Finally someone outed ESLInsider.com and MYTEFL as a fraud

[Atlas]

I thought I was the only one, but four years later I found out I am not. Just when I was about to delete this guy Ian from my memory I see he is finally being outed for the smooth-talking con artist he really is. https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLBlacklist/post/ ... y-tefl-and But, he did teach me something valuable that has kept me from getting cheated again... Believe nothing coming from somebody who wants to sell me something and investigate everything yourself before parting with my money! As my dad would say, "Caveat Emptor" (Latin for "Buyer Beware') From now on I use these investigation tools and check with SAFEA and SAIC for anything i do in China that requires me to spend money! https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaTeachers/ ... the_tools/. Happy Holidays everyone!

[Cricket]

I just found out about this dude when my BFF sent me this link of blacklisted websites who takes ads from anyone willing to pay the money https://media.makeameme.org/created/cafd6daa3f.jpg There were a few surprises on this list, but about 2 years ago I stopped using agents after hearing so many horror stories. I now use the direct employers list the CFTU puts out every year as a Christmas gift. Its all free and a DIY thing. If you're not lazy you may want to try the same https://reddit.com/r/cftu.But I thought this list of websites would save you all a bunch of grief so keep it handy and MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[E-insider]

This is more fake TEFL news. This is what he does. He attacks other people and brands and then promotes his stuff. He uses multiple usernames and has endless fake id's on the internet.

But you won't find any of these linking to a real person.

It's all fake.

The above two posts were written by the same person. He's always linking to his stuff on other sites.

Most likely this is Neville David Thomas who runs "trusted" tefl reviews and tefl online pro and formally ITTP tefl and teflonlinereviews.com.

And what I have realized is that his stuff is all very similar to cftu, china scam patrol, eslwatch and all of those related sites.

What you will find on all these sites is:

Fake news, fake usernames, fake reviews, anonymous users, and he then comments and upvotes his own stuff, etc.

neville david thomas tefl scam

[Vagabond]

Every TEFL forum I have been visiting in the last 10 years has a handful of complaints about ESLinsider.com. Becauise of the warnings and negative reviews I always avoided them like the plague. My colleague however has said some very nasty things about being baited and switched on a job and then being forced to take his TEFL course in order to get a signed contract for that job. Even though he already had a TEFL certificate, he was told it was "outdated" and was required to take the MyTEFL course.

Besides that, I cannot see how one person would be attacking your company for almost 10 years for no reason. Here is where I found complaints against ESLinsider and MyTEFL;

https://reddit.com/r/teflscams

https://reddit.com/r/tefl_tips_traps_scams

https://eslwatch.info

https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLBlacklist

https://chinascampatrol.wordpress.com

https://eslemployment.com

https://reddit.com/r/chinascamcentral

https://reddit.com/r/tefljobs

https://eslbase.com

And there may be a lot more but I only need to see one or two warnings and that is enough for me. Maybe you should just retire from the industry with all the money you took from dumb and naive newbies. Blaming other people for your own cheating is lame imo. Btw, don't see others be accused - only your eslinsider.com and MyTEFL.com operation.

[E-insider]

You're the fraud and what a loser I must say. You have no guts to put your real name on anything you write. All you do is talk s*#! and make up lies about people. How many troll accounts do you have?

The user Vagabond, Cricket and Atlas above are all the same person.

Here's what you do...

All those sites you just linked to contain content written by you. Those are all sites you use you moron. You create multiple fake usernames, subreddits, forum posts and websites all linking to your stuff. You comment on your own posts with fake usernames and upvote your stuff when you can. It's your own little private blog network.

Your own little FAKE world of TEFL news.

CFTU, china scam patrol, eslwatch and all those related sites are yours.

Anybody who is a little bit intelligent can see that all your stuff looks alike.

This is what you are doing with your life buddy?

Are you proud of yourself?

How depressed are you?

How many med's are you on?

[Atlas]

Are you saying that you stopped selling fake university diplomas and TEFL certificates Ian? Have you stopped taking illegal slices of your client's paycheck's every month? China's labor law says you can only legally collect one month's pay for any placement you make IF in fact you have a business license from SAIC and a Tax ID number from the Ministry of Taxation. What is is SAIC business registration number Ian?

