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| What you don't know CAN hurt you! |
There
are over 50 ESL and TEFL Forums and Message Boards on-line and 39 of them have
been identified as commercial front operations to collect contact information
of foreign teachers looking to work abroad.
Those that operate the forums care little about the welfare of the
teachers but care a lot about what they can sell to them. The products and services they peddle behind
their “We want to help you” facade include TEFL courses, visa services, job
placements, travel packages, housing accommodations, books, tapes, and even Christianity! The fact is not one of these forums are
honest enough to just say “Hey guys we sell ______________ if you need
it!”
But
one such forum has recently decided to start hiding, deleting, and censoring
anyone who posts truthful and factual information about the dangers and actual
earning potentials of the hottest teaching market today – China. We are talking about OnlineTEFL.com which
recently deleted eleven articles that directly warned teachers about…
China’s Toxic Air Pollution In Winter Months
China's Hidden Hepatitis Epidemic (At least 12% of population is infected) http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5835 and http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article and http://www.echinacities.com/news/Yoshinoya-Caught-Re-Using-Rice-Not-Disinfecting-Dinnerware and http://www.ivillage.com/hepatitis-hidden-hazard/4-a-510488
The New Strain of Bird Flu Embassy Communication To U.S. Citizens
The Story of An Australian teacher arrested in China for defending his home from intruders http://www.echinacities.com/news/Australian-Foreigner-Locked-Up-For-a-Year- After-Fending-Off-Intruders?
Where to Find Blacklists and Whitelists of China School and Agents and Get Free Copies of China's Labor Laws In English CFTU Free Info For Expat Teachers
China’s Toxic Air Pollution In Winter Months
http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2013/02/06/where-there-smoke and http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-30/beijing-air-akin-to-living-in-smoking-lounge-chart-of-the-day.html
China's Hidden Hepatitis Epidemic (At least 12% of population is infected) http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=5835 and http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article and http://www.echinacities.com/news/Yoshinoya-Caught-Re-Using-Rice-Not-Disinfecting-Dinnerware and http://www.ivillage.com/hepatitis-hidden-hazard/4-a-510488
The New Strain of Bird Flu Embassy Communication To U.S. Citizens
The Story of An Australian teacher arrested in China for defending his home from intruders http://www.echinacities.com/news/Australian-Foreigner-Locked-Up-For-a-Year- After-Fending-Off-Intruders?
http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2013/01/23/beijing-tap-water-safe-or-not
and http://www.zimbio.com/Beijing+China/articles/T67E04Nj-qQ/China+Tap+Water+Anything+but+safe
and http://answers.echinacities.com/question/beijing-tap-water-it-really-bad?type=alatest
How To Protect Yourself Against Abuse From Predatory Employment Recruiters How To Get Full Disclosure From A Chinese Job Recruiter and 10 Reasons Why You Need To Avoid Agents In China
The
China ESL & Rebecca Tang Agent Scam In Beijing http://www.thebeijinger.com/forum/2013/01/31/beware-chinaesl-scam-alert-rebecca-tang-will-rip-you?page=2 and http://eslwatch.info/china-2/bad-recruiters-review-in-china/7150-webb-international
and http://www.thebeijinger.com/node/1592803
and http://www.zimbio.com/Beijing+China/articles/T67E04Nj-qQ/China+Tap+Water+Anything+but+safe
and http://answers.echinacities.com/question/beijing-tap-water-it-really-bad?type=alatest
How To Protect Yourself Against Abuse From Predatory Employment Recruiters How To Get Full Disclosure From A Chinese Job Recruiter and 10 Reasons Why You Need To Avoid Agents In China
The many scams used by
agents and schools targeting teachers - like identity theft
http://open.salon.com/blog/china_business_central/2013/03/13/phony_china_recruiters_now_target_5000_expats_monthly_1
and http://www.zimbio.com/Beijing+China/articles/RfZYIh2CBIu/Recruiters+Conspire+Chinese+School+Principals and http://www.cityweekend.com.cn/beijing/articles/blogs-beijing/expat-life/scam-alert-foreign-teacher-fraud/
The Truth About Wages and
Salaries of Foreign Teachers In China http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5688
and http://open.salon.com/blog/china_business_central/2012/12/16/china_scam_recruiters_lure_foreign_teachers_with_hype_lies
and Average
Wages & Salaries Of Teachers In China
Where to Find Blacklists and Whitelists of China School and Agents and Get Free Copies of China's Labor Laws In English CFTU Free Info For Expat Teachers
· The massive visa frauds teachers are tricked
into and thus risk deportation http://chinascampatrol.wordpress.com/2013/02/17/china-visa-fraud-alert-issued-by-china-foreign-teachers-union-shady-recruiters-scam-agents-hard-at-work/
All
of the above stories were well documented with many links including those
listed above. Nobody contested or even
challenged the validity of the information posted. The truth was ugly and made selling China to
teachers ugly – so it was just deleted.
