Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Discussion about jobs in Asia inc. Middle East

Moderator: Joe

Murphy
Rising Star
Posts: 79
Joined: 18 Mar 2014, 01:23
Status: Other

Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Murphy »

Anyone who has lived and worked in Beijing for more than five years will know a good looking Russian guy famous for running a bunch of sophisticated scams online with call centers located at Dongzhimen, Galaxy Soho (closed by the cops in 2015) and Zhongguancun. Here is a list of his last scams:

Olympic Escort Service (provided "entertainment" to tourists during the 2008 Beijing Olympics)
Getin2China (sold fake visas for years before the PSB shut him down)
China Job Express (Sold fake university degrees for $1,000 to China job applicants)
Gi2c (Sold China internships for $3999 that people could get for free)
Wiseway Gobal (Charged sudent's $20,000 to fillout their university enrollment applications)

Well now that all of the old scams were exposed he started a new one where his web site says all the right things but when you are the phone with him or his sales reps, they actually tell you to lie on your visa application (a felony crime) in order to get an F, or M visa. In reality you must have a Z or work visa to work legally in China!

I never even applied with these people and they called me a few days ago offering me a $30,000 job to train TEFL teachers in Beijing. They claimed to have my resume but would not tell me how they got. I went along for the ride (not knowing yet that this was another Yuri company). The following day I had a Skype interview with a guy named "John Maxwell" who claimed to be the "HR Director" of a Chinese company that he said so quickly I could not recall it now. The interview seemed legit but when he asked me if I had any questions, I asked "What is the address of your company in Beijing and your web site address." He evaded my question completely claiming he had another interview to do and hung up on me after simply saying "we'll be in touch soon".

This morning "Mary" called me to say they needed scans of my passport. I said that would not be a problem but I would need the name and address for the company where "John Maxwell" worked. She claimed she was not able to provide that information because it "violated their privacy policy". The sweet girl then said she needed scans of my passport so she could process my application. I asked Mary for her full name because at first I was going to send her my passport scan by SF courier and they require complete names. But instead of giving me her legal name she said "Just write Mary Consultant". But when I pushed her for her last name she said "I am the only Mary here so you can write any last name you want"!

So then I asked her who owned her company Laowai Career Center and what was the street location address so I could just bring my passport over for her to scan it. She put me on hold and never came back to the phone! I waited 7 minutes and then called back to her but she did not answer. I tried three more times and then discovered she had blocked my phone number.

So this made me really curious and of course suspicious. So I started googling online and found this about 15 minutes ago. https://www.scam.com/showthread.php?704 ... ost1944379. And now you all know why I am posting this warning. I have to leave for work now so spread the word guys. These people are bad news IMO.
Saturn
Rising Star
Posts: 57
Joined: 19 Jan 2015, 01:45
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Saturn »

This outfit was thoroughly exposed at the student room forum in the UK for years, but the owner just keeps changing the company name from what I see. https://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showth ... ?t=4562858. Just google Gi2c China internship Scams and you will see the past history of this group, but by changing their name they come off as a fresn new company with a clean reputation. It is all smoke and mirrors on the internet.
Grizzly
Rising Star
Posts: 48
Joined: 29 Nov 2015, 03:12
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Grizzly »

OP is right, There is a long history behind this Russian sly guy and the carnage of victims is pretty big. How did they fool so many people? http://www.realscam.com/f8/warning-gi2c ... icey-3928/

I think one of the reasons he survived so long is that he keeps "partnering" with other businesses who have good reputations in China and uses their good name to catch a free ride in the credibility department.
Skyler
Rising Star
Posts: 32
Joined: 05 Mar 2017, 00:39
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Skyler »

Just a note that they also operate with three other alias names including WiseWay Global Education, Getin2China, and Gi2C and the owner has been doing this sort of fraud for almost 10 years from all the above links I just read and this one here http://www.opnlttr.com/letter/laowai-ca ... l-teachers
Norman
Rising Star
Posts: 47
Joined: 20 Jan 2015, 23:44
Status: Teacher Trainer

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Norman »

I just found this at Reddit. I think this is almost as bad as the old China ESL fraud;

"I got totally screwed by this gang as I explained at the r/chinascamcentral sub...