Have you stopped telling people you are "partners with the Ministry of Education" when they say they never even heard of you and have no unregistered partners. Mrs. Song and Crystal at the SAFEA HQ office in Bldg. 6 at the Friendship Hotel confirmed you are a "black market recruiter" that never even attempted to register with SAFEA (probably because you don't want to be regulated). And why is that you have no real street address anywhere in China where a customer or government investigator can come and pay you a visit? You have been outed on both reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaTeachers/ ... ercom_are/ and ruqqus: https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLBlacklist and every TEFL forum I know of. Stop the bullshit. Yeah I was stupid to believe you but I am not going to let you keep ripping of young people with a dream to teach in China. You are a public menace Ian.

Are you still using invitation letters from you pal who has that "technology" company and lying to foreigners that it is okay for them to work on a tourist or business, or even a student license, because as you told me "the chances of anyone checking your visa ar 1 in a thousand". In fact, our school got raided twice in 3 years by the PSB and 6 of us that YOU recruited got "detained" (arrested) and sat in a dumpy jail for a month before we got deported. Because of you my apartment was robbed while I sat in the detention center. That's the third time I was robbed because of you. The first time is when I found out you were collocating 25% of my pay every month and the second time is when you told me the 300 rmb being taken out of my paycheck every month by my school was for taxes. This school did not even have a taxpayer ID number according to the PSB and all those fake taxes collected were put into Principal Liu's pocket!

Look Ian, you made a bundle cheating people over the last decade. Why not retire before you cheat the wrong person who puts you in the hospital. Personally I'd rather see you behind bars where you belong.


P.S. Stop telling people how many "likes" you have on YouTube, Twitter, or Facebook. We all know that you can buy a 1,000 likes for $20! See here https://www.reviewsxp.com/blog/buy-facebook-likes/ and here https://instalikes.shop/buy-youtube-likes/ and here https://www.redsocial.net/buy-twitter-likes/ But you can't buy the truth can you Ian? That's why you have all your personal friends giving fake video testimonials for you like Roger, Danny, and Cindy. You are a real piece of shit Ian. And no, I don't give a rat's ass about your beef with that Mia girl, who is also a fraud imo.

[E-insider]

I saw a funny comment recently on echinacities about CTFU.

Why is it every time I see the capital letters CFTU, my mind wants to convert it to STFU. Coincidence?! I think not.

[Cricket]

The thing is, that we are talking about YOU and YOUR COMPANIES Mr. Leahy and it seems to me that you keep trying to blame other people for YOUR dishonesty. We are talking about apples and you want to talk about oranges, grapefruits, grapes, and plums! You have been asked over a dozen times to answer some simple questions that IMO are valid questions. Maybe if you answered them, people might cut you some more slack;

1. What is your SAIC business license number?

2. What is your SAFEA registration number?

3. What is your street address for your China office required by law?

4. Why have you been constantly accused of cheating people since 2014?

5. Why did you first blame Mia Williams, then the China Scam Patrol, and today the CFTU?

6. If you have nothing to hide why didn't you answer the letters from the Ministry of Education and SAFEA?

7. What is your Tax Bureau identification number in China that is required by law?

8. Why do you tell job applicants that they can work in China without a Z visa (work visa) which is against the law?

9. Why do you collect monthly fees that are 20% or more of the teacher's salary you place which is against the law?

10. How come the invitation letters you send to job applicants are not from their true employers?

BTW... The China Teachers Alliance (CTA) also blacklisted ESLinsider.com and My TEFL. https://www.docdroid.net/kRwv0oN/ctablacklist2020-pdf Will you also blame them too? What about all the people at Reddit and ESLCafe that trashed you as well? Here is just one of many examples: https://www.reddit.com/r/tefljobs/comme ... knowingly/. Are they all out tog get you too? You seem to appear in every TEFL forum around the world with the words "Warning" or "Scam" attached like this one. https://www.reddit.com/r/JobsInChina/co ... _and_tefl/ You can make all the comments you want about the crazy conspiracies of others that you allege are out to get you, but I personally know three foreign English teachers that got placed in crappy jobs by you with illegal visas and then got arrested and deported. I am trying to find them now so I can send them this link. Since you mentioned echinacities who you pay to advertise for you, people need to be warned about their bad habits of taking money from anyone willing to pay for ad space - even known identity thieves. See here how they were caught red-handed. .. https://chinascamwatch.wordpress.com.

