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Q: How were you scammed as a foreign teacher in China?
I was interviewed by a company called Key Logic which said they needed a corporate trainer for 6 months to teach five courses to 30 executives of a large government ministry. They said the pay would be 100,000 yuan for the six months but that I would have to prepare the lesson plans and ppts. I agreed to this and then they said I gad one month to prepare all the plans and ppts which they said had to be "reviewed and approved" before they signed the contract, which they sent me the day I agreed to do the work, but it was unsigned. Anyway, I spent about 90 hours to prepare all the lessons and ppts and I was confident I did a professional job because the day after I dropped them off, I got a lot of praise and they asked me what I would charge just to make ppts for the company. When I told them 3,000 per ppt. I never heard from them again. I never got paid a dime, and two months later one of my friends told me he saw my ppts being used with Key Logic's brand on every single page. (that I never authorized and never put there). When I called and asked about the training I was supposed to do, I was told that the courses were "postponed" and they would call when it was rescheduled.
When I asked them why they were using my 5 ppts under their brand name without my permission, they just denied it and hung up the phone on me. This was a very clever way they ripped me off for 90 hours of work to get lesson plans and ppts made for free. They also told all their clients that they represent Harvard University in China and I learned that is an outright lie so they not only cheat teachers but their own clients as well.
Normally, the contract should state that payment be tiered. 20% upon agreement to engage you, 30% on first draft of the ppt and 50% on final delivery. On the 20%, you need only show extracts of the ppt to show that work was already done. If they don't like it, you keep the 20%. If they give excuses not to pay the 20%, then you know getting paid would be a problem and it's probably a scam. This will weed out the scammers from the real deals. Whoever is interested should let the money talk, no just talk, talk is cheap.
EZ4ME2B:
The way the contract was worded was that I would get 50,000 after the lesson plans and ppts were "approved" and the balance of 50,000 after the training was completed. On the surface this appeared fair to me. This whole scheme was premeditated and I am pretty sure they did this to others beside myself. All five times that I went to their offices there were expats waiting to be interviewed in their lobby. Maybe for every ten they interview - three or four take the bait like I did. Kick me!
Grumpy:
EZ, I suggest you run some ads to find other teachers who were ripped like you then go visit the CEO with a handful of teachers and a lawyer and demand double the money they owe you. If the guy refuses, go see a reporter at BTV, Global Times, and China Daily and tell them your story. You can put it on WeiBo and every expat forum as well. Here is a good starting point for you -
If that happened to me I would have stood outside their office door with a poster in English and Chinese saying the company ripped me for 50,000 yuan and would not move until they paid me. I would make 100 copies of my story and pass it out to anyone coming in or out of the office.
Englteachted:
Wait, now your story seriously does not make sense. The contract that you did not sign states you were to to receive payment for the lessons that you handed in without signing the contract? But you do not give out the digital copies in order to protect yourself, but you freely give out hard copies because there is no way someone will just scan them.
The more you try to cover up the holes in your story the more unbelievable it becomes.
Cricket:
I heard bad things about that company as well. I have no problem to believe this.
Techtronix:
The devil is always in the details. Read your contracts CAREFULLY and change the wording if you do not agree with them. I line stuff out all the time if I do not agree.
That would be an interesting story/scam EZ4ME2B but I don't really believe you. I've seen you post lots of times on here in the last 1-2 months and never seen you post this story before. I'm sure if it was true you would have told us all before based on your previous attempts to get so-called discussions going to change the subject.
I call bullshit on your story!
ScotsAlan:
Quote"after I dropped them off,"
That's a bit suspicious. I normally email ppts.
Anyway, I take people at face value, so I think his story is true. After all, only a teacher could take so long to do a ppt 
.
Englteachted:
Hotwater: I don't know you but I love you. His follow up post will be CFTU to the rescue.
EZ4ME2B:
The reason I dropped them off (a print out) is because I never give electronic forms of anything until I get paid. I went there to show them the ppts on MY laptop and when they said they need to review them "for approval" by the "Academic Director", I gave them a print out. They merely paid someone to duplicate everything I gave them - verbatim.
Also they have posters and photos of one of their staff at Harvard where he is supposedly an alumni and they tell everyone they are "partners" with Harvard. Maybe 3-4 years ago they had some joint student exchange workshop with Harvard which Harvard did with MANY Chinese recruiters. How does that automatically make them a partner? If my company hires a retired professor from Princeton and we participate in a Princeton recruiting event years ago, does that make my company "partners" with Princeton. When I asked them to explain how Harvard was their "partner" they refused to to explain, yet they have the Harvard Crimson Crest on a lot of their brochures.
EZ4ME2B:
For Hotwater... If you have seen other posts about this company please post the links as I will use them to try and get my money. FYI... I am only on this ECC forum for a few weeks now so if you saw something months ago then they are doing this on an ongoing basis. My problem happened more than 18 months ago. Still leaves a very bad taste in my mouth because I turned down other jobs to get those ppts done by a "deadline" because they were going to pay me half of my contract fee when the ppts were approved and the other half when the training completed. They are very clever and use greed as bait.