The CFTU protested and was ignored, and the posters who put up the
original articles were banned without any explanation. Here is just one of the many links that
disappeared one fine day: http://www.onlinetefl.com/tefl-chalkboard/observant/posts/12089-15-tips-for-foreign-teachers-bound-for-china-about-jobs-contracts-risks-pay-amp-fun
which was posted by user “Observant” a 7 year ESL veteran Teacher in Asia.
Long
story short, they only want people (aka sales prospects) to hear that China is a safe and great place
for teachers to work, when in fact 79% of expat foreign teachers working in
China said they would never do it again now that they have worked in China for
at least a year (excerpt from 2012 CFTU annual report). Simply put, health and fraud alerts are bad
for business – their business. They
further try to convince teachers abroad that if they want to work in China,
they simply MUST have a TEFL certificate (preferably theirs) when in fact, that
is just a blatant lie. Less than 10% of
expat foreign teachers working in China today have a TEFL certificate and it is
NOT required and seldom even asked for.
Again, the truth is just not convenient for sales.
Here’s
the kicker... their website offers “paid internships” in China when in fact these
are really salaried positions available which they decide to call an “internship”
so they can pocket 50% of the total wage
as a commission. Quite clever indeed.
But
having to resort censorship and deletions on their own forums when someone posts a simple fact like “Foreign
teachers are the lowest paid foreigners in China and if you have a student loan
to repay, you can earn three times more money in Japan or Korea with far less
scams to worry about.” Instead of doing
the honorable thing and posting a rebuttal, they simply delete the entire
post! Keep in mind this OnlineTEFL.com
is not from North Korea nor China but rather from the U.K.!
Those
who want copies of the articles that were censored can send us an email at
ChinaFraudPatrol[at]Gmail.com since we saved copies of them from cache before
they were zapped. OnlineTEFL.com should
be ashamed of their Nazi tactics as they are deliberately hiding real dangers
from their own clients and others future victims.
One last thing... Please beware of "TEFL REVIEW" web sites since online.tefl.com owns three such sites of their own and when you see them you will realize right away they are shill sites that blow their own horns and make every competitor look like amateurs or shysters.
One last thing... Please beware of "TEFL REVIEW" web sites since online.tefl.com owns three such sites of their own and when you see them you will realize right away they are shill sites that blow their own horns and make every competitor look like amateurs or shysters.
After reading this blog I will boycott anything and everything that OnlineTEFL.com sells. How dare they decide what I should and should not know about China! Anyone who is thinking of working in China should be told everything - the good, the bad, and the ugly. Thanks for exposing these creeps.
ReplyDeleteAmazing what a little blog can do! After I read the OP three days ago I visited the OnlineTEFL.com site and could not find the links that were deleted as claimed by the OP. But today, I visited the site and I see that the links were restored! I wonder if they also unbanned the writers of those posts as well?
ReplyDeleteAt least someone at onlinetefl.com still has some integrity. Perhaps only one unethical website administrator should be blamed instead of the whole company.
