For those of you who are planning to apply at 51talk, here are my in-depth review based on my personal experience. This company is very similar to a networking company which uses bloated monetary figures and fake smiles to lure applicants. If you think the advertisement of "earn as much as P50,000" is absurd, they recently came up with "earn as much as P80,000" for their Chinese new year festival. While our country is being bullied by China for the land disputes, this company is also a bully towards its home-based online teachers. Well, not surprising, since this company is from China. The company will go the extra mile in having negative reviews removed from a site because all it wants is to project a "good" image. The advertised P100 pesos per hour is misleading also because YOU GET PAID PER STUDENT/CLASS and not per hour. 99% of the time a student will just book one class which will earn you a starting P50 per student/class so if the next half hour you don't have any booking then you just earn P50 for an hour. No wonder this company has a very high online teachers turnover rate. I guess they don't prefer long term teachers here otherwise they would have treated everyone nicely. Perhaps they prefer to keep on hiring new teachers so they only get to pay them P50.
I'm not the only one who had terrible experiences in this company and you can try searching other reviews online about other people's horrible experiences. PLEASE DISREGARD the positive reviews about this company in Glassdoor.com because, if you read it carefully, it's a giveaway already that those were posted by the staff. The negative reviews there are not in depth and that prompted me to post a more in depth review of the company. Do not believe what Glassdoor advertises - that they don't let a company remove a review. Actually they do, here's a review I posted before:
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/glassdoor_1_zpsqzxdxp8w.jpg)I got an email notification saying that it was posted already and I got to see it but after a few days, it couldn't be found anymore. It goes to show that this company, 51talk, really goes the extra mile to have in-depth negative comments removed. If it ain't true then why the need to remove it, right?
The only PRO when you get accepted in this company is you get to "stay" at home. This will only be a job and can never be treated as a career. How can it be a career when your income is not stable? How can it be a career when you are bounded by strict rules? How can it be a career when the local Filipino admins are in cahoots with the Chinese admins in ripping off the online teachers?
You don't get a fixed salary every month here because your pay depends on the number of students who will book your class. You don't have any control on who's going to book your class. Only the local admins have control over this. If they don't like you or if they want to get rid of you then they will control the number of people who will book your class so that you'll think it's not
working for you and hopefully you will resign. You'd know if your booking are being control because you'll notice that at one point in time you will get kids booking your class all of a sudden or business people or free trial students and etc. Aside from not getting a fixed pay here, the company doesn't pay you the government mandatory benefits like SSS, Philhealth and etc. and you won't even get your 13th month pay or bonuses because you are made to sign as an Independent Service Provider and they made it clear that you don't have an employer-employee relationship. See picture below:
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/service-agreement_zpsk0hv3shw.jpg)If you are just an INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER or FREELANCE then why are they controlling how much time you work? Please refer to the two pictures below. First, online teachers are required to open 50 slots per cut off or 100 slots a month. Then, they changed it to 65 slots or 130 slots per cut off. Since we are bounded by such condition then we are no longer FREELANCE and they should pay the teachers mandatory government benefits otherwise they are violating labor laws. I guess the ONLY reason they make you an INDEPENDENT SERVICE PROVIDER is for them to avoid paying the government mandatory benefits. Recently, I asked my lawyer about it and he confirmed that an individual should not be bounded by rules on how much time they choose to work since he/she is a FREELANCE. Talk about being fair and ethical.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/50_minimum_slots_zps55opxbtu.jpg)(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/65_minimum_slots_zps5traqeaj.jpg)So is this the kind of company that you'd like to work in? But wait there's more....
Aside from not having control over the number of students who will book your class, you will be getting only P50 per student/class as a starting teacher and only P66 per student/class when you reach the top level. But before you can get to the top level you need to undergo useless training sessions. After you underwent each training sessions, you will get to the next level but your pay
only rises by P4 yes 4 PESOS (P50, P54, P58, P62, P66). Before you will get P4 addition to your pay, you will need to conduct 400 lessons, watch more than 10 videos about China, Chinese students and English lessons, then you will undergo a 3-day training. Yes, all those just to get an additional P4.
