SCAMPATROL

[pjoshualaskey (new)]

For those of you in the worldwide English-teaching profession, scams seem to be aplenty. Schools in Europe offering non-European citizens working papers and free flights in exchange for up-front costs (always guaranteed to be repaid upon arrival) are most likely scams. Recently, there have been posts for Liverpool, England, and Athens, Greece. If you get information from Kings International (purportedly a school in Athens), do not send them money. Anyone in the international English-teaching business knows that teachers have very little disposable income, and schools should not be asking for outlay from teachers before any contracts have been signed. In fact, they shouldn't be asking at all. Teachers GET PAID by schools not the other way round.

Americans should be especially wary of such "offers" as they are vulnerable to the enticement of working papers inside the EU. Some scams come with fake cheques sent to the teacher's address with the idea that money will be forwarded from their account while the bank is discovering the fact that the cheque isn't good (hence, you're out the money) while others insist on wire transers (e.g., Western Union online whose window mysteriously pops up at exactly the right moment) before the school can proceed with its end of the bargain.

Oh, that the world had at least a middling honest man left in it. Teachers are already hard-pressed enough in their finances. Please be careful, but don't lose that spirit of exchange and openness that marks the great international teacher!