Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[suzieQ]

This is for all you FEMALES out there just itching to go teach English in Japan. There is one company for sure out there that takes extreme advantage of girls, and that would be USCOM. Mr. Sugita owns and runs the company, but there is one American that works directly under Mr. Sugita named Morgan Jones. He basically takes over for Mr. Sugita, and tells everyone what to do. He thinks he is a THUG, and takes complete advantage of girls working for him. Morgan has a Japanese girlfriend, but that doesnt matter, because he is a complete dog. He preys on girls that dont know anything about Japan, he shows off his Japanese to impress these girls, then makes moves on them both mentally and physically. Girls that are lonely and vulnerable get preyed on by this pervert. Oh, and not to mention that not only does he take advantage of you, but the fact that the company takes advantage of you every chance they get. They are a manipulative, lying company. I was told they would pay half my plane ticket, and when I was ready to go back home, they denied everything, and said that they wont be paying me for my plane ticket. I was so choked, but there really wasnt anything I could do. I couldnt speak Japanese very well, so who was I going to complain to?

I also know for a fact that one other teacher was taken advantage of by Morgan, and that really bothers both of us. Mostly due to the fact that Morgan tried desperately to keep us as far away from eachother as possible to start with so that she and I wouldnt ever get to know eachother, and be able to "bond" but unfortunately for Morgan, we did anyway, and we think that started to worry Morgan, because slowly we started revealing our secrets to eachother. Our situations were so similar, and it scared us, because we worried how many other girls he did this to.

GIRLS--------PLEASE BE AWARE OF THIS COMPANY AND OF MORGAN!!!

This is a terrible company to work for. They stick you in butt-f*ck nowhere, with no contact with the outside world, and you are lucky if they are nice enough to remember you once in awhile, to make a phone call, but usually not. Even if you are scheduled for a private lesson (through the company) and your student doesnt show up, they arent even respectful enough to call you and tell you that your student isnt going to show up, so you are sitting there....waiting, when you could be at home, or elsewhere.

They like to make you travel. There were days when I was working no less than 14 hours a day, and that isnt including the 1.5 hours each way for travel time.

PLEASE BE AWARE OF THIS COMPANY. THIS IS NOT A COMPANY YOU WANT TO WORK FOR. THEY ARE VERY MANIPULATIVE, AND THEY PREY ON PEOPLE THAT REALLY WANT TO GO TO JAPAN AND TEACH.

They screwed so many teachers out of their pay one way or the other. If it wasnt for the extreme phone bills they were charging us, it was the extravagant rent in butt-f*ck no where, and it was the school lunches. I know that there is one teacher that works for this company that has never paid for a school lunch ever, and some of us got charged an unspeakable amount.

They also screw you out of your pay. They will tell you they will pay you one amount, and that you will have so many hours to work. What a lie. I was working so much for SO LITTLE. The average ALT makes 250 000, I was making 220,000 yen and was working a minimum of 10 hours a day (NOT INCLUDING TRAVEL TIME)

I know I have rambled on and on about this, but I really need to get my point across to all of you thinking about working over there. PLEASE BE CAREFUL, and STAY AWAY FROM USCOM.
If anyone has any comments to add to this, by all means, please do. I know there are many of you out there that have shared the same experiences with USCOM. In the year I was with the company, more than 8 teachers quit this terrible company.

[asterix]

You should contact the US embassy in Tokyo. They are able to help you and at least have someone who will contact the Japanese police, if fraud is involved.

[Bob S.]

I hope you were sure to post this on the "teachers'" section, plus the "Let's Japan" site at http://www.letsjapan.org/. Yeah, there are a lot of scumbags out there running some eikaiwas. I've heard a few horror stories about some eikaiwa owners treating their female foreign teachers like hostess club sex workers. There are better schools out there where you get paid what you are owed.

[suzieQ]

Hey guys,

Thanks for your support----its nice to know that people actually care about whats going on in these foreign countries to respond to my extremely long letter.

I didnt post in the teachers section---where is it, and how do I get to it? Im new to this whole Daves ESL thing.

I do know that my girlfriend that is still living in Japan went through the same problems with this creep, and it really upsets me to find out they hired more girls after I left. I just worry that Morgan will use them and take advantage of them like he did to us.

[Bob S.]

[Blue Ocean 1]

Hey SuzieQ!!!
Do you remember me??? I'm an ex-USCOM employee that trained with you when you joined USCOM and YES, I also quit. I just could not deal with the lies and law breaking. Everything that you mentioned about USCOM deliberately trying to keep their employees apart is VERY true. To be honest, I had no idea that 8 other employees quit and that you had so MUCH trouble with Morgan Jones. As you mentioned, he is truly a thug. While I was in the process of quitting USCOM Morgan made a threat to me saying that he would report me to the Education Board and that I would never find a job again. What a joke! That is what inspired me to take action against USCOM with the Labor Bureau. I fought and I WON. I was able to get full compensation for every yen that USCOM had ripped off of me. I was very fortunate in that I had documented every single injustice that had occurred since the very first day that I worked at USCOM.

