had to undergo something slightly different, namely the renewal of the maid’s passport and also the contract renewal (we didn’t even realise this), before going for the permit renewal. So you see, every year, there is a whole crap lot of renewal going on.

Firstly, the contract needs to be renewed first before the passport can be renewed. Now, I know there are manual ways to do the maid renewal, but we didn’t mind paying a little extra for our agent to help us out (plus, we think this agent is good. If anyone needs a reasonably good agent, drop me a note). Basically she took care of everything for us, and filled up all the required forms. We ended up paying around RM1,500 for the stamp and notary and insurance and agency fees, and also the embassy verification. Could we have done it ourselves? Probably, but it would have taken us some time to do it.

Once this was settled (you need to give copies of your maid’s old passport and permit, as well as your IC), we then head over to the embassy to sign off the contract and also at the same time work out the passport renewal. Once at the embassy, the agent was there and she sorted out everything for us, I just signed the contract (2 years) and then the passport was sorted out. The maid had to be there and we went for lunch and after that, the process was done. We just needed to collect it after a couple of weeks. There’s probably a whole bunch of articles on how this can be done manually without the agent to help, but since this is the lazy-man’s version, I would suggest to just use the agent to expedite the process.

Now you have the new passport, everything is settled, right?

No.

If you try to do what was in last year’s article, you will have a problem at the MyEG page (assuming you have sorted out all your Fomema stuff, which is the same as the previous article).

The MyEg site will state that there is invalid passport tied to your name. This means that if you renew the passport you need to make an extra trip to the immigration (in my case, Jalan Duta), and go to the second floor and state that you have a maid new passport, and they need to tie that passport to your name.

Honestly while this may look stupid, the whole process took around half hour only – the lady behind the counter was courteous and efficient, and the only problem was just the normal waiting period for your turn to be called up.

Once the passport is tied to your name, all you need to do then is to proceed with payment and once more head to the 21st floor of the IBM tower (it is named ‘CN’ for some reason on the lift button), and once on 21st floor, you just need to pass your maid’s passport and proof of payment. And bring your own IC.

Again, wait for another half hour or more and they will then lead you into another room where they pass you the maid’s permit card and also paste the new permit into the new passport. Bring along the old passport for verification.

Boom! Another year done. Contract renewal is every 2 years. Maid permit every year. Fomema, hopefully by next year, there is no longer a need.

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Renewing Maid Permit in Malaysia

Due to my limited activity in golf, I’ve decided to start writing about other stuff that I want to complain/bring attention to in this blog. Else, I will probably not be updating it for months.

OK – just to share my experience to renew my maid permit in Malaysia – in 2016. Strangely – it was quite a pleasant one, which is a first.

I think Malaysia has come a long way from the days of absolutely horrendous quality in government services. Those days, simply to renew your IC would be akin to you walking naked in the Sahara desert for 40 days and drinking your own piss. Everyone dreaded going to that place at the old State – where death awaited you in the form of government servants working with the KPI of serving a total of two citizens in a year. I remember one time, I was queuing up for the bloody IC thing for 3 hours from Lunch time. Finally, there were only about 3 people in front of me and I thought I would get through, when they announced they were going off for the day and to come back again tomorrow. W.T.F. Angry also cannot. Shout also cannot. So go back lor. And wake up tomorrow at 6 am and start sitting in front of the bloody office for them to open at 9 am.

We have come a long way since then. Nowadays I go to the Immigration Department in Sri Hartamas. The one opposite Publika. I renewed my IC the other day and really, it was FAST. I mean less than half hour my name was called, I did all the necessary photos etc and in 2 hours time, I can come back to pick up the new IC.

So how about renewing your maid work permit?

a) For maid less than 4 years, it’s mandatory for you to get a health check via Fomema. To be honest, even after that, it would be wise to just go for a yearly healthcheck. We had an incident where previously our friend’s maid had a tumour that was cancerous, which would have been caught if she had gone for regular checkups. Maids are humans too, and they deserve medical rights like everyone else, because they become almost part of the family.

b) So download the Fomema form. Link is as below http://www.fomema.com.my/images/Forms/Foreign_Worker_Medical_Examination_Registration_Form.pdf

c) Fill up the form. If you don’t know your worker’s code, the one starting with W, it’s ok, you don’t need to fill that up. For clinic name, you need to decide where you want to take your maid to.

d) List of clinic found at http://www.fomema.com.my/index.php/doctor-availability?view=doctoravailability

e) I would recommend if you can get a booking at clinic with Allocated X-Ray facility it would help. You can opt not to fill this up and only fill it up later, because you might not get a slot at the clinic you want. So get them to check first. I think those with X-Ray facility is devilish difficult to book. So just fill up what you can.

f) Pay around 200 bucks (for female maid. Never seen a male maid before). How to pay? I think cheque might work, but for the sake of ease, I just went and do an online payment via CIMBClicks. Under Billers -> Fomema Registration.

g) Once paid, get the receipt of payment, and print it out as well as your filled up form. You need to photocopy your maids passport first page as well as work permit page.

h) Now, you need to get your butt to Fomema with all the documents and maid actual passport. We thought everything was online, but no, we still needed to take a day off and go to the Fomema office at Menara Takaful. You can google map it. Parking is expensive there but easy to get. Fomema is on the first floor.

