Reporting illegal schools/teachers to the authorities

Work Teaching English in Taiwan
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[color=#0000FF]Mod’s note: Older thread here: http://tw.forumosa.com/t/ratting-out-other-foreigners/57169/1[/color]

When I was in Taichung in June I crossed two foreigners (one french, one older american) in a bar and we discussed about this kind of issues.
They mentioned they make about 50-150K Taiwan Dollar per months by reporting illegal kindergarten and teachers, pretty much bragging about it, showing photos of arrests and raids. They also mentioned reporting foreigners gets them faster money.
One of them used to be an illegal teacher and was kicked out by his illegal school, then turned against them after coming back legally. The american guy was pretty proud about it, seeing himself as a “bounty hunter” and he said in English speaking countries its normal that the citizens have to uphold the law (they even have citizen arrests and such). In Switzerland (where I’m from), you won’t see a penny for reporting someone.
I’m moving to Taiwan in January, its likely I’ll just report some schools and teachers I see to them and ask for 50%. Its easy money. Although I will be in Taipei.

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Ha, the dude wants to make money turning in illegal teachers. All good and well until a corrupt official lets his gangster school owning mate know about the the grasser and the gangster and his mates turn up with the baseball bats and tire irons. Ha ha! He looks like an importer of Julian from trailer park boys!

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I’m here. He doesn’t have to address me in third person or insult me. :loco:
well, I understand your fear of running into such “gangsters”.
If you feel like this you can tell me the school you want to have checked by PM.
Of course I’m protecting myself to some extend. Quite sad that you fear those people.
Every job comes with a risk.

4

To the guy who wants to report teachers for cash, there are a few problems:

  1. Nobody cares, this ain’t the west. How many policemen want to bust the kindy their kid attends?
  2. Anybody who does care will hate you because you are a foreigner.
  3. Will you even be paid?
  4. Who are you going to report them too?
  5. Secretaries will slow them down long enough for them to hide or flee.

You report the illegal worker, the agency contacts the local police, the local police find nothing, and now everyone has your info.

I believe they were lying to you in the bar.

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I will try to help with your questions. Whenever you need more information, talk to C. and S. [Edit: shorten out names] in Taichung.

[quote=“Okami”]To the guy who wants to report teachers for cash, there are a few problems:

  1. Nobody cares, this ain’t the west. How many policemen want to bust the kindy their kid attends?
    [/quote]Who knows whatever the workflow at the CLA is?

[quote=“Okami”]
2. Anybody who does care will hate you because you are a foreigner.
[/quote] They are using their Taiwanese girlfriends/wives to write the reports (its all in Chinese after all).
They didn’t look like people you want to hate.

[quote=“Okami”]
3. Will you even be paid?
[/quote] For every success case its within a month. Doesn’t mean someone got deported, that’s the job of the NIA not CLA. Taiwan is known to pay fast for such “rewards”. There’s people earning money with reporting illegal parking/smoking/litering also.

[quote=“Okami”]
4. Who are you going to report them too?
[/quote] “Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training” which reports to the CLA provides the form:
evta.gov.tw/files/11/impeach.doc

[quote=“Okami”]
I believe they were lying to you in the bar.[/quote]
Doubt it. Besides rewards are increasing: taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/ … 2003502376
If its foreigner+teacher the reward is higher of course. Anyways its not just illegal teachers, but white illegal teachers are the easiest to spot.

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Btw, the newspaper report refers to illegal industrial workers. Teachers are white collar. Maybe the illegal teachers could make cash teaching English in Switzerland. Seems the current system does not seem up to scratch.

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All this gangsta gangsta talk is reminiscent of foreigner lore spun in foreigner bars by people who don’t know the language, culture or anything about this place. Nonsense.

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All this gangsta gangsta talk is reminiscent of foreigner lore spun in foreigner bars by people who don’t know the language, culture or anything about this place. Nonsense.[/quote]

My apologies. By gangsters, I mean the upstanding citizens the school owner will hire, after the gov official in his pocket actually earns his red envelope, by telling him the details of the turd that reported him.[/quote]

Oh, please. Go tell the newbies all about it at the bar.

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All this gangsta gangsta talk is reminiscent of foreigner lore spun in foreigner bars by people who don’t know the language, culture or anything about this place. Nonsense.[/quote]

My apologies. By gangsters, I mean the upstanding citizens the school owner will hire, after the gov official in his pocket actually earns his red envelope, by telling him the details of the turd that reported him.[/quote]

Oh, please. Go tell the newbies all about it at the bar.[/quote]

Don’t go to bars.

Are you questioning the corruption? This I have seen first hand when the kindy director tells us “Don’t come to school first period next Friday. There will be a Gov inspection”, or the fact that many schools are owned by very dodgy characters indeed?

BTW, I do agree with the fact that this is the first interesting post for a long time. Better then the prices of fake Gucci bags at the night market.