The first thing that the Labor Bureau did was check to see if USCOM was registered with them and if they were actually a legit company, but the bureau found NO records at all for the company USCOM.

Next, the bureau looked at all my evidence and documentations and found that USCOM had broken the law in the following areas:

1. No contract and YES, it is TOTALLY ILLEGAL to have only an oral contract. It must be written.

2. Apartment: Let me start out with what happened just before I moved to USCOM�s apartment�. The problems started when USCOM would not tell me the move date. Since I already had been living in Japan for over the past 5 years, I had acquired many belongings and needed to plan properly for a move. But, USCOM would not tell me the move date. Finally, USCOM decided to tell me the day before my very first day of work for them!!! It gets even better, they told me that I could start moving in at 5 pm!!!! Remind you, I HAD A LOT OF STUFF, (2,000lbs worth) and USCOM knew this. It was beyond ridiculous to make such a BIG move in such a short amount of time. Anyway, the story goes, by the time I got to USCOM�s apartment, it was already past 8 p.m. and it was dark. Could things get much worse??? YES, it did!!! Mr. Sugita (the owner of USCOM) gave me the key and had the nerve to say, be in bed by 9p.m. Next, to make things worse, the apartment had NO lights. I was stuck doing the entire move in the dark. By the time I got all of my belongings out of the moving truck it was close to 3am. I had to get up for work by 6am. What a wonderful start, eh? Who treats their new employees like that?
The following info is what the Labor Bureau wanted to know about:
USCOM set me up in the over-expensive apartment that was in the countryside and over 40 minutes walking to the train station. When I got to the apartment, it had not been cleaned from the last USCOM employee that had apparently lived there. The bathroom walls were filthy, black, and just reeked of mildew. Garbage was scattered all over the floors. Dirty dishes were left in the sink. There were holes in the closet doors. The apartment was in such a bad location that any type of cellular phone was not able to receive or make outgoing calls. This is not the type of apartment that I would ever sign my name to on a contract. The rent was just outrageous and after 5 years of living in Japan, I knew that there was NO WAY in heck that it cost that much. Indeed, I checked up with the realtor and found that USCOM was over-charging.

3. Transportation: USCOM had me drive, with my OWN car, to and from the schools that I worked at. Mind you, these schools were FAR from the apartment that USCOM put me in. Sometimes, I would be driving over 60km in one day. USCOM had told me that they PAID for ALL transportation fees. This was one of their lies. When payday came along I would only get paid half of the cost of gas. The other half of the money I had to take from my own pocket. It was nuts. Thankfully, on a daily basis, I would write down every kilometer that I drove and kept the gas receipts. The Labor Bureau loved this.

4. Lunches: Upon hiring me, USCOM informed me that lunches were covered. This was another outlandish lie. They NEVER paid for one of them. When I asked them about it, they denied it.

5. Sick Days: ZERO. USCOM gives you none. This is absolutely AGAINST the law. In the 7 months that I worked at USCOM, I got sick one time and called in the night before to tell Mr. Sugita and Morgan. They informed me that I would have to come in and work on the weekend to make up the sick day. Totally illegal. Again, the Labor Bureau loved it.

6. No Health Insurance: That just speaks for itself.

For now, these are the laws that USCOM broke and I reported to the Labor Bureau. There were probably more but I would have to go back and get out all of the paperwork to be for sure.

YES�. complaining to the Labor Bureau does work. But, I�m telling you now; they DON�T speak a lick of English this includes their translator. So if you or anybody else ever wants to go up against USCOM or any other corrupt companies, you had better bring a Japanese friend to do your translating. Also, BE SURE to have everything documented. Documentation and evidence will do you a world of good. I made it a point NOT to quit USCOM until I was sure that I had all of the documentation, etc� that I needed to win at the Labor Bureau. If I would have quit before that, I might not have been able to do much. You MUST get everything together and prepared before making the trip to the Labor Bureau.

I know that this has to be one of the most long, drawn out posts ever, but I just want all teachers to be aware of what USCOM did.

[Blue Ocean 1]

By the way, for all those who want to know, USCOM is now going under a new company name "Lil kids". They currently have job advertisements on www.Gaijinpot.com for ALT jobs in Hachioji and Iruma. My advice, be very carefull and don't apply for them. You will end up broke.