Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Discussion about jobs and employment conditions

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Murphy
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Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by Murphy »

Finding a SAFE and LEGITIMATE teaching job abroad has become a whole lot easier thanks to a TEFL teacher who put this upat reddit... http://reddit.com/r/tefl_esl_scams. If you have had a bad experience that the rest of us need to be warned about, that is the place to do it.
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John V55
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by John V55 »

Don’t forget, you heard it on Reddit first! :)
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John V55
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by John V55 »

I hope the moderator(s) nip all this in the bud before it becomes a distraction of ‘how I got scammed’ and a directory of scam recruiters and failed employment attempts. :roll:
Murphy
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by Murphy »

Why John? Don't you think as TEFL teachers we have an ethical obligation to warn one another? If I got ripped off by ABC visa agent or XYZ school in China, would you not be grateful if I advised you of the details before YOU made the same mistake. Take a look here for example http://Reddit.com/r/chinascamcentral, or here https://www.scam.com/showthread.php?704 ... -BLACKLIST and ask yourself: "How many less victims are there today because of these websiites?
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John V55
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by John V55 »

Because it turns into pages of griping about mistakes the applicant made. Look at your own thread on http://www.tefl.net/forums/viewtopic.ph ... 435#p18435. They got deported because they broke the law, not because of scams or mistakes.

You know Murphy, at the end of the day we sign the contracts, no one forces us to and if we get scammed it’s no one else’s fault, but often because we were lured into it either by greed, or outlandish promises that should be obvious. It’s why many sites need to contain warnings not to send cash, or personal documents. Without them, even more scams would occur.
It’s not something that is a secret and has just been discovered. No one is saying there aren’t any scams going on, we all know that, but if we fall for them, isn’t it mostly our own fault? They wouldn’t exist if people knew what to look for. It’s not necessarily a question then of unscrupulous recruiters, but being able to spot the scams and not being drawn into them. I’m biting my lip not to direct you to an article I specifically wrote for the unwary, but we’re not allowed to post our own website links, yet the phrase, ‘TEFL Job Seeking’ is a clue.

I don’t believe I have an ethical responsibility to anyone and if someone intentionally breaks the law, or is gullible enough to fall for these scams, I look on it as more a valuable and personal future lesson learned. You’ll never stop recruiters trying to make money from people with a bog standard degree who think they’re worth 50k¥ a month, or believe they have the skills to become an international director. You can’t stop this by posting scam recruiter links because when they start to get blacklisted, these recruiters simply change their name, get a new throwaway email address and start all over again.

I’m personally going through c**p at the moment, it happens to us all, not because of something I did, but something I didn’t do. I took my eye off the ball, got complacent and am now suffering financially for it. That’s my fault, I left the door for an accounts department to take advantage of my salary and obviously, they did. Lesson learned and it will never happen again. :(

Initial do’s and don’ts off the top of my head.

Do stick to the big names with a reputation to uphold.
Do insist on email addresses of current employees and contact them.
Do Google the recruiter and check for blacklisting.
Don’t apply to ads that state they have vacancies everywhere. They haven’t, they’re trying to sell you on.
Don’t apply to recruiters who offer salaries beyond the norm.
Don’t reply to recruiters if Yahoo has already put their email in your spam folder.
Norman
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by Norman »

Its a lot easier just to ask 7 questions IMO... http://www.opnlttr.com/letter/china-esl ... am-artists
CanadaAlex
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Re: Great News For Every TEFL & ESL Teacher...

Unread post by CanadaAlex »

We must all look out for each other. Expose all fraudulent sources so that we could put a stop to this and prevent any other applicants and job seekers from going through disaster.
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