They were really bad not only to me
They were really bad not only to me - I have met many teachers who worked for them and many were really unhappy. On the other hand there were teachers who were happy but they were the losers who couldn't have gotten any job in the rest of the world. Echo for example forge a degree for their teachers. I got a real degree and they kept it for 4!! months and demanded me to get my uni to contact them to prove it's a real degree despite the degree was apostillled and super legalised at Chinese Embassy in the UK. They also never give you your work permit card which is illegal. They also used to tell me that the school complained about lessons, etc. but when I asked the school directly, they said they never complained to the agency (Echo) and that they're happy with my teaching. They only needed to lower my KPI to pay me less. When I got pneumonia and needed to go to doctor, they didn't pay me the time at the doctor and I had to substitute the missed hours. Also staying in bed with pneumonia was out of question. I had to work. The salary was really bad and I also lived "in the end of the world" far from expats and socialising. They constantly kept sending someone to observe my lessons as they weren't happy with my teaching and then they asked me if they could record a video of my teaching because they think it's great and it would help other teachers. I refused saying they were never happy with my teaching anyway so there's no point to record it. I met a Russian girl who taught English in China and she got much higher salary than I with a UK passport. Yeah, the girl didn't work for Echo. Also they never pay your winter holiday. They only say so. In the contract there is stated you get bonus for winter holiday so you can travel. In reality you get nothing because as they say -you don't teach. They are happy with teachers who have no degrees so they can forge it for them and so they don't care. The teachers get better job and a decent salary than they would anywhere in the world so they're happy to write great reviews. One of the girls I met there got pregnant there and was looking for abortion clinic so they helped her. Sadly they never helped me with anything as I didn't get pregnant. And when I asked them to move me to other apartment as in the one I lived, cockroaches were crawling on me in the night despite keeping it spotless, they refused. Honestly stay away from Echo. The agency is for losers only and if you have a real degree you can get much better job under much better conditions and with much higher salary in China. I haven't listed all problems with Echo because there were way too many of them there. Do yourself a favour and get a job with other agency.
