The below report is a follow-up to our preliminary report dated April/2015. Be advised that we have been retained by a former Gi2C employee and a former client to investigate this company from A-Z They have not authorized us to make full disclosure as they are contemplating a legal action at this time. However the information provided herein is solid and well-documented enough for us to issue a Red Flag Scam Alert which will be issued to 600+ student unions and limited distribution to selected ESL and Work Abroad message boards.

We will try to be brief and you are welcome and invited to draw your own conclusions; Gi2C.org is NOT a foundation, charity, NGO, nor NPO. It is a for-profit commercial enterprise owned and operated by a citizen of Belarus named Yuri Khlystov, who also owned and operated the predecessor company called “GetIn2China” which was registered in 2009 in Beijing and originally were “visa consultants” according to the license issued to GetIn2China. Gi2c.org does not appear to be licensed with the SAIC nor the Beijing Provincial Tax Bureau, nor the Beijing Municipal Tax Bureau as of April 5th, 2015. Although Gi2C claims to have 51-200 employees on their website, long-time employees there indicate they never had more than 30 employees at any one time. Today the company operates out of two locations in China. The HQ office is in unit 50927 of the Galaxy Soho building in the D2 Tower located next to the Chaoyangmen Subway station – Exit G. A photo of the famous office building is below. There other location is a small office/apartment located in Shanghai. Two employees work in the Shanghai office and at present 10 work in the Beijing office following a massive resignation of 16 employees over the last 15 months. Gi2c has made claims of having “8 Offices World-Wide” as per their many ads and former website which a have been recently edited between March 1st and April 25th. The below screen shots confirm their false claims:

Gi2c management has claimed over the last 21-24 months that they have placed “400” and “1,100” interns with Fortune 500 Companies and MNC companies through their “vast network” of MNC corporate partners. In reality however they are unable to even provide a list of 5 such companies nor even 5 interns that have supposedly been placed. The same applies to their claims of having internships available with “Famous Wall Street Companies” and having “50 top university partners” See the below screenshots from their previous ads, and their own website…

Below are the ten top rated China Internships. We contacted all ten of these companies and spoke with an HR staffer to see how many interns were placed with them through Gi2C and if they were satisfied with the interns. Without exception, all ten companies indicated that they never heard of Gi2C and never had any business relationship with them. Considering all else they have lied about, we were not surprised.

We discovered that Gi2c sub-contracted a boiler room telemarketing operation located in Pakistan in 2013 and callers there would solicit students in the UK falsely claiming to be calling from Gi2C’s “London Office” which does not exist. Those calls reported being told they had a 50% chance of getting full time jobs with MNC and Fortune 500 companies in China if they purchased the Gi2c internship package. See the summaries of he complaints about two such callers who fabricated the names of “Barbara Wilson” and “Haley Gilbert” below:

Also see http://www.scambook.com/report/view/283185/Hayley-Gilbert-Hayleyrecsmartcouk-Getin2Chinacom-Complaint-283185-for-$0.00 Complaints form actual clients range from “refundable deposits” not being returned to misrepresentations, to being instructed and coached how to lie to Chinese visa officials, which is a felont crime in both China and most western countries. Actual complaints can be read at the below links…

http://eslwatch.info/forum/china/117-fraud-warning-gi2c-and-other-china-job-internship-scams-beware-people.html

http://www.realscam.com/f8/warning-gi2c-china-internship-just-another-china-job-scam-but-pricey-3928/#post83885

http://scam-detector.com/forums/forum/employment-scams/366-gi2c-org-and-other-china-internship-scams-exposed-by-former-u-k-employee

Although Gi2C conducts all of its business on mainland China, customers are told to send their money to an HSBC bank account in Hong Kong where Gi2c does not have an office nor any corporate sponsors. This may be a way to evade taxes and/or asset seizures in the event of legal proceedings and a court ordered judgment for monetary damages is obtained.

