I am also a (former) teacher at BL. I served the full year of my contract, even though that was a serious mistake.

If you are an actual FT at BL (and not just a member of HR, which is obsessive about BL image on boards like these--the only reason that the crap organization does not have the exact same reputation as King's or DDragon or any of the other children's English school money mills that it could be exchanged for), then you are only telling half the story.

Sure, they might have given you a Z visa...they gave me one, too (I actually sort of regretted that, it tied me to BL, and all). But, only a few of the FTs who were qualified to get a Z were ever granted one. I knew several in my center who had petitioned HR for a Z, had all the credentials for a Z, and just got strung along for months on end. Meanwhile, they had to pay all the expenses required for maintaining an F--because BL wasn't going to shell out the money for getting them the Z visa promised to them in their contract.

And when the police raided the center, BL did nothing to protect the FTs that they had left strung out on F visas. I heard that there were sacrificial lamb deportations at other centers; there was one at mine...and still, Larry pretty much refused to allow more than 2-3 FTs at each center to have a Z. The icing on the cake was the 'don't worry, be happy' e-mail we all got from HR the day after the Beijing police were screaming in our faces and demanding to see our passports...probably because BL was as cheap with bribe payments as it is with giving promised visas.