Yes.

All of that and it makes them sound more legitimate than they are. CZZ is really little more than a legal scam gang and yes there main objective is to find honest, sincere, unwitting would-be foreign teachers who just simply don't know whats going on. The naive.

But CZZ also works with another type. Cheater foreigners, smarter travelers who need to game the system, you can say 'friends of CZZ' and they help use, abuse, scam and game the 'stupid newbs' who of course deserve what they get for being dumb foreigners.

So, can confirm all you are saying but actually you are making them sound too legitimate or too organized. Mind you they are very damn good at screwing around on paperwork, gaming technicalities, playing all kinds of games, switch and baits, how to be intimidating or scare people who dont know better etc.

Simply put NEVER should anyone EVER do any business with them and further more if you believe you are actually one of their 'insiders' or told to relax because you're a 'special one' and given some advantages - don't worry they are going to screw you WORSE and harder later on.

but of course i feel bad for the naive 'newbs' who simply didn't know any better and assumed this was a legal responsible job opportunity.

I'm sorry I can't tell you and I'm not familiar with that name but you should know CZZ and other agencies and schools all seem to have some connection despite different names or offices.

So the only thing I think you can do is be absolutely clear to ask them about CZZ, their relationship, if they hire/contract/work with CZZ. If they say a little or indicate any relationship then be aware and beware because CZZ may as well be called a slave-trading disrespecting crook group that tries to trap and use up foreign teachers.

Yes this is correct. CZZ is really a kind of agency that assigns teachers to schools. Every teacher I know about will always find themselves eventually let go from any given school. You may be there 2 months or 4 months but eventually you will get a call saying they didn't like you. Usually just any standard made-up reasons. If you are a spontaneous teacher then complaints you didn't follow the book. If you are a by-the-book teacher then they didn't like you only read from the book. By 'they' means nothing. Anyways, the point is you won't need to worry as they will assign you to another school where it turns out another CZZ contractee just so happened to leave because that school didn't like him. So they will transfer you (see they're nice) but yes you WILL change schools. This will nullify something in your contract yes. You are also correct that many very often the school itself, principal or anyone in the school will actually know about this. That school might even be told that you (the teacher) in fact decided they didn't like that school and wanted to transfer or leave. (decieving both parties). You know the sad thing about CZZ is that a lot of sincere and really good well-intended teachers arrive (almost always 1st timers totally naive of China which is who CZZ wants) but in theory there are a lot of schools and kids and teachers who could really benefit and have a great experience. So it surprises me the Zhengzhou goverment allows CZZ to keep destroying, scamming and fucking up schools and teachers with their barely-legal scam monopoly on things in Zhengzhou? CZZ shames China, gives innocent 1st time visiting foreigners a horrible impression of China and can you just imagine that they go back home and CZZ and how they were abused, disrespected, treated by little men .. that THIS is their idea of what China is like??

That is pretty much exactly right. I wouldn't add much other to say people should be aware they will arrive and work for 30 days (1 month) then wait until the 20th of the following month for the payment of that first 30 days. That 1st cheque will deduct 3 months rent and any fees such as internet connections etc. So to be clear - you will work for nearly 2 months before receiving less than half a month's salary. Then be assured its okay because you will be getting 100% pay next time. During that time there will suddenly be a lot of complaints and bad reviews about you. You will clearly be the teachers who's really 'skating on thin ice' with them. They do all this so you believe you must stay and you had better not complain because you're already in danger of losing it all. Also, by paying you on the 20th of the following month they are pretty much always keeping 20 days worth of your wages in hand. You leave and you'll never see that money.

It has been learned by our scam prevention team that Niu Chen alias Marco is recruiting under two aliases for CZZ China: CZZ Education and ZYX Education or China. Yes Mr. Niu you are now on our radar.

So you're basically saying that they employ illegally ... nice!

This is the history and business practice of Niu Chen alias Marco and Dana Kruzic alias Daniel.

1) Jessica Davis was the “HR director” and a rah-rah for CZZ. She was the HR manager who basically mimicked the decisions or directives of Niu Chen the owner of CZZ. She worked for about four months for CZZ ONLY because she needed a visa to stay in China. She was actually a host for a local television station in Zhengzhou. As soon as she could leave CZZ she did.

2) Niu Chen is a 24 year old punk. He cares not what his recruiter Dana Kruzic says in skype interviews to draw potential candidates to China. He WILL: Give assurances, statements, promises, and glorify positions that will absolutely be false or not followed through. He will give the lowest possible pay to teachers for assignments and pocket huge profits sometimes knowing the financial binds his teachers are in. He will ask teachers for favors and never, ever, return the favor, give 100% fruition, or give credit WHENEVER credit is due. In this current version of this business he goes by the alias Marco. Previously he was running an agency call Helen. From the past posts it is plain he was cheating, scamming, and abusing his employees.

