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Yes, they’re scams, many originating from Nigeria, but I suppose others have also got hold of the idea. They all offer very lucrative contracts to go and teach English in the UK, which together with the inflated salary is the dead giveaway. A bit like exporting sand to Saudi Arabia. For a while they replaced the, ‘I’ve got $12 m I want to share with you’, but seem to be coming back into fashion. In a country of free compulsory education, no one is going to pay you an inflated salary for tutoring.

For those that do get sucked into this obvious scam, the request for money, for one reason or another, will eventually surface.

Could ask the barrister when he was called to the bar, which inns of court he attended and then check it here - http://www.legalhub.co.uk
As expected - no Duke Cole.

Jin Chen Tao family and Mr. Crammer Cohn Esq. are two people trying to scam people luring them in with attractive salaries.

They contacted me through TEFL.net (after I posted my resume). Here are their emails:
jinchentaofamily@gmail.com
crammer.cohenesq@yahoo.com

--

Email received from job seeker

I couldn’t read the above emails as I don’t have MS outlook. The names alone threw up a big ‘No’. I wouldn’t work for ‘families’ and the term ‘Esq’ hasn’t been in general use for a hundred years. What country throws up a name like Crammer Cohn? Simply based on that, neither email would even have been read but delated as spam.

John makes a good point that most of this is a matter of common sense. But given that not all teachers are native speakers, things may not always be as obvious as they seem. No doubt a point upon which scammers thrive.

I have just been contacted by Adel Youssef who claims to be a Russian, living in Manchester, England and looking for a teacher, for his family. I noticed that he had been mentioned in previous posts and seemed to be attempting to scam job-seekers. This is just a reminder not to respond to this person.

I have been contacted by a Mr. Sun Weilin from the Beijing Engineering and Construction Company in Beijing. He has offered me a post with his family. He gave me an address in Manchester, which does appear on Google Maps, and I have spoken to his "Staff". he asked me and my wife to go to Beijing next week to meet his family, and asked me to source flights. I emailed him the details and he said he would send me the tickets, then lo and behold, today he has asked me to pay half towards them! I am supposed to forward the money to his "assistant".
I thought that I had done the proper research, I checked out the company, its CEO which is Mr. Sun Weilin, and his address in Manchester. To add to the story, the BCEG is working in Manchester on the airport development, and Mr. Sun Weilin is the CEO. The whole story checked out until he asked me to pay for half of the flights. This is nothing more than a sophisticated scam, so beware if you are contacted!

Wow, PeterK, thank you for sharing. I was just contacted by Mr. Sun Weilin. I arrived up to the point of signing the contract. Even after researching everything, it did not seem right.

UPDATE: Further to my posting about Mr. Sun Weilin, I have now been in contact with BCEGi in Manchester. Mr Sun Weilin is a retired executive who is over 70 years old, and speaks no English. His company confirmed that he was a director, but left the company years ago. There is no chance at all that he is genuine, so caveat emptor!!

Hello,
I need your assistance,
Today I have got this offer:
==========================================================================================================


Hello Teacher,


I got to know that you are an ESL teacher on an ESL teaching job site and i decided to contact you to know if you will be able to come to Manchester England to tutor my family We are Moscow Russia living in England.I will need a teacher who will
come to Manchester and tutor my family for a period of 1 and half years.

I will give you accommodation and also will pay you monthly of US$6,000 which is US$2,000/child monthly.
Though i have seen your brief CV but i will like you to send me your updated CV,picture and also your availability date.

Cheers

Mr Afanasy Vlad,
=========================================================================================================

Please let me know if anyone received same offer.

Does anyone know about eslstarter.com? Are they a legitimate company?

Maurice75 and others interested:
I received pretty much the same email:
Hello Teacher
I got to know that you are an ESL teacher on an ESL teaching job site
and i decided to contact you to know if you will be able to come to
Manchester England to tutor my family

We are Saudi Arabia living in England.I will need a teacher who will
come to Manchester and tutor my family for a period of 1 and half
years.

I will give you accommodation and also will pay you monthly of
US$6,000 which is US$2,000/child monthly.

Though i have seen your brief CV but i will like you to send me your
updated CV,picture and also your availability date


Cheers
Mr.Idris

They just bother to change the names. As I thought, it was too good to be true. I'm glad I did a research before making any serious decisions. However, they sent me 3 emails so far and didn't ask for money YET.

Yes, I got exactly the same letter. How do we know it is a scam? Could it not be legitimate? If not, why not?
I'd like to know if anyone has actually taken this guy on and passed all the steps and how did they find out it was a scam?
I'd like some good answers to this.
Thanks.
Michael Sharpe

Has anyone heard of the company "iTutor Group USA"? I responded to an application in Indeed.com and heard back from them, but am not sure if they are legitimate. I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks!

Thanks for share the mail address

Thanks Josef - Here are 50 more scams - all related to China Teaching & Recruiting scams and about half of them are so slick they would fool a fraud investigator! http://reddit.com/r/chinascamcentral

These ads are everywhere on the internet and they generally go something like this...

Native English American needed for six months to teach ESL to a wealthy family in Colombia/Mexico/Venezuela/Russi. All expenses paid and you will earn $900 per day as live-in teacher for investor soon to relocate to America on EB5 program. Send your resume, photo, and passport scan to Ethan at VIPESLRecruiters@gmail/hotmail/yahoo/msn.com

You will then get a telephone interview allegedly to evaluate your English and you will be selected within a day or two. They then offer you a $10,000 cas bonus if you can fly to the destination within a few days. They will even send you a contract that puts all their promises in writing, but they say it is not valid unless signed in their country.

When you fly over to that country the "family lawyer" will meet you at the airport and have dinner with you and help you check into a hotel. They will even give you a phony business card. The "lawyer" then asks for your passport to process you with the local authorities. In a day you will get a call that says someone with our name is a wanted fugitive and they need your national ID (or social security number) to prove it is not you or you will be arrested and jailed pending extradition!

Of course people are terrified and will readily give the "lawyer" any information he wants. They will then research your family online and if your family is well-off (living in a $500,000 home, or having a luxury car registered is enough for them) a fake detective will show up and say he has to take you for fingerprints to make sure you are not the fugitive. People want to profess and prove their innocence and go with the detective. You have just become a hostage in Colombia or Mexico, or Dubai and your family is shaken down for $500,000 or more. If you do not come from a wealthy family, you will be told that there is an emergency and your services are no longer required. But in 6 months you will be contacted by the police about the $20,000 of jewlery or other merchandise purchased in your name. Of course, you will not even think th ecredit card fraud has anything to do with your trip six months ago.

Yes this is a sophisticated scam but it is more common than you think. Over 1,200 ESL/TEFL teachers were victims of this VIP Tutoring scam in 2016 according to Interpol.

Here is the new We Chat (also know as Wei Xin in China) that I almost fell for hook line and sinker. My new Chinese girlfriend caught on before I did when she heard me speaking on the speakerphone with the "Career Counselor" https://www.scam.com/entry.php?6474-Bew ... recruiters

Trust me this is one believable scam that will fool 8 out of 10 foreigners easily.

For anything related to China scams see these links before shooting off a resume;

http://reddit.com/r/chinascamcentral

http://chinascamwatch.org

http://www.chinaforeignteachersunion.com

A reader writes:

ESL job scam warning.
Hi I've just finished the application process for a teaching job in the UAE (Abu Dhabi).
Finally it's ended up as asking me for money for visas and flights.

Here is the link to their website:
http://www.sultanbritishschool.com/Accreditations.html