Wall Street English goes belly up in Shanghai
Wall Street English's Dapuqiao Center at the SML Center shopping mall in Xuhui District is found to have "empty chairs at empty tables."
Shanghai study centers of English training company Wall Street English suddenly closed on Friday, leaving its learners in the lurch.
On Thursday, several Chinese media outlets reported Wall Street English would announce its bankruptcy next week, and employees were asked to go through procedures for leaving, as study centers in some cities had closed. The news soon spread online and caused concern among its learners.
Zhao Yue, a female learner, told Shanghai Daily she saw the news on Sina Weibo on Friday morning and immediately contacted the sales staffer.
"She told me the study center on Century Avenue (in Pudong) where I studied has been closed," Zhao said. "I asked her how to continue my learning or get refund, and she said she had no idea as the company also owed her a month of salary. She said some of her colleagues haven't been paid for three or four months. She also asked me to find a lawyer to protect my rights."
Zhao said she was lured by the company's sales people who called her several times, asking her to visit its Century Avenue center to claim a free seven-day course and English-learning materials.
"I have been trying to improve my English competency, so I went there on July 20 and was attracted by the course introduced by the sales staff as well as the learning atmosphere," said Zhao.
She said she eventually paid 35,800 yuan (US$5,524) for a one-year course featuring both online and offline learning and has taken only three lessons.
"I am stunned by the closure of the study center," she said. "The tuition cost me several months of salary, and I'm afraid there's no way to get it back."
Another learner named Jessica said she was even less lucky, as she paid for a course at a study center in the Westgate Mall in Jing'an District in July and had planned to start learning in September.
"I haven't even taken a single class," she said.
Shanghai Daily reporters visited several Wall Street study centers on Friday afternoon and found them all closed.
At one center in the Global Harbor shopping mall in Putuo District, the doors were closed and a notice said it was "tallying cargoes." Two staffers from the shopping mall said they were guiding learners who wanted to safeguard their rights to register at the mall's service center. The staffers said the training center was open as usual on Thursday.
Wall Street English's Dapuqiao Center at the SML Center shopping mall in Xuhui District was also found to have "empty chairs at empty tables." A notice is posted at the door saying the company has suspended operations due to management problems, and asking people to its headquarters at Jin Mao Tower in Pudong for any problems.
A notice at the Wall Street English Dapuqiao Center says the company has suspended business due to management problems.
A woman who said she had subscribed to a course for her daughter stood in front of the store and dialed the contact number, but no one answered.
"Yesterday I called the center and the staff said that it was still open, but it closed when I came over today," she said.
She added that her child had only taken half of the courses, and now didn't know how to get a refund for the remaining course fees.
Shanghai Daily reporters visited Jin Mao Tower, and the receptionist and security guards said Wall Street English had moved away last week, and none of its employees worked there.
On its directory plate, the name Wall Street English Training Center (Shanghai) Co Ltd has been scraped out.
The name Wall Street English Training Center (Shanghai) Co Ltd has been scraped out from the directory plate at the Jin Mao Tower.
Founded in Italy in 1972, Wall Street English is an international company that primarily focuses on English for adults. On its website, the company says it opened its first center in China in 2000, and now has 39 centers in 11 major-tier Chinese cities, including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.
Previous reports showed the company had opened 71 centers around China with more than 3,000 employees during its heyday.
An employee who asked to remain anonymous said the company had been facing challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, and closing its centers. The recent bounceback of the pandemic was a new strike for it, he said.
Some analysts said China's recent tough measures to regulate after-school tutoring was another blow.
Wall Street English has also been found to have operation irregularities and was recently punished. It was one of four training organizations in Shanghai heavily fined for violations against China's price law and law against unfair competition. They were fined a combined 10 million yuan (US$1.57 million).
Around China, 15 tutoring firms were fined a total of 36.5 million yuan for misleading advertising and pricing fraud.
Among them, Wall Street English was found to have fabricated or used misleading pricing means to trick consumers into deals.
The market watchdog in Shanghai said in June that when the company sold courses on its WeChat account, it offered discounts on so-called original course prices, but no transactions were actually made based on the higher prices.
It was also found to have claimed on its app that it had hosted 25 training camps, and 86 students won Swatch watches as gifts. However, the watchdog said the company exaggerated the number of courses, applications and gifts distributed, which constituted fake or misleading commercial promotions and was a violation of China's anti-unfair competition law.
