Travel / Polish Road Tax ViaToll , a legal rip off before Euro 2012 ? [26]


Yes Gumishu there are Road Toll taxes in many countries in Europe however it would be good if it was written somewhere that there is such a tax in Poland, we are not in Kenya for God 's sake normally the school bus should not have been able to circulate on the roads then.

The Polish Bureau of Tourism which is having a big campaign right now to promote tourism in Poland should clearly inform visitors on their website.

Work / BEWARE of K&S Krakowska Szkoła Języków Obcych!! [41]

A few months ago some teachers posted some messages informing us about some of their troubles with the K&S language School in Krakow and telling potential language teachers to be careful.

It seems that indeed this language school may have taken clients money and not paid their staff and is being under investigation according to the Krakow Post: krakowpost.com/article/4681

According to the journalist there are not so many rules to comply with if you want to operate a Language School .

Incredible that this school was still promoting its services ( Russian, English German, Spanish lessons etc) through Groupon coupons according to the Krakow Post .

The clients who paid for courses they ll never have will eventually be reimbursed but teachers who are owed about 5000 zl each will have to face a long and expensive legal battle if they ever want to get their pay checks .

I doubt they will because the K&S Krakowska school may have organised a fraudulent bankrupcy.

Very sorry for the teachers ,but as a principle no one should continue working and waiting for more than 1 month with unpaid salary.

Travel / Polish Road Tax ViaToll , a legal rip off before Euro 2012 ? [26]


They don't .I don't know who takes care of the official communication but it is not even on Wikipedia where there is a complete list of European countries with Road taxes.

I don't believe that a bus company would risk loosing contracts with schools by taking the risk of not paying intentionaly the Polish Road taxes and having the children detained "as hostages".

On the contrary i think that Polish officials intentionally detained the children as hostages so they could get the money faster.

Food / Polish cuisine for Euro 2012 - poll results [9]

What about Polish desserts ?Delicious Polish pastries and cakes ?

Sernik
Babka
Makowiec
etc
Yummy...

Travel / Polish Road Tax ViaToll , a legal rip off before Euro 2012 ? [26]

Gumishu , they could send the kids back at their expense and detain the bus ...
After all when we arrest a criminal we send him to jail and we pay for his food drinks for many years don't we ?

Travel / Polish Road Tax ViaToll , a legal rip off before Euro 2012 ? [26]

I don't have any issues with Poland.On the opposite i love it that's why i want to see things improving .

And why do you take any comment questionning how Polish officials behave as a personal attack?

Do you think you are yourself a representative of the whole nation or what?

Sorry but if you browse the forum you ll read a lot of comments about criticism of stupid or absurd things in happening in Poland and posted by many people who are like me.

There are great things and stupid things in Poland so yes it is important to see things from different perspectives.

Life / Freelance English teacher - Are Polish people unreliable? They continually cancel lessons... [22]

When it comes to cancelling private lessons last minute Poles are no different than others. No better or worse. I have a friend who teaches French in the US and it happens to him all the time with his private students.

You need to have a 24 hours cancellation policy and charge for cancellations otherwise you will be messed around.

Scottie1113's comment is sensible but a bit too strict because students should be able to cancel lessons in case of emergency if they are stuck at work or be sick or whatever , as long as they pay who cares for the teacher should not be penalised and waste his/her time and money.

The best is to explain this to your students during the first lesson and inform them that you will charge them for last minute cancellation or try to ask students to enroll for a block of 10 lessons or more, after all if they attend a language school that's what they ll have to do.

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

pip
Is this a rapid decline?

No but the prices are going up too fast compared to the Real estate situation in prosperous Germany where prices have been remaining flat for years.

Poland and especially Polish banks lending like crazy to anyone should be aware that countries in Europe which had such growth in Real estate are in a deep mess now ( Spain, Greece, Portugal, Italy) yes or no ?

Real Estate / Poland's apartment prices continue to fall [1844]

[b]pip
"Polish banks lend under strict criteria. It took us over a month to get approved for a mortgage. They investigated everything."[/b]

Maybe because you and your family may not be from Poland and it is more difficult for foreigners to borrow funds ? for as far as all my Polish friends are concerned and who are not particularly wealthy, they got their mortgage in no time and still say they receive calls from banks every week asking them if they need a mortgage or any credit.

In anycase there are is no shortage in building permits for sure and most people seem to be property owners , it would be interesting to see the figures but it took one of my friends 5 months to let a well located and cheap1 bedroom flat in Krakow: she told me that on Gumtree her ad was on page 63 and there was much competition, I don't know about Warsaw.

Life / Freelance English teacher - Are Polish people unreliable? They continually cancel lessons... [22]

Luvie has probably not asked to be paid when the lesson was cancelled .In anycase teaching private students means highly unpredictable income because if you have 4 or 5 students scheduled per week and each of them cancels last minute for various reasons ,you lose all your week's expected money and your time.