i) Once you are there, pick a number, wait, go to counter and show them all your stuff. You can pick your clinic then and there, show them you already paid and the process is less than half hour. They print out something to you and you just need to take that form to all the clinics you go to. I have no clue what is the value add of Fomema in this instance except that it may just be another scheme to add a middle agency to fleece off our money. I don’t know. Its not very painful though so what the heck.

j) So now you have the Fomema printout and in it you have worker’s code and the clinic you are supposed to go to. You can do it another day once you set a time with the clinic. For me, I went the next day with the actual maid (cannot photocopy maid, mah). I chose a clinic in TTDI called Mahanum and it was FAST. I think looking for parking took longer. Just show the paper, the doctor will see the maid, get all the sample urine etc or whatever and tell you to go to the X-ray. They will recommend one and the one they asked us to go was nearby.

k) There is an X-ray facility clinic Mediviron at TTDI itself, near the VADs building. It has is own parking for customer in front, so we just went there, did the X-Ray and that was it. No need to shuttle back and forth the other clinic. Overall, spent less than 1 hour to get everything done. Take leave for the morning is enough. Got time to play golf some more. And also no payment, just show the Fomema printout.

l) So now, just wait for the results – it should be out within 7 days. You can check online at http://www.fomema.com.my/index.php/online-results?view=onlineresult either the worker code or passport number. If you see “Suitable please proceed to immigration” you are almost there.

m) So here is the weird thing. It tells us to ‘proceed to immigration’ but immigration no longer handles this. They stopped processing maid renewal 2 years back. So if you are an idiot like me who believes everything this stupid Fomema says, you would take another morning off and go to your favourite Immigration centre (mine at Hartamas), park and go to the counter and ask: Where to renew maid work permit, ah?

n) And you will be told you have wasted your life there because now, everything needs to go through the richest middle agency of all time: My EG. Yes. The one that will make billions because everything is forced to go through them.

o) So technically Fomema = Stupid. Tell us wrong thing. They deserve their own bullet point for stupidity. Like it would kill them to just say: “Please contact MyEG now because we are living in the electronic era”

p) OK – now MyEG is like Fomema. Middle guys that sleeps with our government so everyone makes money together. No matter, what to do? You can opt to go to MyEG at Bandar Utama (KPMG building, first floor) and go through the maid renewal there or you can login their portal and do everything there.

q) Depending on whether you are comfortable to transact via their portal (It looks like it was designed by a bunch of Iguanas), you can opt to pay via Visa/Mastercard or via online banking. I selected online banking as I didn’t really trust their system (again – it looks hilariously horrible, which just shows all the billions have been pocketed to God knows where and they paid an online agency RM600 to build the website).  Again – what to do? Complain also useless.

r) So we put our entire personal information and financial information at risk by using their payment facility and pay RM631 for the renewal. That is a lot of money, but I suppose with so many middle men, everyone needs to be fed. The process charge is around 125RM. So if say, 200,000 maids present in Malaysia needs to be renewed, My Eg has made RM25,000,000 just like that. If you put in the other non-maid foreigners, My Eg will make A LOT OF MONEY. Now, why can’t they get a proper portal? Like, even after we pay, for me to go back and see the history of what I did on the portal is impossible. It’s like literally the most hogshit service website in the entire planet.

s) Now, once you have paid you will be given option to either deliver to your house or you can opt to collect onsite (at their HQ in Bandar Utama). I suggest you do the latter because you will not have a clue when these jokers will come to your house. If you need to have someone else be at home (like your angry mother in law), you need to write a proxy letter and make sure she is also holding the maid passport.

t) After 2 – 3 days, I suggest you call MyEg 03-7801 8888 to check if its ready. Good luck getting through. They are a bit like Telekom, Tenaga whereby their call centers are generally manned by simians. It took me around 40 minutes to get through, and you pray dear God don’t let my call drop. Once through you can give the passport number, they will tell its ready and you can come. I did note that if you call early morning around 9 – 9.30 am you can get through easier. Now, hilariously, while waiting on the call, they request you to email them at their support email address and they add: For faster response, please email us at blah blah. They actually said that. So I emailed them for fun. It’s going into 15 days now and the only thing I hear are crickets. Faster response my foot.

u) So finally – you go to KPMG building level 1. First, print out the payment receipts and the MyEg document after you made your payment. Of course, bring your maid original passport and your own IC. MyEg seems to be renovating their office because I was directed to some makeshift waiting area that smells suspiciously funny. Walk in and tell them you want to renew maid permit, you will be sent to a room, and asked for documents, your IC etc. Then you wait a bit and they will call you to another room where the nice gentleman will stick the new work permit on the passport and tell you to go on your merry way.

There. The full steps. Total money will be RM631 for MyEG + RM201 for Fomema medical. Total time taken – around 1 hour for the Fomema form, 1 hour for checkup and x-ray, and 1 hour for the actual getting permit pasted onsite.Online process includes Fomema forms and payment, MyEg forms and payments. I’m writing this down also in part because I am very forgetful and I have to go through this cursed process next year again.

To be honest I am pretty OK with the whole process, except that it cost quite a lot. Because I am flexible in my time as I run my own business (I say take leave doesn’t actually mean I take leave lah), it’s no issue for me, but I suppose it can be frustrating if you have to actually take leave and then find out you are being given the runaround like that Fomema telling us to go to immigration crap. However, I must say this really beats queuing up for the whole day and then being told I didn’t make the cut. Damn you, old IC department in State!