A handful of former employees also confirmed that they were not paid all of their wages when they resigned and one married Chinese employee took the company before the Beijing Labor Board and prevailed in her claim in 2014. Other employees reported that they were instructed to forge invitation letters using photoshop software and fabricate “over 100 fake internship vacancies for the website”. One former manager said he was told to bribe newspaper reports in Beijing to obtain a favorable article in the local news. Said manager also confirmed that interns were bribed to give testimonials with discounts, gifts, and cash, and also confirmed that the owner himself would delete negative comments from their Facebook and blog page on a daily basis. Others also confirm that two shills were used by Gi2C in the past as references, and that most of the reviews seen on line are bought and paid for with only one exception. They also confirm that one Chinese employee known only as Tommy (pictured below) was arrested in the Galaxy Soho office less that two weeks after it opened by 5 members of China’s Public Security Bureau for “Visa Fraud”.

We also noted that Gi2c had claimed they had “partnerships” with “500 top universities”. But we can find no supporting evidence of this claim, and when users at thebeijinger .com asked their management to name some of those universities, there was three weeks of silence. Other at ESLwatch.info asked Gi2c management to explain this below photo posted on their web site implying they had some business relationship with this famous university. Again there was no response.

Our investigation also revealed that a hacker has been hired by Gi2C management to remove approximately 3 dozen negative or unfavorable comments about the company found on line like this one below with 16 other examples found at this link: http://eslwatch.info/forum/china/117-fraud-warning-gi2c-and-other-china-job-internship-scams-beware-people.html

Also see http://gi2ccomplaints.blogspot.com/2015/04/gi2c-is-best-damn-china-china.html We are now waiting for the authorities to find and interview the hacker to obtain more information. This tactic of censoring the Internet is common amongst scammers and has been used heavily in China for almost a decade. If you Google “China Internship Scams” you find many broken links, where complaints used to be posted. Another way Chinese scam artists get negative comments removed is to buy advertisement on expat websites that have forums where clients and employees can, and do complain – a lot. The beijinger for example had three different thread about Gi2C but the two negative ones were deleted after Gi2C purchased some banner ads from the TBJ. See: http://scam.com/showthread.php?t=644914

On or about March 17th,2015 the Gi2c management posted a letter at several websites claiming that their bad reputation online and all the complaints about them were due to “one of our competitors”. But more than a month later they are now blaming a disgruntled employee named “Bruce” that reigned more than a year ago along with the company’s former web designer/webmaster Steve B****. We suspect their first explanation was not working with their new prospects.

To be fair however, the only law Gi2C may be breaking is tax evasion, since there is no Chinese law that says free internships cannot be sold for money. Therefore, we are not in a position to label Gi2C as a scam, but it certainly has unethical sales practices and policies. In any western country, Gi2C would probably be prosecuted for fraud, but China is just now developing the concept of “Consumer Protection” in the professional services business markets. This is all we can disclose at this time due to the restrictions placed upon us by our two clients. We may be able to update this report at a later date, if our clients so authorize.

If you are interested in obtaining a China Internship for free, you may want to visit http://chinainternshipreviews.wordpress.com. As always we urge you to conduct your own due diligence before making any final decisions related to Gi2C or any other company doing business in China.

Below is the first and last page of the Gi2c or Getin2China printed brochure. Their hacker cannot delete it and Yuri can’t edit like he does every time to his web site when we caught him in a lie. The below is proof positive the company markets itself with lies…

They have hired both a full time hacker and an SEO person to spam self-created reviews and testimonials like the one below and others at glassdoor.com, while their hacker is busy removing over 40 complaints during the last six months as you can see here: http://scam-detector.com/forums/forum/employment-scams/1002-gi2c-china-internship-scam-now-using-hackers-to-delete-negative-comments

We were also to interview 3 former employees of Gi2c and all three claim they were cheated at least once on their wages and another former employee named “Tracy” confirmed that she filed a formal complaint against Gi2C with the Beijing Labor Board and won her case.

Said employees all insisted they never placed ANY intern with ANY Fortune 500 or MNC company during their term of employment which spanned a 3 year period. This contradicts former Gi2C advertisements and their website as it appeared in 2013-2014 when they falsely claimed to have “A vast network of MNC corporate sponsors” where “Over 400 interns were placed with MNC companies”. See screen shots above. We also obtained these photos from inside the GI2C Beijing Office from one of the former employees:

In this last photo above, the girl circled in yellow is Abbie who was cheated 6,000 on her last paycheck, and the fellow in Red is the famous “Tommy” who was arrested for visa fraud a few days after this photo was taken.