Scottie1113 has the best strategy, make things clear at the end of the first meeting.

As for Natasia 's comment linking cancellations with quality of teaching, i don't believe that: If a student is unhappy with lessons it is easy to make up a story,give up and not schedule any lesson upfront.

Real Estate / What do you pay in rent/mortgage in Poland? [144]


Wow, 31 % interest rate in Poland for a mortgage ? How can that be ? and you got 14 % , but this is not bargain ,is it.
These percentages are appalling .
Is this real ? I wonder how people can borrow money with such interest rates , 31% seems like a Usury rate.

Real Estate / Why so many incomplete kitchens in Polish rental flats? [24]

eberhart

If the rental is a house it makes sense in a fitted kitchen to install a cooker with 4 tops + a big fridge but if it is a medium size flat for 2 people max, what 's the point ?

The tenant can always add a big fridge if he /she fancies that and unless he/she is cooking for 6 people a cooker with 2 tops + an oven and micro wave is enough.

In Krakow it is so easy to buy from take aways and reheat food and also order food on line to be delivered so no problem.

Real Estate / Poland's flat rental agents and the anger they brew in me.... [60]

Is ithis company called Hestia ? if so they do that in different countries until it is forbidden because they just make a potentiall tenant pay for a" list of rentals "most of the time the same list but they usually target students or naive people. Is this legal in Poland ? Should not be.

Real Estate / Why so many incomplete kitchens in Polish rental flats? [24]

How many tops do you need to cook yourself an omelette and pasta ? Lol .

Anyway each tenant has His /her priority : Some prefer location near work university,a big TV, others a perfectly equipped kitchen, or a very comfortable mattress, a bathtub and not a shower etc

Each tenant should visit and select his/her flat according to his/her priority.

In Warsaw there might be a shortage in prime locations so tenants are not too fussy.

Real Estate / Why so many incomplete kitchens in Polish rental flats? [24]

I love to cook but i understand that if you don't even have an oven , it could be difficult.

My idea is that it is fully in the interest of the owner to have a happy tenant so if a flat owner does not spend money on his property either he can't afford it or he wants a big turnover to be able to increase the rent with a new tenant every 6 months or every year.

Not every owner wants a long term tenant .

Travel / Where can I take my girlfriend for a romantic dinner in Warsaw? [4]

You may check the restaurant FUKIER in the old Town /Stare Miasto (Rynek,27)

Not cheap but very romantic and nice (traditional Polish food with a French touch)

ufukiera.pl/en#/633-fukier

Ps the name of the restaurant as you can imagine is a subject of a lot of bawdy jokes among anglo saxon people....

UK, Ireland / Polish Family stabbed to death in St Helier. [40]

When they want to get rid of someone( who si usually a woman or a girl they either accused of betraying them by the way) some murderers say they suddenly "heard voices" can't remember anything due to post traumatic stress or depression.

Reminds me of this mega rich English guy Shrien Dewani fighting extradition to South Africa to "clear his name" in the suspicion he had his bride killed or this other one, Ian griffin who massacred his Polish girlfriend Kinga Legg in Paris where he is finally behind bars.

If Jersey wants to pay for this guy's lunatic asylum, let them pay.I doubt Poland will want him back.

Life / Moving To Krakow May (a place to live and work?) [48]

Yes I also heard that Lublin was nice but Krakow is just unique.
Depends what you intend to do ,Lublin is smaller .

Law / Moving back to Krakow: PESEL, bank account, passport, TEFL, work, accommodation [6]

Oberon123456
I don't have the aid of a Polish person to stop me getting stung as a foreigner.

Why don't you hire a bilingual English- Polish student to help you? There are thousands of them in Krakow .

Law / Rights of a consumer when dealing with faulty goods in Poland? [65]

Just buy your electrical items from foreign chains such as Carrefour, Auchan, Ikea because of customer service , the others are crap.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]

Merged: Poland ,A Heaven for fraudsters/Polska jest razem dla oszustow

The huge scandal following the gold scam in which thousand of investors have lost every single zloty they invested in Amber Gold has shed some light on the complete failure of Polish justice , its endemic corruption and great uncompetence of officials in preventing fraudsters, mafia developers to flourish and continue duping people.

Some voices are saying that these victims were responsible for their lost investment ::"These were people with a low level of financial education," said Piotr Bujak, the chief economist for Poland at Nordea Markets.

Pan Bujak, maybe these people had a low level of financial education but a high level of honesty ? Maybe couldn't they imagine that a guy convicted 9 times for fraud could legally despite his past convctions set up a parabank and advertise its scam on every billboard in the country?

The 28 years old founder if found guilty Marcin P must rejoice and think that crime really pays for he faces 5 years in jail and a very small fine compared to what he has probably managed to hide offshore since 2009 and what's more his wife set up exactly the same kind of company with the same name exept that instead of beeing a SA it is a Spzoo, lol.

