Special Warning: Ad Targeting Filipinas

Ok, this is time for a very special warning. It turns out that there might be some illegal recruitment going on again in the Philippines. It sure looks something dangerous and something that needs to be avoided when looking for a TEFL Job. Scams are proliferating on the internet trying to get money from teachers, but this one seems even more sinister to me.

Teacher 30,000 pcm in Thailand.

Salary and benefits include PHP30,000 pcm tax free, plus retun airfares, share apartment in Pattaya Beach Resort with pool, cable and wi-fi.
Suit 23-33 year old female with Bachelor degree or higher.
Start date 12 January 2008 for 3 month contract could lead to full time position.
I will fly to the Philippines to interview on 10th December.
If interested email me at - harry@4potter.com

Ok, this ad just doesn’t seem right. First of all it is paying a salary that is more than a typical Filipino teacher salary. With a large pool of Filipina teachers already in Thailand willing to work for this, why do they need to advertise abroad? Ah then there is Pattaya. It is widely known as the sex capital of Asia.

The website 4potter.com is an under construction site and could be considered not related at all to teaching and some may even consider it pornographic

The original details was just a job teaching a 9 year old New Zealand boy at 30,000 pesos a month. Even that sounded fishy, but seeing Pattaya in this ad, in my opinion, this was a job that might involve things of a sexual nature. Sexual trafficking of women is a bad thing and it is something TEFLWatch stands firmly against.

In my opinion, this is trafficking of women in the worst regard.

Additional Information:
This was another ad I found online:

Teacher 30,000 pcm (plus expences) in Thailand.
Start 12 January 2008 teaching a 9 year old New Zealand boy one on one.
Intial contract for 3 months could lead to a permanant position.
On top of the 30,000 pcm tax free salary other benefits include return airfares,
share your own apartment with pool, gym, games room, cable and wi-fi.
Education - Bachelor or higher. Age 23 to 33 years old female.
I will be flying to the Philippines on 10th December to interview applicants.
If interested email me - harry@4potter.com

Private Tutor and Nanny Job Offers

We’ve talked about Nanny and Private Job Offers before in our old forum, but I’m seeing an increase in complaints from TEFL and ESL teachers about these kind of scams more and more recently so it’s time we put a warning about them here on the front page. While some offers, I’m sure, are legitimate, many it seems are not and English teachers looking for jobs abroad need to be aware of this.

The modus operandi is scammers to reply to job wanted ads or even place their own. Either teachers are told about a fabulous job offers that pays very highly and gives awesome benefits. It might involve private tutoring of a young child of a rich expat or it might just mean being a nanny. Either way, the job offers look to good to be true.

A typical ad might look like this one:

Dear ELS Teacher,
My name is *** and I am married to ****. We are from France
working and residing in Nigeria on contract for Nova Gas Incorporated a
Multinational Oil and Gas Company with headquarters in the USA.
We saw your profile and know that can be capable to teach my Family how to
speak English language.

Meanwhile my wife and Child are not really good when it comes to speaking
English hence we require an ESL Teacher to come and spend Six months or One
year with us here in Nigeria . You would teach my wife and my Child who is
3 years old how to speak English and some writing too. This is very
important to me hence I would be offering to pay you $5000 every month. You
would have a Private Live-Out or Live-In Accommodation depending on your
preference with Private Bathroom, Sitting Room and Bedroom. Your room would
also be furnished with a Television Set, an Internet Ready Computer System
and a Fixed Landline telephone. If you can drive, you can let us know so
that we can arrange a vehicle that you would use also let us know if you
will prefare to live outside because we dont know your live style. You would
take them in English Classes every evening time from 5 p.m to 8.30 p.m day
from Monday to Friday. You would also have the weekends off .Weekends with
us is very fun as we visit fun spots, go sightseeing and amusement parks. Do
not worry about your travel arrangements as we would assist you in that
regards when the time comes. I will attached our family picture and our
Residential for you when you get back to me for further details.

Perfect living accommodations, only 3 1/2 hours of teaching 5 days a week and pay of $5000 a month. It does sound too good to be true…because it is.

Don’t let the location in Nigeria fool you either, I’ve seen the same type of offers for teaching in other countries like Greece, Spain, and Italy.

You’re probably thinking, how can they scam me? They’re the ones giving me a job! Well, once they’ve hooked you with such a great offer, they can start talking about extra fees. Maybe you need to send them money to show your earnest in wanting the job or maybe you need to send them money for a visa. But probably, you’ll get to participate in the cashier check fraud scam.

It works this way, the scammers might tell you that they will send you money for the airplane ticket. They’ll end up sending you a cashier’s check for more than the amount and ask you to send part of the amount on to one of their friends or family members. The cashier’s check might be for $5000 and the ticket is only for $1500 so you send $3500 to one of the business associates. You take the cashier’s check to your bank. Because it’s a cashier’s check, they cash it right away. Happy now, you go ahead and send the money to the business associate. Two weeks later, you realize the check was bad and you owe the bank $5000.

Just remember, friends, if it’s sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Any comments or further information about these offers?