Hello Everyone

First time here. I am looking at accepting a job offer from a school called 'Zurich International English School' located at Steinacherstrasse 140, 8722. The advertisement mentions a pay of 1600 euros a month.
I have some questions to ask. First, has anyone heard of this school? I have found a reference for another school with a name very similar to this one. Another question is, will 1600 euros a month sufficient for a single person in Zurich?
They are telling me about a private apartment located 1km away from the school. That is fine by me. But another concern is that they are asking for a refundable deposit upfront. They say it is to prove my sincerity of coming over and that I will get it back after arrival. Someone else thinks that this might be some type of scam.
One thing that was not included in the emails I have received was an actual phone number to call and no website as of yet. They tell me they have an office in Athens for some unknown reason. Any thoughts about this? Thanks everyone. This would be a nice opportunity for me to start teaching English.

Gerhard

Sounds fishy
When I taught ESL in another country this is what was offered
Buiness class plane ticket, round trip
Free Orientation
Subsidized housing
And a good salary
No one ever asked me for money
At the end of the year bonuses were given out

www.zis.ch is what is at the address.

What other information do you have from these people? I think we have the odd member from the international schools in the area....

The money that they are asking for up front is a reassurance to them that I am serious about the job with them. They explained that other schools have had teachers back out at the last minute and the school was stuck for the bills in regards to the visas and other paperwork.
The email says that they will send an invitation letter, other necessary documents and an air ticket. But that the money I send them for the reassuarance, I will get back after I arrive.

Thanks all

I called the Zurich International School on the morning of the 23rd of February. They told me that the school known as Zurich International English School does not exist. So I will not be working in Switzerland as hoped for, for the time being. I just hope the others that have applied to this fictious school did not send any money as of yet and that they have done there homework in this.

Thanks to Mark's wizardry at getting this site picked up on Google searches anyone looking for info on the school should find this tread .

Hi Gerhard,

I guess you know by now that this is a scam. General rule of thumb for scams: If anyone wants money up front to prove anything - walk away!

An employer asking for money from an employee is even more unusual! The part about people saying they will turn up and don't is pretty plausible - but that's the way these scams usually work - there is always an element that seems to "make sense".

Did they give you bank account details to send them the money? Might be a way to catch them?

P.S. That salary would have been rubbish anyway, even if it were real.

Hi,

I just wanted to say thank you for posting this thread because I too was looking to take this job in Zurich, but it looked fishy to me as well. There were just too many unanswered questions...and the employment contract looked really shady. So I guess I will not be working in Switzerland anytime soon.

Well it will now that I've changed the subject of this thread from the rather non-descript "schools".

To other people that have found this thread after wondering if this is a scam - please post more details (like how about even a link to the original ad) so that maybe the scammers can be brought to justice?

Hello again,

I found this add on various websites....esljobfeed.com, tefl.com, eslemployment.com are the ones that I can remember off hand. Gerhard, are you at all concerned that they have alot of your personal info? They requested copies of various documents and I am not sure what they are planning to do with them. Perhaps they simply wanted to look as legitimate as possible.

The big alarm bell is also a salary quoted in Euros....do any legit Swiss companies pay employees located in Switzerland anything other than CHF?

Thank you for your input. The school they were calling is 'Zurich International English School' apparently located at Steinacherstrasse 140, 8722. That is why I came to this site to find someone who is nearby that could have checked into this for me. But i called the Zurich International School and they told me that this school did not exist.
The other thing was them stating that they were up and running since Sept. 2002 and their website would be operational in June 2007. Then stating they had an office in Athens, Greece also made this seem more like a scam. Fortunately I never sent them any money or gave them my bank account info.

And here's an entry for the Zurich International English School in NZ:
http://www.bestjobs.co.nz/bt-empd-gutengr.htm

and Ireland:
http://www.bestjobs.ie/bt-jobd-gutengr-0.htm

Their email address is a yahoo one, their address:

Steinacherstrasse 140,8722
Zurich
(The writer has a problem with the space bar)

This Steinacherstrasse does not exist in Zurich. (see http://map.search.ch/zuerich/steinacherstr.?poi=-)

8722 is the postcode for Kalbrunn in St Gallen...

Hi Gerhard, thank you thank you thank you! I'm in Japan and also got offered this job. Of course I had my doubts and asked "Louisa" for some e-mail addresses for the other teachers to ask them their experiences. She told me if I had any doubts about the school, I should just forget about the job offer. I knew it had to be too good to be true. thanks again, Donna.

Hi thank you thank you thank you for the info. I'm in Japan and was also offered the Job at this "school". I was worried about it and asked Louisa if I could contact some of the teachers there to ask questions. She said if I had any doubts about the legitimacy of the school, I could forget about the job offer. How stupid can you be. I was also wondering about the euros. I asked about it and she said they pay the salary in euros but if i wanted Swiss francs, I could be paid in francs. thanks again, Donna.

Kind of.

A very large food company based in French speaking Switzerland offers some IT contracts in Euros, although this was via a UK agency...

Thanks AbFab for posting an actual link to one of the ads. It always disappoints me when I see people being sucked into a scam. It looks like this thread has been useful for a few people to avoid getting caught. But what can we do? Plenty!

I've sent an email to the website which AdFab linked informing them of the scam and telling them to check this thread. I expect they will pull the ad. I've also sent an email to Yahoo informing them that I think one of their email addresses is being used in a scam.

What can you do? If you've found this ad on a website, inform the people who run the website that you believe it is a scam, and link them back to this thread for further information. Your efforts may take less than 60 seconds and help to deprive the scammer of victims.

Have you got an email from the scammer? Check the headers of the email, it usually reveals a path and IP addresses of where the message may have come from. As long as they haven't used a web-based email client their IP address might be in the headers, which will at least tell us which country the scammer is operating from. If you have a copy of the headers, post them into this thread.

If you've almost been stung, don't just sit around and let other people get stung - you CAN help to do something!

hello everyone! thanks so much for posting an info about this Zurich International School....

Thanks so much gherard for the info about ZIES....I'm still lucky because I searched and read about this forum...I can't imagine myself after paying 600 Euro fo nothing!!! Actually, the money that I am supposed to use for paying is only a credit...Thank God!!!

I want to ask something and I hope I can receive any response from anyone here about the employment in Switzerland. I really want to go to Switzerland to teach English especially for children, though I'm not a native speaker of English, our second language here in the Philippines is English and I have lots of experience in teaching English for the Children around Asia.
Can anybody help me to give me some info on what school can I apply as a teacher. PLease!! please response!!!Thank you so much!!!

You can send me e-mail...

>>>>Thanks to Mark's wizardry at getting this site picked up on Google >>>>searches anyone looking for info on the school should find this tread

Thanks a lot Gerhard for creating this thread. Found the job ad on a site targetting Filipino recruits. Warning bells came up, when I couldn't find other info about the school. ....I do have to admit, that I sent an application and belatedly discovered this thread.

I agree with Administrator, any ad that asks for money upfront should make one think twice.