Alin Buuer
- 2008-08-03
Well said, Edward!
Frank Zhang (Allen Zhang, David Zhang, Sang Xing, Xu Hui, Mary Wei, Alin Buuer, and many, many others) is easily the most hated and feared name in Chinese EFL. And with good reason...he's nothing but a scam artist who would send his own grandmother to the Mongols if it made him a few kuai. Avoid this person like the plague.
Better still, don't use any recruiter at all. Always deal only directly with the schools doing the hiring. Recruiters have a terrible record of not living up to promises and contracts, and generally are touting lousy jobs (or jobs in horrible cities) that the schools quite understandably can't fill on their own.
It's not hard to find job listings posted directly by schools. They're found on many, many websites. Avoid job ads that aren't specific about the name and location of their school, or that offer "many opportunities"...these are some of the ugly marks of recruiters. If you are contacted by a recruiter, simply delete the mail and don't respond.
The schools in China are dodgy enough all by themselves. You don't need to add this layer of useless, unscrupulous, parasitic sludge to the process.
And Frank Zhang is the sludgiest of them all.
Hello readers:
I just wanted to remind those to be extremely wary of this Chinese recruiter based in Shanghai who goes by a multitude of names, of which have become so great in number that if one were to write them all to paper and line them up end to end, it would span the Earth many times over. I suppose his base name is 'Frank', although I've been calling him 'Francessca' as of late because of his unknown gender and his propensity to talk like and portray a female. 'It' is based in Shanghai and actively recruits teachers from within China and abroad.
You can see a more complete profile of this individual by doing an Internet query through Google or Yahoo! or by using the URL of a helpful site that has compiled a profile of this person. http://www.bearcanada.com/esl/zhang.html
'It' has been known to be very aggressive in making false claims to teachers to goad them in coming to China under the pretense of working in a high-paying position in Shanghai. Time and again, he goes through with his bait-and-switch routine and attempts to place the prospective teacher in a much less desirable job in often unknown Chinese cities with low salaries and other pitfalls.
It's important to speak with the school and it's admin listed on the contract before commiting to come to China, in addition to contacting teachers currently working there (but do keep in mind that some teachers are paid off to speak favorably of the school they work for if it's reputation is dubious). Otherwise, the school that 'it' presents you most likely doesn't exist or is a very bad place to work. Be careful of this would-be felon and do the homework before coming to China. Peace.