Mark Smith School SCAM FRAUD WARNING!!!!!!!1

[primal-convoy]

I dunno if this is news but:

I was just told about this scammer posing as the owner and head teacher etc of "Smith's Language School". Aparently, he's into selling imaginary chunks of his school to fellow English Teachers/Inverstors.

Here is are some sites devoted against him:

- http://smithwatch.nanobit.net/index.php ... Q&id_cat=1

- http://teflblacklist.blogspot.com/2006/ ... japan.html

- http://www.aacircle.com.au/forums/esl-b ... japan.html

The site also has a link to a pic of the little scamster here: http://www.aacircle.com.au/forums/attac ... -smith.jpg

Here is his hilarious own website, with absolutely NO real facts in it whatsoever. I especially liked the other "teachers's" comments like "our last party was SO big we couldnt all fit into the room!"

http://www.sse-franchise.com/team.shtml

Anyway, why wont the government do anything? I know they wont help their own, eyt alone foreigners, but he seems to be breaking IMMIGRATION laws or something, which is a sure fine way of getting the good old anti-foreigner government's interest, eh readers?

Its like getting Capone for tax evasion, get him "via the backdoor" sotospeak.

[susumu]

All of these eikaiwa schools named after their owners popping up in Japan make me nervous - especially if they claim to be selling franchises to teach out of your home. I suppose if it brings in the money and no one's complaining though, it's okay... right?

[Sam Widges]

good on mark e. smith i say.

[Noritsujin]

Not only is this old news, but it's also unwise to discuss in any significant detail here on BD. Smith has been known to threaten website admins with legal pressure for allowing negative discussion about his 'business' to exist on their boards.

[primal-convoy]

Lol. the thing is, if the japanese are wary to get involved with foreigner problems, then what is the likelyhood of them getting involved with THIS site eh?

Anyway, this is a discussion board and all I have done is link to sites that make claim about him.

I knew nothing about this guy until a Russian chum, just down from Osaka, told me about him.

Its all heresay and opersonal opinion, much like, in MY opinion, his site eh?

[Bearcat]

Sorry for being a bit late to the discussion.

Mark Smith of Smith's School of English ( sse-franchise )just won the TEFL Blacklist's site award for Worst Franchise for 2007.

http://teflblacklist.blogspot.com/2007/ ... -2007.html

For those who want to check out more details about Smith's schemes, you can reference the site in my signature.

[progaijin]

http://www.sse-franchise.com/images/photos/tsukaguchi/tsc03.jpg

If this is real, then OMFG.

[anpanmans unko]

http://www.sse-franchise.com/photopages/ksp1.shtml

third picture in on this page!

[tokyofoxes]

this one is fairly lucrative, too.

[ img ]

[anpanmans unko]

check out the owl on this page, 3 down, 3 across.

http://www.sse-franchise.com/photopages/ksp3.shtml

[Michael Dudikoff]

Not only is this old news, but it's also unwise to discuss in any significant detail here on BD. Smith has been known to threaten website admins with legal pressure for allowing negative discussion about his 'business' to exist on their boards.

I was laughing at this post, as if we should be cautious about this Mark Smith character. Then I saw those photos and decided I wouldnt wanna piss that guy off. fvcking pyscho.

[primal-convoy]

Yeah, Shane can be pretty crappy. I dont think he's as bad as the owner of the school shown above, but when a lot of us had to work on our Sunday off, he vistited the country. Many of us had to attend and promote Shane School at the "Highland Games" in Japan and all of the Shane top brass were there..except Shane. He actually visited the country and, from what I could hear on the phone to his kohai, he said something about "too busy/hungover/can't be bothered".

Shane is actually a Chiba based business too. It says its in Tokyo but it started in Chiba, so many of the top bods live nearer to or in Chiba...and on a day when many of us wanted to be in bed, we were out, but good ol Uncle Shane "was too busy" to attend a promotions day for his own sodding company.

Lazy. Simple as that.

[Omega037]

Not only is this old news, but it's also unwise to discuss in any significant detail here on BD. Smith has been known to threaten website admins with legal pressure for allowing negative discussion about his 'business' to exist on their boards.

Don't underestimate the power of BD. Together, we are a collection of hundreds of foriegners in Japan, all with ridiculous amounts of free time.

[JackintheBox]

That goofy turd of a guy isn't Mark Smith.

This goofy turd of a guy is Mark Smith:
[ img ]

[Michael Dudikoff]

That goofy turd of a guy isn't Mark Smith.

This goofy turd of a guy is Mark Smith:
[ img ]

Apparently a role model for 90% of the english teachers in japan.....

[progaijin]

http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/4682/freaky2nc3.jpg

[Original_Pocky]

http://www.sse-franchise.com/photopages/ksp1.shtml

third picture in on this page!

:grin: check out the owl on this page, 3 down, 3 across.

http://www.sse-franchise.com/photopages/ksp3.shtml

Good God what the hell.

[maja]

http://www.sse-franchise.com/photopages/ksp1.shtml

third picture in on this page!

Go to page 2, 3rd row down, first pic.
What caption pops into your head?