I am naive - not dumb. I thought it was safe to trust other foreigners already working in China. I did not know they were paid to lie for this company.

What really hurts is that I quit a $40,000 job to do this because I was offered a job to earn "20,000 a month" teaching quality control standards to Chinese workers. Here is what happened and why I fell for it (you would too).

The company (Laowai Career Center) looks great on the internet but the fancy website is a well-disguised fraud with fake self-written reviews and testimonials they pay tourists and local expat students $500 to make for them. I met one of those expat students who suggested I could make $500 in less than an hour, not knowing I was there to demand a refund.

Laowai Career Center copies and pastes dozens of real ads from other legitimate HR websites and then inserts its own logo. Then they mix in a bunch of fantastic jobs that they make up - like "Earn 20,000 a month in China with a famous Fortune 500 Company working 30 hours per week - furnished apartment included - all travel expenses paid". They use these fake ads to get lots of people to send in their resumes by the hundreds. Those resumes are now sales leads and the job applicants are called and told they are on the "short list". The job I applied for was posted for a month even after they said I was hired, but they deleted it 3 days after I got to China.

A fake interview is then done by Skype where I was told I had the perfect personality and language skills for the job and they even told me they would teach me how to speak Chinese and would earn an extra 5,000 per month once I completed the language training! They told me the man who called me "Todd Walker" was the deputy HR director for HP in China (Hewlett Packard). I now know that no such person works at HP.

I was offered the job and asked to pay a processing and application fee ($299) which they said would be reimbursed on my first pay check. They sent me an original contract which I had to sign and send back to their BEIJING office located on Zhongguancun Street - yet they tell everyone their office is in Hangzhou! They also tell everyone they have been doing business for "almost 10 years" but their website registration proves they are lying (2014 registration).

So I quit my $40,000 job as a KFC manager and fly to Beijing. I was told I would get a free apartment so I made no arrangement nor had extra money for a hotel. There was no free apartment because they gave me some "bad news" that because of "political tensions over the South China Sea" HP decided not to hire any more foreigners for at least a year! But they then try to ease the pain by getting me to teach Engish to 6-8-year-old kids in some chain school for a ridiculous salary equal to $1,200 per month!

I demanded to meet the owner of the company but the reception girl said the employees were "forbidden" from giving that name. I then found it on the internet - and it is not a Chinese person, but a Russian guy linked to five other China scams all over the internet.

This morning my sister sent me these two links which I never saw because I was too busy reading all the links to the fake testimonials sent to me by the Laowai Career Center rep Linda (a Chinese girl who would not tell me her full Chinese name). http://opnlttr.com/letter/laowai-career ... l-teachers and also this one here which shows the previous scams of the Russian owner http://eslwatch.info/en/eslwatch-forum/ ... -scam.html

When I finally tracked down the office which has a sign in front that says "Gi2c China Internships" I met two girls who went there to pick up fake diplomas they said they were told they needed to work in China and they paid $1,500 each for them. Apparently, this company also sell fakes documents. I told the police everything and they said they will investigate. I am not holding my breath.

Here is the really devious part... They told me to lie on my visa application to say I was coming over to China to do "research on Chinese culture". They could not give me a Z visa but gave me an M visa instead which is only good for 90 days. So when I went to demand a refund, I threatened to call the cops and they said "go ahead - you are in China illegally without a Z visa and you will be arrested - not us!". I consulted a lawyer at the embassy and she said they were right. They set up this brilliant scam perfectly to trap people. And because they are in China, no foreign government can prosecute them. When I told everything to the Chinese police, they were more amused than anything and I heard one say "Too many dumb foreigners come to China". When I asked him to explain he just shook his head, laughed, and said at least 20 people a week tell them much the same story, but no victim is willing to stay in China the three months it would take to make a claim in the Chinese courts and hire a bilingual Chinese lawyer for $5,000. Shit, it would cost me another $5,000 just to stay in Beijing for those three months. Like I said, these scammers got all of their bases covered."