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[quote=“bigduke6”]

Are you questioning the corruption? [/quote]

I’m questioning your knowledge.

11

I hope you manage to get a permit for this kind of work. I wouldn’t want you to get deported for working or volounteering illegally. :roflmao:

While not all of them violent, there is a massive mafia presence in Taiwan and strings are pulled behind the scenes to create positive or, or at least mutually beneficial terms for those with the most power at hand. Sometimes it spills out into violence. Living in a bubble does not mean gangsterism doesn’t happen - it does.

12

If you believe in foreigners having paid jobs for selling out other foreigners :unamused: , I have a bridge on the moon I would like to sell you.

1 Like
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Like the kindy kids I teach, I believe in fairy tales too.

Sorry gotta rush off to kindy now. Have a nice day.

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[quote=“Toasty”][quote=“bigduke6”]

Are you questioning the corruption? [/quote]

I’m questioning your knowledge.[/quote]

Knowledge of what? The corruption or the fact that not all school owners are the Sunday school type?

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[quote=“jkipp”][color=#0000FF]Mod’s note: Older thread here: http://tw.forumosa.com/t/ratting-out-other-foreigners/57169/1[/color]

When I was in Taichung in June I crossed two foreigners (one french, one older American) in a bar and we discussed about this kind of issues.
They mentioned they make about 50-150K Taiwan Dollar per months by reporting illegal kindergarten and teachers, pretty much bragging about it, showing photos of arrests and raids. They also mentioned reporting foreigners gets them faster money.
One of them used to be an illegal teacher and was kicked out by his illegal school, then turned against them after coming back legally. The American guy was pretty proud about it, seeing himself as a “bounty hunter” and he said in English speaking countries its normal that the citizens have to uphold the law (they even have citizen arrests and such). In Switzerland (where I’m from), you won’t see a penny for reporting someone.
I’m moving to Taiwan in January, its likely I’ll just report some schools and teachers I see to them and ask for 50%. Its easy money. Although I will be in Taipei.[/quote]

Good luck, but I think you will have more success making money just snapping pictures of cars running red lights and reporting them. There’s a reward for that too, Dog.

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Been here a long time, eh? :laughing:

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[quote=“Deuce Dropper”][quote=“jkipp”][i][color=#0000FF]Mod’s note: Older thread here: [Ratting out other foreigners

When I was in Taichung in June I crossed two foreigners (one french, one older American) in a bar and we discussed about this kind of issues.
They mentioned they make about 50-150K Taiwan Dollar per months by reporting illegal kindergarten and teachers, pretty much bragging about it, showing photos of arrests and raids. They also mentioned reporting foreigners gets them faster money. [/quote]

I highly doubt they ever made 150K, or 50K for that matter in a month, sounds like they are full of shit.

[quote=“jkipp”]
One of them used to be an illegal teacher and was kicked out by his illegal school, then turned against them after coming back legally. The American guy was pretty proud about it, seeing himself as a “bounty hunter” and he said in English speaking countries its normal that the citizens have to uphold the law (they even have citizen arrests and such). [/quote]

Uphold the law? STFU with that shit, I’d have laughed in their fucking faces. They sound like straight up losers.

[quote=“jkipp”]
I’m moving to Taiwan in January, its likely I’ll just report some schools and teachers I see to them and ask for 50%. Its easy money. Although I will be in Taipei.[/quote]

Its more likely you wont make a cent. Hopefully someone will hurt you (Mod: I am not threatening violence, more or less just HOPING something bad happens to this person who is so keen to live a life so shameful, so save the PMs and the banning please. Thanks… And BTW this is not me being rude, dismissive or whatever to a Mod, just a bit of friendly banter.).

***this whole ‘its ok to rat out foreigners because I think they aren’t playing by the rules’ thing is completely bogus. how people earn their money is none of your fuckin business as long as it doesn’t affect your day to day life. And spare me the ‘it reflects poorly on all foreigners’ BS please because if you cannot carve out an identity for yourself independent of every other cracker on this island then you deserve the shit reputation you think others are bestowing upon you with their hustle. I got a lot of friends who teach and a lot of them do extra ‘illegal’ classes to make extra dough. And you think it is high and righteous to shit on these people and profit from them by ratting them out? Fucking pathetic!

People like that are truly scum of the Earth and not real men/women. And these two from Taichung with their fictional tales (the Frog and the Seppo) need a good size 12 in the arse and if what is said about them is true, I hope they end up on the receiving end of a tire iron, wielded by a few orange haired taikes who just jumped out of a black Beamer.

‘Snitches get stitches’ - I really hope the old axiom still holds true.[/quote]

:bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo: :bravo:

The OP failed to realize that there are bigger criminals in America than Taiwan: i.e. Bernanke and Co.

