Dongguan Times
February 9, 2009

As one of China's major manufacturing city, Dongguan in Guangdong province sees millions of people pouring in looking for jobs every year. Some of them don't find exactly what they want though.

Today's Dongguan Times ran a feature story about job scams preying on the inexperienced job-seekers.

The story is partially translated here:

After hanging around in Shenzhen for several days, Wen Jinglei and his girlfriend could not find a job there. So on the fifth day after the Chinese lunar new year, they went to Changping, Dongguan. A job ad that they saw around the Meixin Industry Zone looked interesting so they decided to give it a try.

After a brief conversation over the phone, a girl from the company met them and led them to their office. The simple-looking office had three other men working on their computers.

The girl gave Wen a stack of paper printed with job information and told him to choose one. Wen found a job called "cadre in reserve" that was relatively well-paid. Besides a base salary of 1500 yuan, the job provided a bonus, subsidies, free food and accommodation and medical insurance. Wen felt he was lucky and that he made the right decision to come to Dongguan.

A man who claimed himself to be a personnel manager interviewed Wen and agreed to hire Wen instantly. After Wen advanced 212 yuan for a required medical checkup, he was given a piece of notice as a proof of the recruitment and the address of the company. The new job would start from tomorrow, Wen was told.

The next morning, the hopeful Wen and his girl friend went to the the Yingfeng building where he met a "Manager Zhang". Zhang told wen that as a "cadre in reserve", Wen had a lot of things to learn, so he would start from the lowest level as a delivery man. As for Wen's girlfriend, Zhang said the company also needed an office clerk. This was more than Wen expected, so he was happy to pay another 212 yuan for his girlfriend's medical exam and 126 yuan for her work uniform.

After Wen paid the money, he was told again that he need to pay another 1,728 yuan. Zhang explained that was because that a delivery man would spend lots of time on the street, so the company required them to be insured. The 1,728 yuan was the insurance fee for the first year. After some really hard bargaining, Wang agreed that Wen would pay half that amount for the first half year. Wen also paid for electricity, temporary living permits and other expenses in advance. Finally, he was given another address and two phone numbers.

Two days later, Wen and his girl friend went to the place. This time they were shocked to find that the factory before them was an empty, run-down building.

When Wen went to Zhang to ask for his money back, Zhang refused, and told him that he should be "courageous enough to face the truth (that he was being cheated)". Zhang said that he was working for a boss who was behind all the employment scams in Dongguan. The boss was highly influential in the city, so Wen had better leave right away or he would regret it in a hospital bed. Wen begged persistently and Zhang said that he could only give back 600 yuan.

Zhang showed Wen a scar on his arm and told him that he had been cheated just like Wen the first time. "You've got no one but yourself to blame for being so stupid" is the last advice that Wen received from Zhang.