And, methinks I am not the only one! https://www.reddit.com/r/Scams/comments ... h=732fc7f5
Skyler
Rising Star
Posts: 32
Joined: 05 Mar 2017, 00:39
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Skyler »

They are also using this clever We Chat (wei xin) app to pull in a huge net of their next victims. They almost got me because i had two calls with them before I realized it was the same Laowai Group posted in this thread. Actually my Chinese GF caught on before i did. This is super devious and I'' bet they snare 100 people a day with this so watch out; https://www.scam.com/entry.php?6474-Bew ... recruiters
Andrewhe
Member
Posts: 6
Joined: 05 May 2017, 05:45
Status: School Admin

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Andrewhe »

Has anyone called the police?
bdcw86
Member
Posts: 1
Joined: 03 Jun 2017, 17:11
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by bdcw86 »

Hi I have sent a Resume with a pic. to this Laowai website. I realised before I added anymore details, but my address etc is on my resume anything I can do or is it just a case of more be careful in future?

I will say beware because they are advertising now on broad jobsites like indeed jobs and Monster.
Murphy
Rising Star
Posts: 79
Joined: 18 Mar 2014, 01:23
Status: Other

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Murphy »

bdcw86 wrote:Hi I have sent a Resume with a pic. to this Laowai website. I realised before I added anymore details, but my address etc is on my resume anything I can do or is it just a case of more be careful in future?

I will say beware because they are advertising now on broad jobsites like indeed jobs and Monster.
Not much you can do now. You gave them everything they need to sell your info to an identity thief. Luckily you will not be held legally responsible for any resulting fraud, but you may end up spending a few thousand dollars on a lawyer if the cops show up at your door in 3-9 months. They usually wait a few months to use your information so you will not connect the dots. Good luck and keep your fingers crossed.
Grizzly
Rising Star
Posts: 48
Joined: 29 Nov 2015, 03:12
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Grizzly »

COMPREHENSIVE UPDATE ON THIS LAOWAI CAREER CENTER SCAM USING 4 ALAIS COMPANIES...

https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentr ... s/dkvm39s/

The guy who did the report at the above link must have done hours of research. Great stuff. I hope you read it in time!
KrisTiNa
Member
Posts: 1
Joined: 11 Aug 2017, 13:17
Status: Trainee Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by KrisTiNa »

Murphy wrote:Anyone who has lived and worked in Beijing for more than five years will know a good looking Russian guy famous for running a bunch of sophisticated scams online with call centers located at Dongzhimen, Galaxy Soho (closed by the cops in 2015) and Zhongguancun. Here is a list of his last scams:

Olympic Escort Service (provided "entertainment" to tourists during the 2008 Beijing Olympics)
Getin2China (sold fake visas for years before the PSB shut him down)
China Job Express (Sold fake university degrees for $1,000 to China job applicants)
Gi2c (Sold China internships for $3999 that people could get for free)
Wiseway Gobal (Charged sudent's $20,000 to fillout their university enrollment applications)

Well now that all of the old scams were exposed he started a new one where his web site says all the right things but when you are the phone with him or his sales reps, they actually tell you to lie on your visa application (a felony crime) in order to get an F, or M visa. In reality you must have a Z or work visa to work legally in China!

