First of all, they will make you sign one or several contracts but you will never see a properly counter-signed contract copy for yourself, and in such a case it is not a legally binding contract, right?

If they do not give you a copy then yes technically the contract is not worth the paper it's printed on, of course they do this for control. Many places in China will keep your Foreign Experts Certificate for "safety" reasons or reasons out of "need for something". Some places will even try and keep your passport, which is not the property of anyone of Chinese citizenry.

Second, the pay is mostly late, some teachers had to wait one and half a month until they were paid.

At public schools I was paid either on the last day of the same month I worked or the first/second day (the first weekday) of the new month. Only private companies will make people wait so long. This is because they are busy trying to calculate how much money they can scrunge out of you. Maybe this "Helen" company blew too much money treating the local government officials to KTV and had to borrow themselves to finally pay the foreign teachers, just saying.

Third, your first three days will always be in their headquarters in Hangzhou before they transfer you to the school assigned to you. In that case, you have to pay the travel expenses yourself, although in China it's normally the employer who does or who will refund your expenses. They also basically refund your expenses, but you have to fill in lots of so-called application forms to keep a lot of otherwise useless people in their office busy. A simple ticket to show should be enough to keep bureaucracy to a minimum level, but they make it really hard for you.

Any professional company would give you money up front. As for the refunding part they are hoping you just forget about it so they don't need to pay you. What a rubbish company!

During the summer and winter holidays there is no pay, they pay you only for the days you have been actually teaching. Their system of control is 130 %, you have to fill several papers each month and send them from your school somewhere in China to their head office until you receive your monthly pay.

This kind of control is unheard of anywhere else. This company would make me want to go back to a place like Saudi Arabia. This whole paperwork thing is unnecessary. How would they check every day to the tee? It's only a way for the upper management who probably wouldn't have the job in the first place if not for the connections to a rich daddy/mommy/auntie/uncle who saved them from being totally useless. Now they are just merely useless.

There are delays in sending these papers sometimes, and your salary will also be delayed then.

Again, poor money management. I'll bet these crooks wouldn't delay giving money to the mistresses they've stashed on the side in one of those cheap one room apartment complexes. Expensive whores are always more important than foreign teachers as is the rule.

The schools pay them in advance, so they should be able to pay their teachers in full or on time. Who wants to fill in unnecessary paperwork after a month's hard work to get the salary one has rightly earned? The teacher is better off when working for a school directly as there will be no delays, and if the teacher missed some classes, also the school can make the necessary salary deductions. Why do you need an agent for that, I can't see any sense in that! This tremendous bureaucracy causing delay in the salaries to be paid has a system as they seem to work with that money meanwhile in other areas while the teacher is waiting for his pay and has to phone the head office to ask for his money. This is causing unnecessary stress and takes too much of your time, so why should you work for them if there is always such a hassle to get your money? Only fools would do, right? The same with airfare reimbursement and other benefits promised to you in their so-called "contracts".

The company does this because they do not have any responsibility, so one of the less hollow brained member of management who studied at some crap foreign school will show their "cleverness" by coming up with this bureaucracy. But in the end they just want to stay in your head and not make you feel comfortable. We are after all talking about folks who grew up in a culture of utility, where even the husband and wife will play politics towards their child on which family name is more worthy of the child's attention. I mean in their fawked up minds I'm sure there is the possibility that they are really telling you and the other unfortunate teachers that they love you all so so much! But I think not.

They have a company apartment that was dirty and run-down when I was there. They put you together with sick or other kind of crazy people that you don't know to share this apartment before you move on to other schools - broken chairs, smelling beds that other people have slept in before and leaking toilettes and showers - this is the kind of standard you can expect.If you tell them about it,. either nothing happens or they are far too slow to do something about it. Many teachers have not renewed their contract with them because of the way they have been treated.

You have to look at it this way: We are all creatures of habit and we all want to be in familiar surroundings. If you went to the local mental hospital and checked for records of escaped lunatics you might find the pictures of some of these folks you had to share the apartment with, along with the people who put you there in the first place. This is their way of wanting you to be comfortable, this is their way of showing you China, actually.

If you don't want unnecessary hassle, stay away from them - this is a well-meant advice.

There is hardly anything professional in this company. While they are not only agents, but also active in other business fields, it is all done with such a high degree of unprofessionalism and dilettantism that you can only wonder how they get away with it.

I suggest give such agents a miss and don't work for them, they are only there to make your li8fe miserable!

admin@helengroup.com

I know you went through hell, and I've been there myself as well as many posters. You are not longer working there but you had the generosity to share your experience with all. For that you saved many others from going through the same horrific things. Unfortunately I do have to say that in China people will get away with this because the general population does not believe in any system of law, only rule by men. As such you will encounter plenty of crazies who think the way they "rule" their company or school as being the best way, and anyone who disagrees with the way they run things can take the highway elsewhere. Please don't hesitate to share more, you sound like you've been around the block.