Hulk:
EZ4ME2B is copy and pasting this story from another site. I'll leave you guys to figure out how obvious it is. 
EZ4ME2B:
Hulk - if you see this happening somewhere else please POST THE LINK because I am sure they are probably doing this to a lot of teachers. If I can find other victims I will get the cops onvolved and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Send me a pm with the links or post them here, How long ago did you see this? Is it the same M.O. and do they mention the name of the Chinese girl that arranges all the lesson plans and ppts.?
Grumpy:
Apparently this company has a track record of cheating teachers. Not only are they blacklisted but are mentioned in various forums going back a couple of years. Here is one of the articles I found on google-
A teacher named Grabowski was ripped for 20,000 and someone with a user name of "Blink" here at ECC was ripped last year as well. Where there is smoke there is usually fire. The crap about affiliating yourself with a famous university is such a common BS scam in China, nobody believes it anyway. I graduated from Stanford - who wants to hire me for your new "Stanford Program"
If your story is true, that is harsh... sorry to hear it man.
These guys are going to avoid you like the plague now.
Always get money upfront and never do more than a couple days worth of work at one time. Especially when you are dealing with Chinese.
I know how much work you probably put into it. So how about just trying to sell the course to their competitors? Tell them you designed the course and sold it to Key Logic for X amount, but you will sell it to their competitors for X - 50% or something.
You should have known this was BS when they gave you a month to prepare.Chinese always do things at the last minute. And you dropped off your ppts? ScotsAlan is right on. Question, did they process your visa? Doesn't your CFTU teach you about too good to be true? Paying an illegal teacher 100,000rmb for 6 months work? If you were a real teacher you would know in America, prep is work, so we don't start preparing until the contract is signed.
Ooops, premature....
Tell us how the CFTU saved the day and how we all should sign up and be card carrying members of a union in China, where it is illegal and this union is actually a govt run trap to get teachers blacklisted. Oh please tell us.
EZ4ME2B:
For some reason you seem obsessed with the CFTU when I never even mentioned them. They had nothing to do with this situation at all. I suggest you read my OP again and my other posts in this thread. Did you have a bad experience with the CFTU or what?
I am not sure what you are talking about because I am fairly new here. Is it possible that someone else had the same or similar problem. The CFTU had nothing to do with this problem at all and nobody rescued me - I was screwed. As far as I know they are still using my ppts. You don't work for Key Logic by any chance do you?
The reason I dropped them off (a print out) is because I never give electronic forms of anything until I get paid. I went there to show them the ppts on MY laptop and when they said they need to review them "for approval" by the "Academic Director", I gave them a print out. They merely paid someone to duplicate everything I gave them - verbatim.
Also they have posters and photos of one of their staff at Harvard where he is supposedly an alumni and they tell everyone they are "partners" with Harvard. Maybe 3-4 years ago they had some joint student exchange workshop with Harvard which Harvard did with MANY Chinese recruiters. How does that automatically make them a partner? If my company hires a retired professor from Princeton and we participate in a Princeton recruiting event years ago, does that make my company "partners" with Princeton? When I asked them to explain how Harvard was their "partner" they refused to to explain, yet they have the Harvard Crimson Crest on a lot of their brochures.
Englteachted:
I don't give electronic forms but I freely give printouts, that sounds dumb.
I suggest you see this link and you will find this has been a problem with that company for a while. In the comments section someone named "grabowski" had got burned for 20,000rmb. Hell, why teach if you can rip off teachers like this? If they do this to one teacher a day, imagine how much $ they can make selling lesson plans and ppts to all those wannabe Chinese "schools"?
This is what I cut from the article at the above link-
"Exploited for Lesson Plans
Teachers are brought into a school only to be milked for lesson plans and ppts all done during the probationary period and then they are terminated. Once gone, the school rebrands all the proprietary material of the talented teacher under their own name and lets their Chinese teachers use it for their classes since it is easily 100 yuan per hour more expensive to hire a foreigner."
Hotwater:
And your link actually links back to here..........full circle copy and paste with scenario changed slightly.
Englteachted:
It is funny that one account posts the problem and another account posts a link, how telling.
Boy did I call it. With one account you post a made up scam. With another account you post a link to a story that includes a link to the CFTU..
"he China Foreign Teachers Union (yes there is one!) reports that approximately half of all foreign teachers in China have been swindled. "
I was scammed two times in my teaching jobs. Once by an agent who held my passport and refused to return it until I paid him money for a release letter that I was supposed to get for free according to the law. When I met him he used the name of Ted but now I see him using the name of Peter. I wish I new his real Chinese name.
The other time I was cheated out of my last paycheck of 8,000, but after three months I finally got my money after I made life miserable for them and told all the mothers how they cheat their own teachers.
I was cheated out of my last paycheck (12,000 rmb) from a school called EZ English but they were closed down six months later for not having a school license. They were using some other company's license as their own. Four other expats teachers were also burned like me. I suggest everyone ask for a copy of a schools license and then verify it before you sign any contract. Also do not agree to let a school deduct any "deposits" or say they are going to withhold your homeland taxes - just a way to steal from you.
Getting swindled in China is part of the "China Experience". Besides it teaches you the true meaning of the word "clever".