I never even applied with these people and they called me a few days ago offering me a $30,000 job to train TEFL teachers in Beijing. They claimed to have my resume but would not tell me how they got. I went along for the ride (not knowing yet that this was another Yuri company). The following day I had a Skype interview with a guy named "John Maxwell" who claimed to be the "HR Director" of a Chinese company that he said so quickly I could not recall it now. The interview seemed legit but when he asked me if I had any questions, I asked "What is the address of your company in Beijing and your web site address." He evaded my question completely claiming he had another interview to do and hung up on me after simply saying "we'll be in touch soon".

This morning "Mary" called me to say they needed scans of my passport. I said that would not be a problem but I would need the name and address for the company where "John Maxwell" worked. She claimed she was not able to provide that information because it "violated their privacy policy". The sweet girl then said she needed scans of my passport so she could process my application. I asked Mary for her full name because at first I was going to send her my passport scan by SF courier and they require complete names. But instead of giving me her legal name she said "Just write Mary Consultant". But when I pushed her for her last name she said "I am the only Mary here so you can write any last name you want"!

So then I asked her who owned her company Laowai Career Center and what was the street location address so I could just bring my passport over for her to scan it. She put me on hold and never came back to the phone! I waited 7 minutes and then called back to her but she did not answer. I tried three more times and then discovered she had blocked my phone number.

So this made me really curious and of course suspicious. So I started googling online and found this about 15 minutes ago. https://www.scam.com/showthread.php?704 ... ost1944379. And now you all know why I am posting this warning. I have to leave for work now so spread the word guys. These people are bad news IMO.
I was looking where to leave my story and found this topic. It seems like I was talking to the same "Mary", I swear she had some weird slavic accent. I was offered the same position to train TEFL teachers, however I found strange her way to express herself, I lived in Canada so I got used to different accents but it was obvious she wasn´t able to speak well like a person who has poor knowledge of language. I was lucky to talk to her before the job interview. I realised something was wrong and started to talk fast. Of course, she was lost and pretended like the connection was bad (suddenly). I asked her where did she come from. She said from Poland. But the funniest thing is that I speak polish just a little bit. I asked her to say something in polish, she hung up the phone and never answered again.

I was also thinking to go teaching in Beijing and looking for job in there (not anymore). By the way, I applied for this scam offer in here https://uk.jooble.org/. I don´t think it´s their fault as I checked the web and the same offer was on Indeed, Monster and Jobrapido. But, please, be attentive to details, always try to talk over the phone and ask as many questions as you can!
Saturn
Rising Star
Posts: 57
Joined: 19 Jan 2015, 01:45
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Saturn »

Thank you Kristina. They have two different Mary's working there and one is from China (speaks fluent English) and the other is from the Ukraine - the one you probably talked with. Btw... they were just caught praising themselves as different users on Reddit. Check out http://reddit.com/r/teflscams.
Grizzly
Rising Star
Posts: 48
Joined: 29 Nov 2015, 03:12
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Grizzly »

The people who run this scam are deliberately trying to fool people with different company names. They run hundreds of ads that pop up on google every time someone searched "work in China" Read the comments of user Leslie here http://www.scam-detector.com/employment ... k-in-china and then when you read these two links you will see that they have AT LEAST 4 different alias companies and maybe even more that we don't know of yet! http://opnlttr.com/letter/most-redittor ... r-disagree

At least in my mind, if you are legitimate and selling a product and service you do not need to change your company name and office location every two years like these people are doing.
Skyler
Rising Star
Posts: 32
Joined: 05 Mar 2017, 00:39
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Skyler »

Scam Update: According to Reddit, they just created some more alias names! https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentr ... r_wiseway/
Volunteer
Rising Star
Posts: 48
Joined: 13 Mar 2014, 07:12
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Volunteer »

Wow this Laowai Career Center scam has legs! They are still running ads all over the internet and spending a fortune with Google AdWords. I think Google needs to know they are being used to promote a scam. On second thought, I wounder if they even care? From what I see here at scam.com they now are using 7 different alias names! https://www.scam.com/showthread.php?704 ... -BLACKLIST