These former employees also confirmed the claims made by victim Winnie Maliko and others that Gi2c customers were instructed and coached to commit felony crimes, to wit – to lie on their visa applications and “never mention that you are coming to China to work as an intern” http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?654895-China-Foreign-Internships-Scams-Make-You-A-Felon!

The same employees also confirmed that photoshop software was used by some employees who were instructed to fabricate or falsify invitation letters for their customers. They further admitted that many testimonials and reviews were either obtained with bribes or simply fabricated as per http://scam-detector.com/forums/forum/employment-scams/1002-gi2c-china-internship-scam-now-using-hackers-to-delete-negative-comments?p=1017#post1017

How many people really work for Gi2C? Not the “51-200” claimed by Gi2c on their web site. At their peak, they had 27 employees not including the Pakistanis. At present we think this dated photo below is probably more realistic:

We have also learned that Gi2C has discontinued using the boiler room in Pakistan recently and we hereby confirm that “Haley Gilbert”, Barbara Wilson”, and “Dwight Stevens” were all Pakistani sales reps working on behalf of Gi2C from 2013 to late 2014 and all falsely claiming to be calling from “Gi2c’s London Office”. The above three names were all fabricated.

We noted that Gi2C was not defended online by any of their “many satisfied customers” but rather “anonymous” employees and the people they buy advertising from “TheBeijinger.com” and the owner of a Chinese School owned by a fellow named Roddy who personally gets free labor from Gi2C via many interns over the years. It was also Roddy who supported Getin2China when they were buried in complaints back in 2010. See the below about TheBeijinger.com…

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?681817-The-Beijinger-Censorship-Scam-Is-Growing-Totally-Unethical

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?644952-Are-Michael-Wester-amp-Steve-Schwankert-of-The-Beijinger-Great-Scam-Artists-Or-Criminals

We also consulted with three Immigration attorneys who confirmed that the Gi2C internship program is not in compliance with Chinese laws. Foreigners who participate in their program may be arrested, fined, jailed, and deported as illegal immigrant workers as per these two links: http://antifraudintl.org/threads/beware-of-china-internship-visa-scams.96692/#post-265311 and also http://www.balglobal.com/News/NewsDetail/tabid/266/id/3105/language/en-US/CHINA–China-Eliminates-Internship-and-Training-Visas-for-Most-Foreign-Students.aspx There are in fact legal China internships available with international companies at no charge (air fare excepted) but they require a special certification letter from the PSB to be submitted when you apply for your Chinese entry visa. For more information about the free and legitimate China internships, see:

http://chinainternshipreviews.wordpress.com

http://freechinainternships.blogspot.co.uk

Last but not least, we obtained the below business cards that further prove Gi2C sales people were misrepresenting that they had international offices all around the world:

We have closed our investigation on Gi2c.org aka Getin2China with Red Flag Warning to all concerned.

Our Recommendation: AVOID

Here is yet more Gi2c Deception that is self explanatory:

Below is proof that owner Yuri lied about “never promoting jobs – only internships”. The blow is taken from Gi2c’s web site in 2013 and also some ads they ran at Milk Round and Just Landed:

Just remember, Gi2C sales people will only tell you what they want you to know – especially about visas and the true total cost of your stay in China, which for 90 days will average about $7,000 by the time you leave. If you get arrested for the wrong visa you can add $5,000 more to this cost to cover a $2,000 fine and $3,000 lawyer fee.

For more current information and updates about Gi2C you may want to check with these web sites from time to time:

http://www.scamorg.com/gi2c-org-38#commentit

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?p=60281143&highlight=gi2c

http://www.realscam.com/f8/fake-phantom-felon-employees-gi2cs-china-internship-scam-6-invisible-offices-4057/

http://eslwatch.info/Forum/China

http://ChinaScamWatch.org

http://eslwatch.info/forum/china/167-update-on-the-gi2c-china-internship-scam-investigation.html

http://www.realscam.com/f8/warning-gi2c-china-internship-just-another-china-job-scam-but-pricey-3928/

http://scam-detector.com/forums/forum/employment-scams/960-gi2c-china-internship-scam-exposed-by-former-uk-employee-reposted