And if the pay isn't pathetic yet, they also have a missed lesson penalty of P200 per class/student. P200 is already 4 students or your entire day's pay if only a few students book your class. But wait there's more, they promised(during on boarding) to waived the penalty if you can prove that you experienced power outage or internet connection problem. But, in reality, when you are already in the company they will no longer honor their promises. Not only will they not honor their promise of waiving penalties upon showing of proof but now, they are encouraging teachers to invest in backup power like generators and UPS and also backup internet connection (Refer to the picture). Seriously, who in their right mind would invest in those when you will only be making a small amount of money? What happened to the promise of waiving of penalties? If you keep pestering them about waiving your penalty they will make up a complaint against you like soliciting money from a student so that they can kick you out or they will control your booking schedule so that few and few students will be booking your class and hopefully, you'd resign.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/take-control-of-situation_zpsulo0ulyf.jpg)So why do they need to promise about waiving penalties during onboarding? That's right! Because they want to welcome you and they want to make you feel that you made the right decision in joining 51talk. This company has a very high online teachers turnover rate so they need to fake their smile and make flowery promises for you to join. They will use all sorts of misleading promises and bloated monetary figures to attract people to apply as online teachers. This is one of their pathetic ways in earning money off of online teachers.
Please know that penalties are deducted in real time without a second wasted literally! Because it is done automatically. If they are a fair company and if they will honor their promises then they would have made a system that would waived penalties just as quick also, don't you think? Here's another new money making scheme for them (see picture). They have automated the deduction of penalty if you forgot to post lesson memo on the required time. See, it can be done but they refuse to automate the waiving of penalties because in reality they will not waived it unless you filed a complaint at the Department of Labor.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/lesson-memo-automation_zps7flc9ao5.jpg)Another money making scheme is when a student is absent. When a student is absent you will only get paid half of your rate. This is very unfair since your slot would have been book by other students. In addition, all students have already paid in full upon enrolling in 51talk because they buy package lesson. When a student is absent, he/she cannot get a refund or make up class anymore so why do teachers get only HALF the pay right?
Yet still another money making scheme for the company and also a violation of human rights is, they change rate without notice. They keep on changing their rules for their own benefits ONLY. If you look at the first picture below, it's part of the service agreement where it is stated that you will get P300 incentive for perfect attendance during EACH CUT-OFF. However, last year they had a promo from Oct 16 to December 31, 2015 where you will get an additional P500 if you have perfect attendance on all 5 cut-offs. Sounds good right? But no, because they changed the perfect attendance incentive to just P250 instead of the usual P300 (see 2nd picture). They might as well not have the promo if they are just going to change the monthly perfect attendance incentive anyway right? See how unethical this company is? But wait there's more, not only did they change the perfect attendance incentive to P250 but they also imposed a condition that you will get the P250 when you succesfully finished 80 lessons (see 3rd picture) whereas before it doesn't matter how many lessons you've conducted as long as you don't have any absences. After all, it's called perfect attendance incentives. So the more it is easy for them to control your book lesson so that you won't get this incentive. What great company would use a promo as an excuse to change the condition of the perfect attendance incentives? Yes, only 51talk.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/service-incentives_zpsmvsu7iwl.jpg)(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/q42015_incentive_zps3syrhwiz.jpg)(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/perfect-attendance-plus-2016-notice_zpsyxjjdunk.jpg)See how they keep changing their rules to benefit only themselves but at the same time luring teachers with out-of-this-world earning figures. Is this the kind of company you'd like to work in?
Remember they keep pestering teachers to open more slots? Well, the more slots you open the more you get into trouble. Because not only will they not waived your missed lesson penalties, your My Page will get lock out for one cut off if you missed 4 lessons/classes (see pic). So I guess it's better to open only 3 slots right? If you open only 3 slots you will not earn money anymore. If you open more than 4 slots and if you're lucky it gets booked then you'll lose money when you experience power outage. So what's it gonna be?
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/hbt_operations_1_zpsibs3808e.jpg)Imagine that they would actually go so far as to advertise that you'd be earning as much as P35,000 - P50,000. Perhaps, if you will work from 6:00am to 12 midnight from Mondays to Sundays and if they will be providing you all the students from 6:00am to 12 midnight. But in reality, it's highly unlikely because even if you open from 6:00am to 12 midnight it won't get fully booked. Seriously, it's impossible. Lastly, is it worth it to work like a dog from 6:00am to 12:00midnight from Mon to Sun with no rest? If you work in a physical company you'd get one to 2 days off per week and you don't need to work like a dog and you will get a fixed salary (security) and government mandatory benefits.
