Beijing-based rehabilitation institution notified parents of a day off for internal renovations, but when parents took their children to the institution, they found the gate closed and the person in charge had “fled.” A teacher who worked at the institution revealed that the person in charge not only took off with the children’s rehabilitation fees but also owed employees nearly two years’ worth of wages. The total amount owed to over a dozen colleagues is estimated to be around 3 million yuan.
According to reports from The Elephant News, a woman named Li from Jiangxi recently reported that the actual person in charge of the children’s rehabilitation institution registered as “Xin Xin Yu Lu Education Consulting Co., Ltd.” in Songzhuang Town, Tongzhou District, Beijing suddenly became uncontactable.
Over 100 children with autism, developmental delays, and cerebral palsy had prepaid over 3 million yuan in rehabilitation fees, which now seems to have vanished into thin air.
On the evening of December 3rd at 6 p.m., dozens of parents with their children were still waiting outside the institution for answers. One parent described how they discovered the boss had fled: “On November 29th (Friday), we received a notice stating that the heating upstairs was broken and that we would have a day off that day, returning to normal classes on Monday. However, by Saturday, some parents saw ‘House for Rent’ signs plastered all over the entrance, and we suspected the boss might have fled.”
The institution was empty with only a “lease expired” sticker on the door. When parents called to inquire about the institution, teachers gave the same answer, “Classes will resume on Monday.”
Distrustful, parents reported the incident to the police. Subsequently, they were unable to reach the school, the gate remained closed, and parents were left waiting outside.
A parent from Jiangxi mentioned that families coming to this institution came from all over the country, such as Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, among others, as they had heard of the institution’s effective intervention. Some families even exhausted their savings for this purpose. The monthly fee at the institution is around 8,000 yuan, with parents usually required to prepay the fees for 3 to 4 months as part of a treatment course.
Prior to this, the institution’s financial personnel had been urging parents to prepay fees for the next rehabilitation course, citing limited vacancies.
Parents lamented, “Before we could finish using up the fees, the person in charge told me about an event, and I paid another 28,000 yuan for it, but the event never happened… We had a lot of trust in him. He said we could renew the fees, so we did, never expecting this to happen.” “I just paid for two months’ fees a couple of days ago. Two months, 12,800 yuan, for an event.” “At the end of November, I prepaid over 30,000 for rehabilitation fees, in addition to the shortfall from other parents of over 10,000 and a surplus of around 40-50,000. Overall, parents prepaying fees total around 3 million.”
Payment records from parents show they paid between 20,000 to 30,000 yuan each.
An emotional parent from Shaanxi stated, “I can’t believe they even lied about the therapy money for these children! “For years of ongoing rehabilitation treatments, our family savings have been depleted, and this prepayment for rehabilitation therapy is borrowed.”
Reports revealed that a teacher who had worked at the institution disclosed that the person in charge not only absconded with the children’s intervention fees but also owes employees wages of nearly two years. The personal wage arrears for this teacher amounted to around 270,000 yuan. Additionally, she estimated that the combined wage arrears for over a dozen colleagues amount to approximately 3 million yuan. The institution’s person in charge had always promised to pay everyone after a certain period, citing concerns that the interruption in intervention would affect the children’s recovery. They kept insisting on working, but the person in charge suddenly became uncontactable, and in the past few days, they have tried various means to reach out but without any response.
Local petition department staff mentioned that they are coordinating with relevant departments to locate the missing company’s actual controller and are trying to contact other rehabilitation institutions to see if they can temporarily accommodate these children for continued intervention.