Follow the money just because some random dudes at the bar (probably half drunk) tell you that it’s easy money. Wow, how intuitive.

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This is the thing. Modelling himself on some kind of fictional bounty hunter. Fantasies in fairytale land turning into obsession.
If you were really up to the job, you wouldn’t be broadcasting it here on a public forum - to the very audience you are working against, and if someone did out your ‘line of work’, you’d be doing your best to muddy the waters and create some kind of distraction. So as it stands at the moment, you’re not a very good bounty hunter.

As for working illegally? Many ARC schools don’t give the teacher the full compliment of hours shown on the contract anyway, which is illegal. Often the teacher is then forced out of necessity to find a second job illegally, sometimes at a kindergarten.
As for breaking the law? The whole system is geared towards illegal labour and it is enabled to the extent now that if all illegal workers in Taiwan were suddenly rounded up, the whole place would unravel. Add to that the amount of Taiwanese people who work illegally and don’t report taxes, and suddenly, if the letter of the law was followed, you’d find half the population in jail or fined, which of course would be an unworkable situation.
A lot of foreigners like to quote the lines when in Rome… Well, many of the foreigners here are doing just as the Romans.
Now, I don’t like a law breaker as much as the next person. But I myself don’t have a respect for the law - I have a respect for the people who follow it. Why should I do something that most people can’t do because they follow the law?
However, in regards to working illegally in Taiwan - I would say that it is a minority who actually follow the regulations. Factories, families, schools - even government institutions are more than happy to employ foreign workers illegally - it is top-down enablement which facilitates the existence of illegal foreign labour.

There are people here who have families but for some reason can’t or don’t want to marry. There are unmarried fathers and mothers. Long term boyfriends and girlfriends. Property. Pets. Friends.
If a person gets deported for whatever reason and has to leave behind a whole life - a person who may supporting a family or friends - it doesn’t just affect the person who is being deported, it affects a whole range of people.
You’re ruining other people’s lives - not because you hold some valued principle or because you are upholding the law, but because you want to gain on another person’s loss. A few thousand NT for wrecking people’s lives? That’s lower than a snake’s belly, my friend.
Yes, you could argue that it is the fault of the illegal worker, but then again I draw your attention to the system of enablement. It is a risk to work illegally, and I agree that it shouldn’t be done, but there are two sides at work here - the illegal worker and the employer. In Taiwan, it is difficult for one to exist without the other.

There are approximately 31000 foreign illegal teachers in Taiwan?
I doubt it.
Try multiplying that a few times. Count all the teachers that make cash on the side through private teaching, editing, performances, art and volounteering, and you’ll find the number is much higher. I struggle to accept that there are any people here who have complained on this board about illegal employment, yet haven’t made a bit of cash on the side at one time or another, and if this is the case, they have no room to comment on the activities of other people who have worked illegally.

Finally, take a look at most western countries and the huge problems they face with illegal migrant workers. For any given country, you can add a zero to that measly 31000 figure before you even begin counting.
I’d like to see your chances of survival if you were of Chinese descent, working in a foreign country and tried this trick in say, LA or the UK. You’d get found out and lynched, and before you could figure out what’s going on, the concrete blocks would be pulling your lifeless body into the sediment, where you’d spend the rest of your material existence next to a sunken abandoned shopping cart.

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[quote=“bigduke6”][quote=“Toasty”][quote=“bigduke6”]

Are you questioning the corruption? [/quote]

I’m questioning your knowledge.[/quote]

Knowledge of what? The corruption or the fact that not all school owners are the Sunday school type?[/quote]

“Knowledge of what?” would be the correct phrase. You don’t display any. The closest you come to anything resembling it is your observation of a kindy having advanced notice of an inspection-- which is perfectly normal procedure. An inspection is not a raid. They’re done to check things like fire escapes, safety and other things. They are routinely announced and do not indicate that the owner has any shady contacts in high places. Yes, illegal foreign teachers are routinely asked not to be around at such times. Why invite trouble? As for the “Sunday school type,” English schools and kindergartens are small to medium-sized businesses operated by average Joes and Janes. Some are super nice, some aren’t-- just like the rest of society. Now, if you have any concrete knowledge to share, please do. If not, off to the pub with you and your tall tales.

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[quote=“Super Hans”]

While not all of them violent, there is a massive mafia presence in Taiwan and strings are pulled behind the scenes to create positive or, or at least mutually beneficial terms for those with the most power at hand. Sometimes it spills out into violence. Living in a bubble does not mean gangsterism doesn’t happen - it does.[/quote]

Thanks for arguing that the leaves are on the tree. I’ve lived here a long time. There are mafias here as elsewhere. However, they do not get involved with foreigners and small-time English schools. Foreigners who talk about gangs and gangsters as if they know anything about either are blowing smoke out their arses 100% of the time. The only people living in bubbles are the noob expats hanging our together and spinning tales about gangstas.