3) Dana Kruzic is stoner who gives vague descriptions of positions with schools, company policies,
procedures, and makes ambiguous references to the bonuses that a teacher can get. You will be told that there is a position waiting for you once he accepts you but the truth is once you have spent thousands to get to the P.R.C. you will 'shopped around' to various schools or training centers to see if they will accept you for a position. The description of the apartment you might be living in will not be accurate or be appropriately equipped. You might be forgotten at the airport upon arrival, or it might be changed or forgotten what position or school you were to have had waiting for you. Some of the schools will reject you if you are not from the United States or Canada.

4) The temporary apartment you may have waiting for you will be dirty with no kitchen and nothing to clean it with. The apartment you will be provided by the school may be unbelievably filthy, stinking, with no working water, and have no kitchen. It may be livable when you move in but don't count on it. Make sure that you boil the water from the tap if you use it for anything. One of CZZ’s teachers got metals poisoning because he didn’t boil the water long enough.

5) You will sign a contract that you will not be given a copy of, counter-signed by Niu Chen, and according to Chinese contract law enforceable in ANY country. It is an instrument only to be thrown in your face if you have any complaints about promised pay, over-time, or other stipulations that the company will brow beat you with to arm twist you into compliance. Understand now that you will NEVER, EVER, fulfill the stipulations of the contract to get the full amount of money you were told that you could receive. You WILL lose anywhere from 15,000 to 20,000 RMB.

6) You will be assigned a ‘TA’ or a ‘CS’ depending on the vernacular used at the time. These people are simply underpaid and over-worked company employees whose job it is to help you with things you need for the company, shopping, bus directions, or issues with your apartment. The girls are very good but the boys tend to be lazy and slick. Slick trying to work you for little things. The boys aren’t reliable and the girls do a good job. If you get contacted to do something you need to do it will be at a moments notice: moving, appointments, etc.

7) The school may or not be a school where there was a previous teacher from the agency. If it was there was probably a fall out from the teacher or teachers before. At some schools there will be a department head or subject who will be trying to eliminate the laowei (foreigner). In ANY event the students will be lazy rich kids whose parents were told that all they had to do is pay the tuition and the children are guaranteed to go to a western university. You cannot establish any discipline and there are no failing students. If you do in either case you will be complained about and back stabbed by the students AND the school. You will hear stories from CZZ such as 'the teacher was a racist' or 'the teacher got drunk every night' which if you talk to the teacher who was removed you'll find out these comments were lies. Even if the lies are debunked and the office knows the truth these will used as leverage to deny bonuses, or reduce pay, etc.

8) You will receive pay on or about the 15th of every month. Never earlier and always later if the pay day falls on the weekend. If you work some ‘other’ voluntary assignment you will receive your pay on the 20th of the following month. You WILL have days missing that you should be paid for usually regarding the first days you work. Many, many, many, of CZZ’s teachers often have unresolved pay discrepancies
that are usually not worked out in their favor. Your first pay is held back so that the company can recover its initial fees for hiring you. You are not told this and this puts you in a position that pressures yourself into continuing working to get back your expenses from coming out to China. The most you can hope for is to break even.

9) If you attempt to stand up for yourself either to the school or the CZZ you will labeled either a ‘bad teacher’ or a ‘bad employee’. If you get angry with the office you will be threatened with: expulsion from China on a moments notice, blacklisting from China, or withholding of pay.

Final word. This post is a collection of conversations that I’ve had with the teachers of CZZ. Unless they come across this they will probably have no knowledge of what’s written here. As for me I’m fed up with the practices of Chinese agencies and have gone home to my country.

Make sure in your CZZ contract two things are in print on it before you sign it:

"If the teacher does not receive his or her EXPECTED pay or within 24 hours therein, the teacher may at his or her discretion cancel the contract without penalty or threat of dire consequence."

"If any THREAT, (deportation, blacklisting, physical harm, unlawful seizure of passport, etc.), is made toward any teacher for any reason, these actions in actual fact cancel the contract."

From China Labor Laws regarding foreign teacher contracts.

Someone was posting about this company being 'Illegal' and that isn't helpful since 'legal' or 'illegal' are some fairly ambiguous, subjective 'foggy concepts' that may or may not mean much.

CZZ is essentially a semi-legal triad. A gang. It's sort of like working for 'legal criminals' who buy foreigners to own for a while. They are actively disrespectful to foreigners. The contempt is tangible in the air and body language alone. You will not really know who you are working for anyways. You may have an agent who's somehow a subcontractor that's an associate of CZZ but somehow you don't actually work for them directly.. yet you do, kinda.

