To be fair, I'm only trying to take a glass half full approach toward the reputation of expertise, or English teaching in general. The main reason why I'm not with Expertise any more is that I would rather teach college, high school, or middle school, as opposed to Kindergarten.
While it may be true that employers are supposed to cover visa costs, ultimately they can't cover medical costs in your own country, which is what may be required to apply for Z visa, since you need an official letter, and this often requires a medical check before hand. True they can pay for it in China, but I don't know how they can pay for it in your own country unless they paypal it across, and who's going to do that?
I guess what I'm saying is, its not just Expertise, and Expertise is better than some of the other ones out there. True you might not be getting your full worth, but we have the same trouble with agencies in my home country. I worked for a bank where half my pay went to an agency, they were paying more for my disposability.
Ok, suppose a school pays Expertise 12,000 RMB, and you only get 5,000 RMB, do you really think you would get 12,000 RMB if you worked directly for the school? Not a chance! The schools pay Expertise so much money for a variety of reasons, namely the schools can't recruit themselves, they're afraid to speak directly to teachers about whatever problems there is with them (which can be some truly pedantic matters) and they're also paying for the reliability of being able to provide teachers.
True the schools are cowardly, they're too afraid to criticize teachers to their face so they get Expertise to do it, but sadly that's one aspect of the culture in China.
I'm defending Expertise because most of my problems were with the schools, not the company. I had 2 different appartments with Expertise, and both were very nice. One was better than the other, but I've never experienced any dreadful living conditions.
Most of what we come across in this thread is general criticism of business practice in China. Generally, visa requests are often made by greasing palms, but then again that's how many things work in Eastern Europe, and even our own countries. I don't have a problem with this because bureaucracy is something I would prefer to see less of, so therefore getting round the system is something I applaud.
China's not that bad. I had my ups and downs, but I came out of it ok, and on the whole I found Expertise and its staff to be good employers.