Job Discussion Forums

thrifty · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1665 Location: chip van

In Beşiktaş there are posters on the lamp posts advertising a job service for foreigners-professional and non-professional it says. They say they are in Beşiktaş and give a phone number but no website. They are in English and Russian.

Anyone know anything about these? Clean sheets provided? Scam? Do they charge for the service?

tekirdag · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 505

Lamp posts? Ahhhhh come on! You've been here long enough not to bother with that!

thrifty · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1665 Location: chip van

Don't see what is wrong with lamp posts. Plenty of TEFLers work in outfits that drive round the streets in a van dragging punters in. Outfits that force their teachers to deliver leaflets door to door.

tekirdag · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 505

Exactly. There IS something wrong with that! Laughing

thrifty · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1665 Location: chip van

I wish I could afford principles.

tekirdag · Joined: 13 Jul 2005 Posts: 505

A guy was presenting himself as directly working with the US Embassy and, as a way of building better relations between Turkey and The US, there was a project and he would be opening several offices around Turkey to process the applications for those trying for scholarships to study English in America at English First schools. The US had a new multi-million dollar program, he said.

People here in Tekirdag, of course, applied for job positions at these offices. English was important, he said, and to judge everyone's level a test would have to be written. There are hundreds of people applying for these jobs in Turkey, he said. Bad economy, yani. Processing all those test takes time. To offset the cost there would be a small, so small, fee of 20 YTL

You all know where this is going, right?

One of my students had applied. She had been so excited that she might actually get a great job. Was only a scam. We phoned the US embassy. They had never heard of the guy. And then he vanished into thin air... Word is he was doing this in many cities. I hope that jerk got caught by the cops.

His ads were papers on lamp posts. Papers on lamp posts...never good, if u ask me... they only lead to heartbreak and tragedy!! Sad

justme · Joined: 18 May 2004 Posts: 1944 Location: Istanbul

That really sucks, Tekirdağ! It's the kind of thing that really looks like an obvious scam in retrospect (though I would have been wary about US government funding to attend English First in the US. Is there English First in the US?), leaving the poor victim to kick him/herself all the more...

What, exactly, is a job service?

scot47 · Joined: 10 Jan 2003 Posts: 15343

Job Service ? Pay me and I will get you a job ! Universal scam !

NEVER EVER pay anyone to get you a job. ANYWHERE ! Even in Turkey !

nicoletteines · Joined: 11 Jun 2006 Posts: 9 Location: Seattle, WA, USA

Yeah, english first has schools all over the us: miami, LA, Seattle...so their sign says

thrifty · Joined: 25 Apr 2006 Posts: 1665 Location: chip van

So the sign says means nothing in the murky world of TEFL. I know a place that says it has schools in Toronto and London on its signs but it doesn't.

lunamoon · Joined: 28 Sep 2004 Posts: 13

surely the very existence of the above 'sentence' in that ad is worse than it being on a lamp post? and should've put you off n the first place? by the way, there's one on istiklal corrected by yours truely in a fit of pique..yes of course, very sad