Richard, there's nothing dodgy, wrong or illegal about my visa mate. The visa application went through the regular, rigourous inspection and has been approved twice. The school's business licence and licence to employ foreign teachers has also been critically examined by the relevant authorities in Shanghai and is approved. I wouldn't be here to say anything if you hadn't thought fit to include my name in your accusatory post.

In my opinion: your own unprofessional and unethical behaviour led to the justified revocation of your Expert's Certificate and visa. Didn't you use the company's connections to get their corporate client as your own, and then fail when you tried to unilaterally change the terms of that contract? Didn't you break that contract and leave them without an instructor? Didn't you try the Cambridge thing, and also wind up with a major fail? You tried to drag me into your squabbles with the company, and I see here that this effort continues. I believe you are the sole author of your own misfortune. Not me, not Edison, not Linda, not Cambridge; you. Richard.

I don't know where you are now, and frankly I don't care. I'm just happy that you're no longer in SongJiang, where you seem to have established a rather unsavoury reputation. Richard, you need to take a long, hard look at yourself. When you've burned through a bunch of jobs in a short period of time, maybe it's not the companies that are to blame; maybe it's just you. Students say you're a decent enough teacher, but as an employee it appears that you tend to run off the rails in short order. Then the half-baked accusations and quasi-legal threats begin to fly. You seem to fancy yourself an expert on Chinese business and immigration law who knows better than the people whose job it is to actually oversee these areas. I don't think you are.

In my experience, EET is no better, but certainly no worse, than any other language training centre. They pay you as they should. They deduct taxes properly. They have a valid business licence and the authority to hire FTs. They obtain valid and legal visas for their teachers. In general, Edison treats his people better than many of them treat him. Cases in point are you and that guy who took a month's advance and disappeared. No matter, I am not here to defend the school, but rather myself against your delusional accusations of my complicity in shady business deals. I am a teacher, and I hold no stake in the company, nor am I privy to their business operations or decisions. I accept my teaching assignments in good faith. My duty is to my students.

As far as I know, the EET business licence is annually inspected and approved by the police and Education Ministry. I am registered with them. I didn't pay for my visa. If sending trainers to partner companies and institutions was illegal, as you claim, I guess that EF, Pacican, Wall Street, Raffles, Oxford and every other major training centre would be in contravention. But they're not. You just don't know what you're talking about. To the best of my knowledge, no EET teacher has ever been fined, arrested or deported. Even you yourself say that they've held a licence since 2003. Seems a bit long to be operating under the radar in a field that's highly regulated.

By the way, why are you using a fake name here, Richard? That's just a rhetorical question. I know it's easier to libel someone when using a pseudonym. Libel, by the way, IS against the law. And you are breaking it by posting your defamatory, unproven and unprovable allegations here on a public forum. If you cannot prove that I have knowledge of and am actively participating in illegal activities, you'd better issue a retraction or face the consequences.

Ken Di Cosmo