Hi moms!

We are now starting admissions for our new international school in Azabu.

At Joyful International school, we aim to provide a fun plus an educational environment to our students in an English speaking environment.

We are a private co-educational day school with various course options to suit your needs.

Our location is on the second floor of Malka building, only a minute walk from exit no. 6 of Azabu Juban station.

Please try out our trial lesson on Wed / Fri (10.00-12.00 morning).

We look forward to hearing from you! (contact 03-3589-5543/ email - joyful@chive.ocn.ne.jp)

Joyful International School in Azabu Juban, now starting Ballet classes!!!

In association with the renowned International Dance Academy (IDA Tokyo-London), we are now starting classes very soon!

Give your child the twofold advantage of International schooling with Ballet classes�E

�E�Eontact Now!!!

Ms. Fumiko Hasegawa
Business Manager
Joyful International School,
Malka Bldg, 2f 3-8-2 Higashi Azabu,
Minato-Ku, Tokyo �E106-0044
Phone / Fax- 03 3589 5543
Email joyful@chive.ocn.ne.jp

Hi all,
I have enjoyed my stay here in Japan having met some very nice people in the world. However this particular experience has left a most bitter taste!

I was employed at an International school (Joyful International - Azabujuban) through a recruiter (Manpower consulting). The owner had some tiff with the employment agency and later on I learnt that she -Ms. Fumiko Hasegawa, had refused to pay their dues from my recruitment.

Though we made little marketing efforts, the school only had three to four students (I was told that since it was a new school, i would have to help with the marketing efforts as well).

Due to the Ms. Hasegawa�fs offensive nature, one of the children's parents decided to change schools.

Now after the school closed for the spring break, the lady has cut off all sources of contact. She doesn�ft pick up her keitei or doesn�ft answer her home phone. She has already given up the rented place and moved out her furniture.

In all she has run off with one and half months of my salary, everyone�fs registration money and the advance money that one of the parents had paid.

Also the recruiting agency refuses to give out any other information citing that its their clients personal info (even though they had bitter disputes and have terminated their contract).

And it makes my blood boil to think that i kept my child at a daycare centre to work for this lady and now she doesn�ft even pick up her phone.

I had worked only for three months at this place. All the time i kept insisting on a contract, the lady would put it off or speak some incoherent japanese. So we have no written contract.

She has a daughter and a son (Lisa and Rex) and she stays in Hikewadai on the yurakucho line.. Anybody who can help me in any way I would be very grateful. She had some plans of starting a new venture the last time I spoke to her. So any one getting in touch with Ms. FUMIKO HASEGAWA, please beware! She is a liar and a total fraud. Any suggestions / comments / contacts. god bless!

Thanks Dipti showing the courage to bring this up in front of all these people. I am living in Japan for the last 5 years and I have seen such things where foreigners become victims of Japanese people. More then 2 years back I was ripped off by one of Travel Agency �ESWEET TRAVELS�Ein Shunjuku area when i was going home to see my family. I went with one of my colleague and did all police work/report etc but nothing turn up. These people ran way and no one did anything even the Japanese police or Tokyo travel associations etc did not even call me till today and told me what happen on that thing ......it was about 220,000 yen.

I am sure other people will have such things to share with us. Lets show what Japanese people are doing to foreigners in their own country. I call upon the editor of Tokyo with KIDS to help foreigners by providing them support and bring these issues to public and responsible authorities.

TOKYO WITH KIDS �E�Ecan you do that? Or You are also support your fellow Japanese?
Regards, --Tanveer Khan

Ahem, the "editor" is I, one very busy mother working more or less full time as the sole support of my daughter except for a recently reinstated child support payment from the Japanese government (which is a fair redistribution of taxes since her father can't seem be bothered to give her anything directly). In short, I am doing quite a lot by publishing this web site and keeping these discussions organized when I have the time, and reissuing passwords about 10 times a day because people can't seem to hang on to them. Please try to help yourselves folks a little bit instead of waiting for someone else to to pick up the load (OK, I don't want to sound like I'm whining, so if you want me to lobby the government or something, I think I can do it, but only if you pay me in advance. [tongue in cheek])

Incidentally, Cheryl reported on Sweet Travel's demise almost as soon as it happened under the consumer reports section on "Travel Agents" so if you were signed up at the time, you would have learned it here! Which demonstrates that these discussions do work when people take the time to post the information. And as a rule I am fairly hands-off in terms of telling people what they can and can't post.