It looks like an advert for discount Viagra

[Bearcat]

Smith and his crew have been playing their usual games of deception and BS on a few threads on a few places. Check them out for a chuckle:

AACirle 14 page thread (Its mentioned above and started months ago but the last page or so is the recent crud):

http://www.aacircle.com.au/forums/f2/sm ... apan-3434/

A newer AACircle thread that started off as a bash on Scott Spargo (an ex-manager in Smith's group)and his school that quickly turned into showing the stupidity of Smith's attempts to misdirect others from his crap:

http://www.aacircle.com.au/forums/f2/ch ... hree-8452/

And the funniest of them of them all is this site's comments:

http://english-school-greenlist.blogspo ... glish.html

The above link is to a "Green list" blog started by Kevin Burn's of Kevin's School of English. Some of you may or may not know that Burn's himself is not a stranger to controversy either for articles he's written in the last year or two bashing sites like Lets Japan among other things.

Mark Smith and his group though are not to be underestimated. He'll misdirect people on his website about his "successful" or "proven system" but you won't see the details such as he has had over 40 people over the last 5-6 years lose tens of thousands of dollars in his "proven system" (These are people who started "schools" but had to fold due to Smith's practices. And those are just the people that can be recorded from listings of past existing schools with Smith. Smith has expoited people as "profit share" folks (people he cons into working for free or extremely low rates to teach or hand out flyers who then are sent packing with nothing to show for it otherwise when they call foul).

And dont get me started on the $2k he attempts to sell 4 days of training for, for his "certifications" that he claims are "recognized".

Or the $1.3k he attempts to peddle a curriculum for either.

[Earth Looter]

You know I'm really only here for the green tea and onsens...

http://www.sse-franchise.com/images/pho ... ksp055.jpg

[fumac]

You know I'm really only here for the green tea and onsens...

http://www.sse-franchise.com/images/pho ... i/ks55.jpg

That's a shocker, not here for the green tea and onsens indeed... On the run from the geriatric circus by the looks of it.

[LeprosyStudyGroup]

[ img ]

Besto gaijin!

These mongs will breed the engrish leeches out of our bloodline.

[ img ]

Easy prey for the lanterfish.

[fumac]

[ img ]

Besto gaijin!

These mongs will breed the engrish leeches out of our bloodline.

[ img ]

Easy prey for the lanterfish.

Bet they're the life of the party every October 31st.

[l-ispjun]

this one is fairly lucrative, too.

[ img ]

Say no to crack.

[Suni]

no idea if it's true or not but this is pretty f*** nutso:

Smithwatch said...

There are other illegal activities by Smith. An important example is their school fronts for an illegal smuggling operation. Not sure of the details but it seems it's for narcotics and illegal weapons such as guns. They have a connection to the Japanese mafia here which explains how they managed to send two thugs over to Scott Spargo's apartment that one time. That's why the school is such a scam. It is true that 95% of schools aren't making any money. But the reason it continues is it makes so much money from it's illegal activities. The loss from the English schools doesn't matter. In fact it's necessary so as not to attract the authorities.

http://teflblacklist.blogspot.com/2006/ ... japan.html

[Hideyoshilives]

I don't doubt Smith's a shyster but this seems over-the-top even by the standards of the scuzziest of Japan's ESL scene. Connections to the Yakuza? I guess it could happen but I'd like to know how.

[decoy]

someone archive this thread quick, it's going down sooner or later

[Permstar]

It seems that on that aacircle.com site the only person allowed to post are Scotty, the pissed conned man and Bearcat.

[primal-convoy]

I doubt it.

It appears that this site could also possibly be linked to Smith...FRANCHISED Cafe Teaching? Do they get served a "free" chocolate cake by the scary English teacher?

http://www.chocolateenglish.com./Englishindex.htm

[Bearcat]

There's a few things that need to be cleared up for readers on here.

1. On the TEFL Blacklist site's comments about Smith, you're allowed to post with pretty much any alias that you want. Thus the person(s) posing on there as bearcat/smithwatch are not the ones who run the actual Smithwatch site. Smith and a few of his crew are very much into playing the misinformation game. The BS about Smith having involvement with the yakuza is one example of that for the sole purpose to try to throw off people looking at the facts that are shown against Smith. TEFL Blacklist's owner knows this and I've sent em email about it as well. I think its fine for it to remain up there simply because it shows just how innanely far Smith will go to... without realizing that he's actually proving even more just how mental and bad it is. Smith is too greedy to want to share his money with any organized crime group and he's too much of a coward to actually have any influence to wield anything there of.

2. Chocolateenglish is not a Smith off shoot. A look up on the whoisIP registration of the site shows that. However, the chocolate english owner got on AACircle and went on a tirade against Scott Spargo who had copy pasted a list of ads that pointed to Smith's multiple uses of various sites to corral people to his main one (Smith has had as many as 4 sites in the past for that purpose and they are documented on the Smithwatch site).

Chocolate's owner though admitted supporting Smith in his unethical and scammy activities.

When chocolate's owner then got shown a few things of his own stupidity, he went nuts and started firing off various F--- You's to participants.

But see, he made the mistake of telling off the moderator of the site in similar fashion.

And now he's been banned from the website.

Gfell (the moderator there) is in general a nice who just doesn't take well to people like the choc guy (his alias was GI Joe btw) acting like a little kid.

3. Scott Spargo hasn't posted in months on AACircle. Others have posted on there about Smith's stuff but not many. Its not as high traffic a site as some others.

4. Did you know there's a JET related site that the owner of the site feature advertises Smith because he's rather good friends with a franchisee and he gets a commission for anyone who gets on with Smith having referenced Smith's from his site? That guy's site is in the links of shame in the links section on the Smithwatch site because the owner knows full well exactly what Smith does.