As you know, many foreign English teachers deported from China in 2018 blame you for their arrest because you brought them to China to work without correct visa and gave them phony documents. This 2 minute video explains what happened from their point of view https://www.reddit.com/r/ChinaScamCentr ... _deported/ Do you still do this. But for now, please be up-front and answer the above questions.Thanks for your cooperation Mr. Leahy I will be waiting to see your answers to the above 10 questions and if you can give us some honest answers I will be the first to apologize IF i am wrong about you.

[E-insider]

I don't live in China.

I also don't use Facebook and there aren't any video testimonials for ESLinsider. So perhaps you have confused me with someone else.

And as I said above china scam patrol and CTFU are the same person which is, you along with all your other fake names here like "Atlas", "Cricket" and "Vagabond". Just about every link you left here is to a page you wrote with one of your other fake TEFL identities.

[Vagabond]

Man, I just came back here looking for the answers to those 10 questions (sigh). I don't really have a dog in this fight, but I hate seeing young people get ripped off. So I grabbed me a bag of popcorn and came back for more drama here. I have some observations that I would not bother to share if Mr. Leahy bothered to just answer the 10 question. But since that ain't happening, here is what I can share...

A) Yes, you don't live in China now, you live in Japan. But you lived in China before you moved to Japan so your word play does not work here sir.

B) You originally blamed a "Mia Williams" as the sole source of your reputation problems. Only when other users chimed in with old "Fraud Warning" posts from 2013, 2015, and 2017 did you change your tune and start blaming the China Scam Patrol and CFTU! But frankly, the China Scam Patrol only mentioned your companies once back in 2015 and there is NOTHING on the CFTU blog, or their subs at Reddit and Ruqqus about you, only their annual blacklist with over a hundred other cheaters. So why do you blame them NOW Mr. Leahy? It seems they forgot about you. Should I remind them that you are back in the news again?

C) You used to have a FACEBOOK account and were booted off for spamming everyone every day for weeks on end. So once again you now conveniently speak "the truth" because TODAY you in fact no longer have a FACEBOOK account.

Because I put your name into my RSS feed two weeks ago, I have been getting a lot of stuff about you including this amusing website that explains your wonderful "reviews" that are all-self created from what I can see. Man you must live on your keyboard all day pumping out the spam. http://eslinsiderreviews.com/spam And this tidbit arrived today on Reddit... I cut and pasted it verbatim Mr. Leahy. Did you really think all of the people you cheated over the years would just forget about you?


"To be brief... I lost my job as a travel agent because of COVID so I decided to go teach in Korea or Japan and started answer job ads online. I was warned to stay away from foreign job agents, so ended up talking to U.K. recruiter named Ian who told me he would guarantee me a job teaching in Japan that would pay me $4,500 a month, but since I have no degree or teaching experience, he said I had to take his $439 TEFL course in order to get the job. I only had $3,000 left in my savings and would need air fare and some money for rent. But he told me not to worry because he would get me a free furnished apartment.

It sounded great and took his online course but five days before I was supposed to leave he told me to switch my ticket for Seoul, Korea because the Japanese employer, hired someone already in Japan at the last minute. Now he was going to send me to a "Hagwon" in Korea that only paid $3,000 a month! When I got to Korea, there was no apartment for me as promised and quickly had to find one and had to use my credit card to take out $2,500 to move into a single bedroom apt. with all the water, electric, internet, security deposits, etc.

The principal was a nice lady who then told me I would start teaching on a probationary basis for the first 3 months and during this period I was an intern working at half salary which is NOT what my contract said. I protested and she told me If I didn't like it I should go look for another job! I called Ian, who said he would "look into it" and call me back. Not only did he not call me back, but he blocked my number! Another teacher then told me I should go apply for work at one of the chain schools, but when I went to one they demanded to see my original degree and when I showed them the one that Ian sold me for $500 they asked me for a copy of my transcripts which I did not have obviously and when they asked how I was sponsored to come to Korea and when I told them ESLinsider, she laughed and told me I wasted my money and only the black schools would hire me to tutor by the hour for $20 an hour. She said every principal in Seoul knew Ian and anyone he referred was used only for split-shift. part-time work that no other "real teacher" would take.