One point that I personally need to make here RIGHT NOW: there are dishonest people everywhere in the world and I do not agree at all that there is any particularly higher percentage of dishonesty correlated with the Japanese nationality. Please be very careful in wording your posts. I will not tolerate anything that sounds racist to me. And if anyone ever volunteers to be a fellow moderator on these extensive discussions, I certainly would hope that they would feel the same way.

The Japanese place a lot of value on the reputation, size, and age of a company with good reason. New businesses opened by people inexperienced in business are very likely to fail. And failed businesses account for a great many unpaid debts. Even if you can find this woman, even if you can get a judgement against her in court (which will cost you time and money), you will still not get your money if she hasn't got any to give you. I personally have lost 3 months pay that way.

For example, "Dakko Room" (baby and young child drop-in center) in the Shinagawa Prince Hotel, can not be anything but good since it is owned by Shogakukan Productions (MiniMoni, Draemon, etc.) and is housed inside the Prince Hotel. Neither Prince Hotels nor Shogakukan would allow anything to mar their reputations.

Having said that, there are many small preschools that are quite good and have very responsible and dedicated managements. With a bit of homework, and realizing the risks when deciding on a newly opened school vs. an already established school, one can make a decision according to one's personal risk threshhold. As Shakiba has pointed out, these discussion forums are a pretty good venue for the exchange of such information, when people risk whatever it is they think they might be risking by posting some unpleasant news.

I have de-activated Fumiko Hasegawa's registration here (see her old post above), and if she contacts me I'll let you all know!

Hi Dipti

I am really sorry to hear about your experience. I too have had a similar experience in Japan (15 years ago). I went to pick up my monthly wages with the other staff and the entire business had disappeared! I now think that it is funny. I don't know why, maybe because those people must have been so desperate to get away. But at the time, like you, my blood boiled!

Tanveer Khan-
Please back off some on 1) generalizing
the character of people being taken
advantage of - it happens everywhere and
2) your expectations/insinuations of the
Adminstrator of this great site. As she
mentions, this is done as a personal
commitment and no one should have any
expectation of services beyond the already
exemplary ones of providing this forum.

An apology to Cornelia would be
appropriate. You are out of line imposing
such expecations.

Cornelia-
You might want to throw in a repeat of
your standard disclaimer under messages
like this one.

I hope Tanveer Khan on Shakiba Khan's password is not too angry to read comments from Japanese members like me :) Also I'm truly fortunate to have a well-balanced webmaster, and I'm sorry I forgot my password right after I joined the list!

I sympathize to Tanveer's situation as well as Dipti's, and I definitely think that non-natives have every right to express their stance.

However as pointed out, I must say that these kind of cons aren't just aimed for foreigners. The news tells us about Japanese victims all the time. So it won't really "work" to express your complaints from a "what Japanese are doing to foreigners" point of view.

Yet the problem is that foreign victims seem to get less attention from the media. This is because the media thinks there are less foreign viewers/listeners. In the same sense, there have been Japanese victims of various crimes who never got real attention until a big movement of victims arose.

You can write letters to newspapers, magazines and TV, and actually quite often they print/broadcast them. Even Japanese media will often go out of their way and translate your letters to Japanese if the letters are convincing.

I think a smarter way is to find similar "victims", preferably of the same case, rather than just "foreigners". Tell Japan you're not the lesser viewers any more. Good luck and please think well before you take action.

hi all!

thanks for the extensive discussions!!!
I posted on other forums too but not with so much response as tokyo with kids.
Editor san, you are doing a terrific job and hats off to you knowing in what situations!
And most of the replies are very correct in saying that one cannot generalize from a few bad experiences. Till date I have met some very wonderful people here in Japan. Even tho i have lost some money, kept my child at a day care working for a lady who didnt bother telling she was shutting down, i still am in great awe of this country. For any nihon-jin logged on, you guys are great people.
thanks again for all the suggestions and comments. Can only hope to rise up the learning curve.
I have a year and half old daughter and I am not going to run around looking for Ms. Hasegawa. The parent victims may try to contact the police. Dont know if i will ever get that money. Always wonder what if I bump into Ms.Hasegawa at Shinjuku station!
But for anyone else coming across a simillar name, be cautions.
This is a great site to get some experience without having to live it! so will keep logging in!

thanks and take care all!