Well now... I think where there is smoke you will probably find fire and I goud it at Dave's place (see below which I cut and paste here to share)
ReplyDeleteI just want to make sure teachers - both current and prospective know the truth about TEFL Certificates in China (and most everywhere else too!). Contrary to their slick and sly sales pitch, YOU DO NOT NEED A TEFL CERTIFICATE TO TEACH IN CHINA! There are over 19,000 schools operating in China and almost 15,000 employ one or more foreign teachers. Less than a dozen of them (mostly private international schools in Beijing & Shanghai) actually even ask about TEFL training. TEFL Certificates are NOT mandatory. Anyone who has ever taught in China knows this. But maybe if they told the truth they would sell less TEFL Training courses eh? See this link:
http://internationalteflreviews.wordpress.com/2013/04/24/beware-onlinetefl-com-is-a-sophisticated-scam-in-progress-targeting-work-abroad-teachers/
Further, even if China did require a TEFL certificate (playing devil's advocate here) the onlinetefl.com certificate would be as useful and valuable as toilet paper since it is not internationally accepted nor recognized - even in China! So unless you have money to burn, don't waste it on a company that relies on lies, a flashy web site, and self-created "review" sites to peddle a piece of paper and a "course" that relies on automated software that you use online. The below excerpt is from a 2010 article found at the below link that talks about TEFL training "accreditation". Anyone lured by the lies of onlinetefl.com, should read the entire article...
6. Accreditation
It is difficult for anyone to understand the confusion that is TEFL accreditation, especially when the main guarantees of quality of the Cambridge CELTA and Trinity CertTESOL are their own names. This means that it is very difficult to be able to work out which other courses are of a similar standard. It is, however, possible to spot the dodgy courses by what they say about accreditation. Some courses don’t mention it at all, which is never a good sign. Others claim to be accredited by organisations that do not ever accredit TEFL courses, e.g. IATEFL and TESOL. In fact, any mention of organisations like these is just smoke and mirrors to convince you of quality which doesn’t exist. Other tricks include claiming to be accredited by an organisation that doesn’t list that school on its website, setting up their own accreditation organisation that only or mainly accredits themselves (look for how many schools the accreditation organisation website lists), using organisations that will say that they accredit anyone for a fee (look for lots of unconnected qualifications or qualifications like online degrees on the accrediting organisation’s website), and even listing accreditation organisations that don’t seem to exist at all! Any links to online universities or those apparently based in obscure island nations should also of course be avoided.
http://edition.tefl.net/articles/training-articles/avoid-tefl-course/
I am going to guess that onlinetefl.com is not the only scam using this "Mandatory" bullshit to sell their online course, but it is the only one that I spent time with on the phone. Yesterday, I got an email from one of their former employees "suggesting" that I do my own "investigation on line" and I did. What makes these people most hideous is that their telemarketers are targeting unemployed people who are desperate for work with even more horseshit - "If you can speak English you can teach English". Anyway just wanted to clear the air as these clever cons wasted about 4 hours of my time on the phone.
These assholes are also scamming people under the name of i-to-i as well. I suppose that now that they have been outed, they will start using a new identity soon. People should avoid on-line training completely - just to be safe.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great scam they have going here. I visited their web site and I must say, I would not have suspected anything foul. I can understand why they deleted all those negative articles and links. I guess more than governments censor!
ReplyDeleteBe sure you know about their internship scams as well. These are very diversified fraudsters with a woman name Helen Hargreaves running the show in London.
ReplyDeleteUPDATE: These folks have apparently hired a hacker to remove all the negative posts about them on line. Three months ago there were 53 links to complaints and now we can only find a dozen. It appears that these are very bold, devious, and resourceful con artists.
ReplyDeleteChina is notorious for thieves! Every job I had offered were from someone on your list. Ivy Wan, especially selling Shanghai University jobs with high pay. I emailed her back after reading your post, and mentioned that "Black List" is next to her role as a recruiter. Have not heard back from her. My advice to anyone seeking work in China. Check out the schools first, they should be aware of their new openings.
ReplyDelete