SAIC helps make China foreign TEFL & ESL teachers scam - proof!

[Grizzly]

This is amazing. The Chinese government finally did something to protect expats from being swindled in China! This is taken from the October issue of the China Scam Patrol newsletter. I called to the U.S. embassy this afternoon and the girl who processed my call (Tracy) said this is absolutely true...

"Although most expat teachers are not aware of the SAIC, it is a free and easy way to protect yourself against China black school employers and unlicensed job agents and recruiters. Here are the facts that you can verify with SAFEA (Foreign Experts Bureau) or your own embassy...

The SAIC is an agency of the Chinese central government: "State Administration of Industry & Commerce". Their web site is located at SAIC.gov.cn. Their mandate is to make sure that every legitimate business operating "for profit" obtains a business license from them in order to be held accountable for any complaints, wrongful deaths, frauds, and law suits. At present there are over 30 million business licenses issued to companies, learning centers, and all educational facilities like New Oriental, English First, Wall Street English, etc. Public Schools & Universities operated by the Chinese government do not need an SAIC license. International schools however absolutely must have one. To see what these licenses look like, go here: http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.co ... reign.html

Now then, the vast majority of China job agents operate as "black agents" without registering with SAIC for two reasons; 1) To avoid identifying themselves with their legal Chinese name, and 2) To avoid paying taxes. If they do comply with the law and get an SAIC license the public and anyone from any country can go on line and find out the following information:

a) When the company started do business

b) Who the legal owner(s) of the company are and where they reside

c) Where the company office is physically located

d) What business they are authorized to conduct

e) How many employees the company has

f) When the license expires

So when expats from a foreign country are applying for a job, they really only need to ask the employer or the agent (whoever they are dealing with) to provide a color scan of their SAIC license. If they refuse to do so, it means they are not licensed and the Chinglish name they give you (like Ben Chen for example) is totally fabricated and untraceable, and they could very well be fronting for an identity thief. These are people to avoid and definitely do not furnish them a scan of your passport or personal information. If you do not take these precautions, this is what could easily happen to you since 20% of all China job ads are blind ads posted by identity thieves http://ChinaScamWatch.wordpress.com

Now the SAIC web site is in Chinese however, so if you do not have a Chinese friend to translate the verification search for you, then visit the site using the Chrome browser which has a built in translator. If this is two much work for you, then you can resort to plan B here: http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?6448 ... g-Warnings

[Saturn]

This is very useful information. I actually gave it a try today. Thank you Grizzly. Another good site is http://ChinaScamWatch.org