...... An extremely negative atmosphere, with many teachers forced to share a small apartment, many other problems including small rooms, and generally negative treatment towards the teaching staff, both foreign and domestic.

..... Heck they even threatened several teachers with fines or being sent reported to the police, they do not provide a working visa, and of course they don't generally treat their staff well.

..... If you feel a need to lie about your particular school, please do so elsewhere........

Our teachers are very important for us. We want them to be happy while they are working with us. Enjoy the beautiful and historic city of Istanbul. In order to make and keep them happy, we have company cars and drivers who take them to customers back and forth for their lessons. When our cars and drivers are busy, we hire cars to take our teachers to their customers and back.

As you know, Istanbul is a very large city with a population of 17 million people. Istanbul’s population is twice as large as London and twice as large as New York. It is larger than Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway and Switzerland put together. Because of this, we have four language centers in Istanbul to keep our teachers’ travel time to the minimum and to serve our customers better.

Despite all these, the distances travelled sometimes is long. If the travel time is more than an hour, one unit of lesson is paid to the teachers to compansate for the travel time. We are trying our very best to keep our teachers’ travel time at a minumum and keep our teachers happy.

-New York Studio Of Languages-

Dear Colleagues,

We are quite aware of the individual (A.K.) who had written this note. We know him quite well. The letter he has written is not a surprise to us.

Before leaving unexpectedly, we sensed his uneasiness. After he left, he sent us a threatening letter part of which he had reproduced here and you have already read. If we had given in his blackmail, you would not be reading neither his note nor our response to it. We will be glad to share his black mail letter with those who wants to read it.

New York Studio of Languages is authorized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Our contract is legal and according to Turkish Laws when it is signed by a teacher, the conditions stated in it are accepted by both parties. Before the teacher starts working with us, we provide all necessary information in detail in the contract. I would also like to mention that we never do anything that is not stated in the contract.

Our employment contract was sent to Mr A. K. for his perusal and signature before he came to Turkey. He read it, signed it and sent it to us before he came to Turkey to work. Signing the contract is a proof of accepting the conditions stated in it.

I would like to answer his following claims point by point (his words are in bullets)

- I would like to warn you all about a school/language Institute called NYS (New York Studio) located in Istanbul-Turkey.

- They run a huge SCAM, they constantly recruit teachers under a lot of promises that turn out to be all LIES.

We have been in this business for the last 16 years. We will be entering our 17th year with the new year. We have about 60 teachers working with us. Some of them has been working with us since we started up our business. 70% of our business has been with multinational companies. You can not be in business for 16 years with multinational companies if you are not working properly.

- You will be working illegally until your papers are being processed, however, they will delay the processing so that they will not pay the government taxes. By the time teachers realize the scam 3 month's have passed and a new batch of teachers arrive to replace the scammed teachers. and the cycle goes on like that.

NYS submits teachers’ applications to government offices for processing work and residency permits as soon as the teachers complete and submit their papers to NYS. What NYS does is to submit these applications to Ministry of Education, to Ministry of Labor and Social Security and Ministry of Internal Affairs . Processing of the papers are done not by NYS but by these government offices. As we all know, unfortunately NYS had no control over the process. Just like other countries, the process does take time. Teachers are well informed before the process starts.

- Teachers will be paid on the 21st of each month but of the second months of arrival, the company holds a ONE month pay so that when a teacher decides to leave the company due to their lies and unprofessional behavior, they have a one month pay in their pockets.

NYS signs contracts with its teachers. The contracts are sent to the teachers for their perusal and signature. After reading the contract some teachers accept terms and conditions stated in the contract and sign it. Others do not. Conditions for breaking the contract are stated in it. The teacher who can not or do not want to complete the time stated in the contact has to give us a month's notice. It takes about a month to find a replacement for a teacher. A month's notice is needed because of that. When teachers start work, some of them are short in cash. In order to help them out, NYS provides cash advances to them. They do not need to wait until the 21st of the month.

- They charge Teachers for a lot of unexplained document processing leaving the teachers in hole from the very start.

In order to prepare work and residency permit application forms, teacher's papers, such as passports, diplomas, needs to be translated into Turkish, and notarized by the notary public. Translation and notarization is expensive. NYS will process the papers for the teachers and will pay half of these expenses. NYS makes these payments up front and deducts half of it from the teachers salary. Deduction could be spread over time in order to help teachers out, who are short in cash. When needed NYS makes advance payments to the teachers who are short in cash.

- Teachers are NOT being paid per hour as they make it appear in their contract and promises, they are being paid per 40 minutes. which makes a huge difference in the salary.

Mr. A.K. is right, The teachers who signed an hourly contract, are not being paid for per hour, they are paid for per 40 minutes. Typically a teacher will teach three hours per night and will be paid for four lesson units instead of three hours. This way s/he will be paid for one more lessons not less. If Mr. A.K.'s method is used, we could have saved a lot of money. We did not. Further more we still do not.

- Teachers cover the break time of 5 minutes per lecture/Unit from their own pockets; which means 20 minutes of unpaid time comes out of your pockets for every 3 hours of work. At the end of the month you'll discover that you have been scammed with an additional more less 300 US$.

In the 16 years that we have been in business, this is the first time somebody wanted to be paid for the break time. Nevertheles, the contract, specifically states that no payments are made for, for example, class preperation, grading exams, etc. Similar to these, no payments are made for the breaks in between the classes.

- They don't cover plane ticket expenses so that teachers will stick around to cover the loss, which will take about 3 Months due to the above mentioned SCAMS. This period is enough for a course to finish and a new batch of teachers to arrive.

When we started our business, we used to cover travel expenses of the teachers we hired. As you know, a lot of people are attracted to Istanbul. It is an important tourist destination. After paying tickets of some "teachers", they left after a couple of weeks in Istanbul. We realized that they want to come to Istanbul to see the city not necessarily to teach. Instead of paying travel expenses of the teacher candidates up front, we decided to pay contract completion bonus. We still do that. If Mr. A.K. completed the contract, he would have been paid that.

- You will be asked to travel long distances and the travel time is also not being paid for.

We have four centers in Istanbul. Two on the Asian and two on the European side. We provide housing to our teachers on both sides within walking distance to our offices. Hence the teachers do not have to travel long distance from their home to the office or from one part of the city to the other. In addition, we do pay for the transportation costs of our teachers from our center to the places where they teach. We do pay for the travel time, if time spent on the road is over an hour.

- There are many more issues that will make teachers just run away leaving a whole month pay behind.

We want to work with teachers, who want to teach and enjoy the beautiful city of İstanbul. We do not want tourists, who is passing by or who wants to stay couple of weeks and enjoy the city on their way to another city or whereever they may be going.

- I hope this post will help you and I hope you will spread the word so that teachers will not be victims to this SCAM.

We look forward to working with professional teachers who enjoy teaching.