Eric, though I never met you, I'm sorry to hear you fell foul of Edison Ye and Di Cosmo, the B school ( EKD ) school owner Linda Chai,, I understand your frustration as to the Chinese system being slow in investigating these types of dubious dishonest characters and taking legal action to stop them.

My biggest disappointment in Songjiang when trying to get the government or legal agencies to stop these people was to find that these self same agencies especially the police do nothing and instead accept money from the likes of Edison Ye, a fact he constantly boasted about but by boasting it served as a warning along the following lines " Don't report me to the local city authorities because it will backfire on you as I pay them regularly".

However his bribery does not extend to the central government offices and that is where your complaint should be sent, it really is the only way. Check out the central offices in Beijing for police, visa, tax, business registration etc and simply E mail a detailed report to them

People like Edison Ye exercise restraint style control over teachers that they rip off because they control your visa and can cancel it under fake grounds and when this is done by them the Chinese visa office will believe them and not the teacher. As we all know, these types of characters will never honor a work contract, it means nothing to them, we are simply a fat bird for plucking, disposing of and then recruiting the next unsuspecting teacher or business partner. China really needs to quickly change the current visa system in which control of your life is given over to any dubious fake school managers etc.

When I found I was being conned I closed down any working relationship with them and moved to a DOS post in a business English and academic school post in a city only 24 klm from Songjiang, my faith in Chinese school owners was restored by the owner, a decent honest man who pressed the right buttons to cancel my visa held by Edison Ye and set up a genuine visa. This "real' genuine" business school owner held more authority and say with the system in comparison to Ye. The response from Ye and Di Cosmo was to put out a fake story around Songjiang that they or Ye had my visa revoked, this lie would certainly interest Shanghai central work visa office but once again even if I could prove it I doubt the visa office would take action against Ye. After all it is the same office which sells work visas to him for English ESL teachers via a failed bankrupt Japanese language school. ( Ping Chen school Songjiang ).

As for characters such as Di Cosmo, they do a lot of damage to the concept of honest loyalty between foreign ESL teachers working in China, they are fake, in China for all the wrong reasons and present as an ideal tool for manipulation from any dubious school manager or owner because they will do anything in return for a wage and a visa. I hope that at some point in time the Chinese system will do something to weed out such fakes though it is difficult for them to identify these characters because they are often protected by a corrupt boss. The best thing to do in such a situation is send a report to the home country embassy of that person so that at least are aware what is going on. The home country Embassy can also run a check on them as to criminal or past history back in their country of origin.

Good luck with your teaching career and I hope you don't let the experience with these sordid people put you off ESL teaching.