They will not provide you a work permit or they might. But later. Maybe. But there will be problems. So maybe not.

The real problem as of 2013-14 is what I called the 'self-degenerating cycle' where CZZ loses foreigners quickly. They are (maybe understandably) upset as they only see the money and time they lost on the investment. (they do not care the foreigner has risked far far more and paid far more to be there) so anyways here is where they develop ways to 'get their money out first'. They will invent 'pay periods' and try and stretch your first paycheck to about 6 weeks after you start. But the foreign teacher (who's invested far more time and money) will get very nervous (6 weeks, your flight costs.. hey.. will they pay?) and they will - deducting any and all fees they can. So expect half a paycheck. This is when foreigners get scared and because there is still no Z-Visa (2 months and counting) they start to panic and get this.. even foreigners who would not otherwise have left CZZ will NOW START finding ways to leave CZZ... and do. Then CZZ sees this as 'confirmation' they need to trick and scam and fleece and 'skim' even MORE on their new hires. Downward cycle.

There are plenty of other things too. Expect to be 'golden' when you start. After 1 month when you start asking questions you will suddenly find you are a real screwup and get harshly criticized and suddenly become a bad teacher. (this is typical stupid Chinese negotiating crap).

Other problems include the worst scheduling I have EVER seen in my life. I mean seriously - you will be late (or many hours early) or arrive at canceled classes around 30% of the time.

Sometimes it will be your mistake due to the ridiculous confusing communications but mostly it will be incompetence. So you will pay money to travel for hours and then you will be given warnings about being late or missing classes. Maybe 35% of all your schedule.

Now to make things worse - they will assign a young man to antagonize you. His name is Tom and he has no respect for you whatsoever. He will actually CAUSE you more problems than he will solve and then laugh at you for being so stupid. He has what we'd call 'ADHD' and he will also skim, scheme, game and work you. He will actively disrespect you. In fact, CZZ has such little respect for foreigners that they will act OUTRAGED when you DARE to be offended. Then say you offended them and then say whatever you said back to you but even harder.

Personally, I was 99% certain they would NOT pay me after attempting to give me 1500 RMB (after 6 weeks I remind you) and I did get that upped to 6000 (9000 would have been better). but after waiting another 5 weeks - YES they actually DID pay me the correct and full amount.

Anyways, totally incompetent (constantly 'misunderstandings' and things 'lost in translation' which never seem to benefit you btw) and quite seriously they actively disrespect their hires (the stupid foreigners they own) and quite frankly some of the rudest, strangely arrogant, stupid bullies I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with.

And in case any of them are reading this - I did not write any of the previous comments on here and I did not mention CZZ to any employers or authorities in China (i made a point of mentioning NO names even when I told of my bad experience).

So I would like to believe it was not CZZ who put me on what is apparently some kind of 'blacklist' that actually does seem to exist based on some interesting things I learned.
But here's the thing - NOBODY deserves to be treated like that.

I have spoken to the alleged manager from Iowa (alleged to have a Canadian wife?) and I really have no idea where he fits into anything other than some kind of co-owner or original investor.

Basically they have made a business out of hiring and turning-over 1st time foreign teachers. They made that their main business. 'turn-over' is the actual business.
(the rent schemes, skimming and 'recycling' 're-renting' etc are a good little payday in their own right).

Once again - nobody deserves to be treated so poorly and they hate you.. which means you will quickly start to hate them back... and even the nicest foreign teachers will soon become miserable and suspicious.

Hey- so I stumbled upon this and couldn't believe it! Because I actually work at that company currently. CZZChina isn't bad, and the reason they don't give Z visas right away is because they're a small company. However the owner is a Chinese man with American education, and the office has 2 foreigners working in the office- one as a recruiter and the other as an HR liaison between the foreigners and Chinese staff. I think that's far beyond the business model of most Chinese ESL companies, and I would rather be working at CZZ that many other places I have found in China!

Here is the website, which you can also find by just Googling "CZZChina" (where you can also find a link to their Facebook page).
www.czzchina.com

I googled the name of the agent. Zilch. I suggest you might well get a private response to your post if you allow readers to respond by letting them e-mail you. That would seem the SENSIBLE thing to do. But maybe you don't really want to work for said agent! Your somewhat sarcastic moniker seems to confirm this!

Thanks for taking time to reply. I will look into this option. I'm worried they will ask me to go to HK at my expense then just drop me out when things won't work as they expected.

I got this email. Does anybody have any experiences with CZZChina in Zhengzhou, Henan? Thanks a lot! Come to China on a tourist visa then work things out? Are you kidding me?

Don't do it until you've found out that CZZChina of Zhengzhou treats its foreign teachers well.