Long story short, I called my father who sent me money to come home. This was five months ago. Yesterday I got a visit from a local police detective who wanted to see my passport. When I showed it to him, he told me to get a lawyer because I was going to be charged with credit card fraud in a few days when some documents arrived from the Seoul police! When I told him my story, he believed me and said someone (probably Ian or one of his buddies) used all my information from my application and passport and resume to get a credit card in my name and then went and bought $8,945 of merchandise in Seoul, Osaka, and Tokyo! I have never set foot in Japan in my life and that is why the detective helped me avoid be arrested. But now my credit is fucked up and I was told by my dad's lawyer that it will take about a year to get it all cleared up. He referred me to another lawyer who is charging me $1,500 to restore my good credit. And now, thanks to Ian I am dead broke and forced to teach on-line 12 hours a day to stay afloat with a roof over my head. If not for my 68 year-old father I would be homeless right now."

[Cricket]

I agree that Ian should just answer the 10 questions already so we can put this matter to bed already. How about it Ian, nobody is asking you for top secret info or even your GF's telephone number, just some really basic info. You have been asked for this info three times already over the last two months. Why do you just ignore people asking for some honest answers?

[John V55]

And this thread shows why people need to be careful not to get involved with the shady private teaching sector. Some recruiters will be good and some private schools will be good, but getting involved with a for profit recruiter recruiting for a for profit private school is like walking into a minefield with your fingers crossed!

[Atlas]

You're absolutely right John. And the problem is compounded by scammers that have many alias companies, use many names or Chinglish names so the new job applicants have no clue they are talking with veteran vultures of the TEFL job market. Here is a photo I found of Ian who I guess he did not want taken! https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLScams/post/787f ... mmed-alive

[John V55]

You're absolutely right John. And the problem is compounded by scammers that have many alias companies, use many names or Chinglish names so the new job applicants have no clue they are talking with veteran vultures of the TEFL job market. Here is a photo I found of Ian who I guess he did not want taken! https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLScams/post/787f ... mmed-alive

I wouldn’t want to get involved with the in-fighting between private TEFL industry link farm spammers that have recently surfaced again. As for the link you gave, I couldn’t help but laugh at the part where he asked for his money back. :lol:

‘… and was taken directly to a jail way out in the boonies where I met about 60 other foreigners with similar problems, including two guys that had also used Ian and were offered the very same $3,800 job in Shanghai that came with 10% pay raises every six months!!!’

If there are so many stupid foreigners in China no wonder there’s a whole industry based around scams! :roll:

[Cricket]

I am still hoping that the owner of ESLinsider will step up and just answer the 10 questions people have been asking him. Nothing more or less. As a veteran tefl teacher I personally use this checklist which only has 7 questions and since I started using it, I never got scammed again. Yeah, I too was robbed as a newbie and looking back I can now laugh at how dumb, gullible, and naive i was. The emphasis is on "WAS" https://ruqqus.com/+TEFLReviews/post/78 ... r-job-scam. I hope ESLinsider steps up and answers the questions. Otherwise I will warn my friends to avoid this company.

Btw... There is a current "Tefl Reviews" sub at reddit that is not run by recruiters or any one company that sells their own TEFL courses (like most of the online TEFL reviews we see). You can check it out or make your own reviews at https://reddit.com/r/TEFLReviews.

[Vagabond]

Its been three months since the owner of ESLinsider.com and MyTEFL.com was asked 10 simple questions. All I hear are crickets. This suggests that all the allegations are probably true. It's time to alert other tefl teachers, students, and schools on a world-wide scale through alumni associations. Stay well all.

[Prometheus]

I know the cops shut these guys down in China a few years ago. I guess they just deported him. They should have locked him away so they couldn't do more damage. It's crooks like this guy that blackens the names of all the foreign TEFL recruiters.

[Tiger]

I heard that this guy started using a new company name. Shouldn't we be warning people about this? I mean, he certainly won't be retiring, so we should keep an eye on this man.

[Blue Moon]

Is this guy still in business? If so what country is he scamming now and what alias names are he using? The last I heard about him was last year at https://reddit.com/r/teflreviews