I really hope that the Poles who form one of the most courageous and resilient people on earth will get down on the streets and furiously wipe out all this corruption.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]


Whoever the fraudster Marcin P is he won't commit suicide why would he ? He is not even yet in jail and probably has a number of "secrets" involving some official names ,people at the highest level of the State or the Polish Courts who helped him and greatly financially benefited from the scam.

In anycase the general "Prokurator" says he wants to clean up and reopen many fraudulent cases of collision/corruption in Polish judicial system since 2007.

The thousands of victims of mafia developers from Krakow such as Bud Mar investment or Leopard SA might see a compensation soon,although unlike the AmberGold case there was no article in the Washington Post ,Financial Times etc still the failure and coruption of the Polish Justice system is no longer a secret kept within borders.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]

Grubas, how Marcin P got his money to start Amber Gold is fully described in the Polish medias, between the age of 21 to 28 he had done 54 various frauds and was convicted over 6 times

info.wyborcza.pl/temat/wyborcza/plichta+marcin

He had created another scam from 2005 to 2009 a company called Multikasa , a company dealing with utilities :Clients would pay his company and Multikasa was supposed to pay their electricity, water etc exept that he kept the money and never paid for clients'utilities.

Basically given that the Judiciary system does not work it seems pretty easy to set up any scam and rob people without any sort of problem.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]


If Martin Stefanski alias Plichta is sent 15 years behind bars he will be 43 years old which is much less than what Madoff got .. and still worth embracing the world of crime .

I think they (but who?) should also send to jail the Gdansk prosecutor (s) and all those responsible for allowing Marcin Plichta and his mafia clique to rip off people and this "parabank " to operate without a licence .

After all all those officals salaries are paid by Polish taxpayers

What about the UOKIK an organization supposed to defend and protect Polish Consummers? A bunch of uncompetent and lazy bureaucrats who should all fired and replaced by effective and competent management because there is hardly any victim of a fraud /scam they really defended and for whom they obtained any sort of compensation.(your testimonies regarding this organization is welcome)

And as we learn that there are other institutions as AmberGold in the eyes of the storm my question is who will reimbursed the thousands of Poles who were ripped off?

The Government? Marcin Plichta ? I doubt they ll ever see their money back .

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]


3 years, wow no wonder why there are a few of these financial scams still operating in Poland

It will be very interesting to see how the Polish government deals with such a scandal , who and how many people involved in this corruption will go to jail and fined and how victims will fight to get back their investment.

After all the Trustee Irving Picard for Madoff victims got over 2 billions back for them .

Work / How to find an IT internship, work placement, graduation assignment in Cracow? (Krakow) [10]

You can try this thread with Indeed .com in Krakow

pl.indeed.com/praca?q=IT&l=+Krakow+Polska

You ll find a lot of Jobs offer in IT then you might consider contacting them to do see if they would welcome an intern.

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]

The word "mafia" has been at last mentioned ( something that Poles have known for ages )in the Amber Gold scam.

Jerzy Sterpien advises to investigate the first 100 investors in the scam back in 2009 and who did make 13% ,( for instance someone invested 3 Millions PLN) and to just follow where those people or companies lead to: friends, family but i also suspect those Prokurators who had freed the fraudster 3 times and a bunch of officials,...

I had the opportunity to comment on another occasion on other pages on the affair Amber Gold ( aferki - as would others ) . From the point of view of the clients of the pyramid is certainly a aferka , but the optics Citizens nakazałaby talk about a major scandal - says the former president of the Constitutional Court Jerzy Stepien .

By the way the figure of the pyramid would suggest that the base is the largest , and somewhere at the end is the top - speck . For the brightness of the image triangle pyramid it would be good to enter in the inverted trapezoid base identical to the base of the pyramid , and the longer side parallel would be at least at the height of the apex of the pyramid. This side would be a lot longer - in proportion to the number of strained .

PIP I do think that we ll find out for it is urgent that the Polish legal systems changes , how many scams and rip offs happen every year ? People need a reliable Justice system to turn to like in canada ,Uk etc

News / Amber Gold and other Poland's suspicious institutions [139]

Some journalists have detailed the mafia boy's menu in jail : Budget per day 4.80 zl! ( no more ducks with apples and Champagne for Marcin Plichta!)

se.pl/wydarzenia/kraj/amber-gold-milioner-marcin-p-zyje-te raz-za-480-zl_277294.html

It is a small compensation for his 5000 victims but no doubt that as soon as they free him he ll move to a safe heaven where no one knows about him.

Work / In search of an English speaking Au Pair in Poland [14]


Do not forget that Au pairs are not nannys hired on the cheap the are supposed to attend a language school to learn the language;

food accomodation and a stipend are not enough ,you ll need to offer to pay for their Polish Lessons.

News / Reports on gangs in Poland [21]

Does it mean more worry about the inefficiency of the Polish judicial system if they freed the heads of a gang?
How does the Polish Public opinion react to that ?