More details about how they set their victims up is at http://reddit.com/r/chinascamcentral on page 2.
User avatar
Atlas
Rising Star
Posts: 96
Joined: 15 Nov 2020, 11:31
Status: Other

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Atlas »

NOVEMBER 25, 2020... It seems this scam is still claiming even more victims in 2020, and judging by this summary report here and all the links they have the Chinese police in their pocket. Therefore we only have each other to warn all of our colleagues. https://docdroid.net/cXYfTCq/laowaicareerscam-pdf

Please tell every college grad you know to avoid these shysters which use many names and fake testimonials to convince people they are legitimate. Because the owner is a rich Russian guy who never rips off Chinese, only foreigners, the local police in China do not care about what he does so long as he pays them cash every month, just like some of the witnesses say. So how to stop this massive fraud?
Look Before You Leap at https://reddit.com/r/teflscams
User avatar
Vagabond
Top Contributor
Posts: 124
Joined: 06 Nov 2020, 20:22
Status: Teacher Trainer

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Vagabond »

Image

Today in 2021 I notice that this Russian is advertising under numerous fake names like China HR and Asian Express and Expat Job Center, but I cannot find any registered companies in Asia by these names and China Scam Patrol told me that they moved their offices again but there are removal "Magnetic Signs" on their new office door that change from time to time. These here are all the names there were working under in 2019 https://realscam.com/search.php?searchid=1476987

My question is... Does anyone have their newest alias names?
Before taking any teaching job in China make a quick visit over to https://reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentral and https://reddit.com/r/TEFLreviews so your dream job does not become a nightmare.
User avatar
John V55
Top Contributor
Posts: 467
Joined: 02 Apr 2015, 01:34
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by John V55 »

Well Murphy, that’s a post in distant memory, but I’ve never heard of all these people and scams. Probably because I never got involved with the lower end of TEFL. I suspect Mary will now be ‘Mavis’ and the Laowai Career Centre will be renamed ‘Upfront Suckers.’

What you’d have to ask yourself is this. Given the amount of scams in the private sector, if ‘Mary’ had given you a fictitious name of the owner and made up one for herself, would you still have believed that someone you’ve never met would suddenly contact you and offer ¥30K pm? At this low level of TEFL, it’s why there are so many scams.

In replying to this post please include spammy links from reddit, opnlttr and ruqqus, or their affiliates. Thank you. :)
User avatar
Cricket
Top Contributor
Posts: 106
Joined: 13 Nov 2020, 16:53
Status: Teacher Trainer

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Cricket »

Vagabond wrote: 19 Feb 2021, 18:38
My question is... Does anyone have their newest alias names?
I think this is going to be a closely guarded secret my friend. Gerry at China Scam Watch thinks he is ghosting now with disposable shell companies, not giving away his location and maybe even doing placements in many countries and not just China any longer. I will keep my ears and eyes open and let you know if I hear anything. Sooner or later he'll pop up like a whack-a-mole.
Before sending off your resume or passport scan, be sure to check https://reddit.com/r/teflscams and to vaccinate yourself against foreign teacher job scams.
User avatar
Tiger
Rising Star
Posts: 58
Joined: 09 Mar 2021, 07:38
Status: Teacher

Re: Fraud Warning: Laowai Career Center China Job Scam

Unread post by Tiger »

I have to admit that these Laowai Career people put out a snazzy website and a really professional-looking glossy brochure. They really had me on the hook until I found this link here at Tefl.net and then started digging on line. Then I found this amazing link and I cannot believe the Russian owner of this company is not serving 10 years in prison! https://www.reddit.com/r/TEFLScams/comm ... g_various/

I thank God I found this original link on TEFL.net or I would now be screwed out of $3,999! Thank you OP, I owe you a Beijing Duck dinner! Send me a PM Mr. Murphy.
I suggest every TEFL teacher take a visit to https://reddit.com/r/TEFLscams BEFORE they send off their resumes.
Post Reply