Aside from luring people with bloated earning figures, once you get in they will never stop pestering you to open more slots than the 65 slots required. They will go as far as posting "supposedly" top earning teachers for a particular month (see picture below). I do not understand why they need to masked the name of the supposedly top earning teachers if they actually exist. For one, all the
teachers do not use their real names - all teachers use an alias. Even the local Filipino and Chinese admins hide behind aliases in Skype. Secondly, teachers do not have access to contact details of their fellow teachers so no address or contact number posted. So if the supposed top earners are real then there's no harm to post their aliases, is it not? They do that because those figures and names are only made up since they know a sucker is born each day so they're hoping that someone who would be dumb enough to believe it. If the teachers are real and they posted the aliases, fellow teachers won't still know their contact details or names.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/supposed_top_earners_zpsca1yywdb.jpg)They have a lot of money making schemes to earn money off of you. If they want something done they would use the promise of monetary incentives to lure you into doing it. Take for instance when you refer a friend. Below is the FAQ about referring a friend and you will only get your full pay at the 7th cut-off. That's 3 1/2 months. Sounds easy right? But usually you will get the 2nd payout only then they will delay the last payout and make all sorts of excuses until you get tired of making follow ups.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/referralFAQ_zpsqc4t201j.jpg)Last year, they made us signed and notarized a Special Power of Attorney. They also made us print the Service Agreement. The printing of Service Agreement cost almost P100 and the notarization cost P200 but they only promised to reimbursed P100 for everything. Unfortunately, they didn't honor that promise. They even have the nerve to tell us (more like a threat) that we may not be able to get our pay on time if the documents are not submitted on the required date. Aside from not reimbursing us the P100, they also trouble us by requiring us to drop off the documents at 2Go (see 1st pic) instead of the initial notice of letting 2Go pick it up at home (see 2nd pic) and they didn't even apologize for the inconvenience.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/saampspa_1_zpsjlu2fftj.jpg)(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/saampspa_2_zpsrpgqyv8l.jpg)For those of you who are used to getting your salary on the 15th and end of the month cut-offs, better think twice here. Because here, you will get your pay 10 days after each cut-off excluding holidays and weekends (see pic) but sometimes you can get it at 5 days after cut-off but still not on time like in a physical company.
(http://i1055.photobucket.com/albums/s519/tamaraquozon/january2016payout_zpsrxzt1nsu.jpg)Aside from the numerous money making scheme they have to earn money off of you. You are also treated like crap here. They will never hear your concern especially with regards to money disputes. They will either ignore you or they will just apologize like saints and will just promise to look into it until you get tired of complaining and just quit. But when you are calling them for concern about a student they will deal with you promptly.
If a student files a complaint against you and it is quite common, they will just hear your side but they will never removed the complaint against you even if they have promised to defend you against the "INTSIKS" - deregatory word they used to refer to the Chinese admins. In reality, the local Filipino admins kisses the Chinese admins' butt and they are in cahoots in ripping off Filipino online teachers. They even have a validation for the teacher's internet connection which is very unfair because our connection here in the Philippines is quite good. They may not be as fast as those in the US or China but seriously, how fast do you need for Skype and QQ right? Even when the problem is with the student in China, the student will never acknowledge that so they will give you a low rating. When you received a low rating, you will be at the bottom of the teacher's list for the day. Hence, you will only get a very few (1 to 3) students in a day even when its peak hours. This is also another way the local admins can manipulate your booking thus your earnings as well.
So if you prefer to "stay" at home without a stable pay, and if you don't mind getting ripped off by the local Filipino admins when you experienced power outages or internet problems then go ahead and apply. If you like to be treated unprofessionaly, unethically and disrespectfully then go ahead and apply. But if you still have some self respect especially if you are educated then there are a lot of companies out there who won't imposed any rules when they signed you up as a freelance. There are other similar companies out there that offer better pay and at the same time treat you fairly and with respect. It's your choice. I just hope you will make a good decision. Always remember that this company is big on promises. The use fake smiles and sweet words to lure you in then after that, you're on your own.
Lastly, for those whose valid penalties are not being waived and they been giving you a round around then don't hesitate to file a complaint in NLRC (National Labor Relations Commissions). If you're in the province you should have DOLE office as well. Learn to fight your right as a Filipino especially if it isn't your fault. Don't let a company bully you. Filing a complaint is easy and FREE. If you're not the one at fault, NLRC will ALWAYS side with you...Always! So have some self respect instead of getting stressed out from following up on your concerns. Whether it's P200 or P500 or more, it's still your hard earned money. You earned it so don't let anybody take that away from you. Always remember that P200 can already your only earning for the day or it can be someone's daily wage already so please don't disregard it.
