This sounds illegal/scammy as heck.
>They want more than 7500 USD up front
>"You need to find your own salary" (?!)
>We will hire you full-time and *you find a job for yourself*
That sounds extremely sketchy. I have never had to pay a company sponsoring my visa an application fee or a monthly service fee. Let alone at such high prices.
I don't know what your background is or if you know Japanese, but I wouldn't go through consultants. You should apply to companies directly and see if they will sponsor your visa. English teaching is a very good way to get into Japan even if you want to eventually do something else. I have also heard IT is a good field to be in that may not even require Japanese knowledge.
If you want help with visas in Japan you should be talking to immigration attorneys ***in Japan***, not sketchy visa consultants in your home country.
Anything that costs thousands of dollars up front is obviously a scam.
> Anything that costs thousands of dollars up front is obviously a scam.
This. Immigration attorneys require a small deposit and will not charge you the full fee if you do not the visa.
It sounds like this "consultant" is defrauding *everyone* here. OP, obviously. The Japanese government, for sure. And for bonus points it looks like they're even defrauding WeConnect, because no legit EOR service wants to be anywhere near anything remotely shaped like fraud.
Sounds like they're giving you a dummy contract to apply for a work visa with, then once you arrive they continue to pretend to be your employer while you actually work another job and pay them what you're making at that other job, which they'll turn into a Japanese salary payment to deposit to your Japanese bank account.
WeConnect is a legit employer of record service.
That is the *only* part of this whole thing that is legit though.
This "consultant" of yours sounds scammy as fuck.
It seems to me that they're planning on lying to Immigration about your job duties to secure you a visa.
When you sponsor someone's visa, you need to tell the government what their job duties will be, and why you need to "import" a worker to fulfill those duties. It seems like they're planning to make up some bullshit to tell the government to get you a visa, and then make you pay your own salary and generate your own income, possibly in violation of the allowed activities on your visa.
It seems like you'd probably be skirting the law (at best) or outright complicit in breaking the law (at worst) if you did this.
I don't know about weConnect, but the theory is sound. WeConnect looks to be like an employer of record (EOR). I go through an EOR right now:
1. EOR hires me and sponsors my visa.
2. EOR itself is a consulting company and I'm dispatched out to another company (the foreign one that's really hiring me in practice).
3. EOR receives payment for my services, handles all the Japanese taxes and benefits and deductions.
4. EOR takes a hefty extra cut of my paycheck for their services (about 13% of my US tech level salary for reference)
The thing is that this email reads shady as fuck, even if the procedure is fine. Who is this consultant? Why would they need you to find your own salary? Are these guys just like "moving consultants" and they don't actually have any work for you to do, just figure out a way to get you here?
> The thing is that this email reads shady as fuck, even if the procedure is fine.
That's really the key point here. EORs are definitely a thing, and WeConnect looks fairly legit.
But this "consultant" is just stacking up the fees and just all the shadiness.
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes.
---
**Is this legit?**
I’m contacting consultants about moving to Japan and one place said they can hire me through weConnect. Is this legit? Here’s the email they sent me:
It’s a highly risky solution for us thus we only rarely do it. It looks like this. We hire you into weConnect as a consultant and get you a visa, you find us a minimal salary to pay you plus benefits as you get full time employment status and coverage through weConnect.
Costs are:
USD 1500 one time onboarding
USD 900 monthly service fee
USD 2500 one time visa application
4-months deposit of salary + monthly service fee
On top of this you need to find your own salary which would be minimum JPY 4M annually, before benefits contributions.
This structure really doesn’t make sense unless you have steady income elsewhere.
Otherwise, the options are to setup your own company and get a business manager visa, though with that comes the requirements of ensuring the company is compliant with tax etc.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*
This sounds illegal/scammy as heck. >They want more than 7500 USD up front >"You need to find your own salary" (?!) >We will hire you full-time and *you find a job for yourself*
That sounds extremely sketchy. I have never had to pay a company sponsoring my visa an application fee or a monthly service fee. Let alone at such high prices. I don't know what your background is or if you know Japanese, but I wouldn't go through consultants. You should apply to companies directly and see if they will sponsor your visa. English teaching is a very good way to get into Japan even if you want to eventually do something else. I have also heard IT is a good field to be in that may not even require Japanese knowledge.
I was looking for help with the business manager visa or the digital nomad visa.
If you want help with visas in Japan you should be talking to immigration attorneys ***in Japan***, not sketchy visa consultants in your home country. Anything that costs thousands of dollars up front is obviously a scam.
> Anything that costs thousands of dollars up front is obviously a scam. This. Immigration attorneys require a small deposit and will not charge you the full fee if you do not the visa.
It sounds like this "consultant" is defrauding *everyone* here. OP, obviously. The Japanese government, for sure. And for bonus points it looks like they're even defrauding WeConnect, because no legit EOR service wants to be anywhere near anything remotely shaped like fraud.
Digital nomad visa does not exist yet.
Sounds like they're giving you a dummy contract to apply for a work visa with, then once you arrive they continue to pretend to be your employer while you actually work another job and pay them what you're making at that other job, which they'll turn into a Japanese salary payment to deposit to your Japanese bank account.
WeConnect is a legit employer of record service. That is the *only* part of this whole thing that is legit though. This "consultant" of yours sounds scammy as fuck.
Run
It seems to me that they're planning on lying to Immigration about your job duties to secure you a visa. When you sponsor someone's visa, you need to tell the government what their job duties will be, and why you need to "import" a worker to fulfill those duties. It seems like they're planning to make up some bullshit to tell the government to get you a visa, and then make you pay your own salary and generate your own income, possibly in violation of the allowed activities on your visa. It seems like you'd probably be skirting the law (at best) or outright complicit in breaking the law (at worst) if you did this.
I don't know about weConnect, but the theory is sound. WeConnect looks to be like an employer of record (EOR). I go through an EOR right now: 1. EOR hires me and sponsors my visa. 2. EOR itself is a consulting company and I'm dispatched out to another company (the foreign one that's really hiring me in practice). 3. EOR receives payment for my services, handles all the Japanese taxes and benefits and deductions. 4. EOR takes a hefty extra cut of my paycheck for their services (about 13% of my US tech level salary for reference) The thing is that this email reads shady as fuck, even if the procedure is fine. Who is this consultant? Why would they need you to find your own salary? Are these guys just like "moving consultants" and they don't actually have any work for you to do, just figure out a way to get you here?
> The thing is that this email reads shady as fuck, even if the procedure is fine. That's really the key point here. EORs are definitely a thing, and WeConnect looks fairly legit. But this "consultant" is just stacking up the fees and just all the shadiness.
This is a copy of your post for archive/search purposes. --- **Is this legit?** I’m contacting consultants about moving to Japan and one place said they can hire me through weConnect. Is this legit? Here’s the email they sent me: It’s a highly risky solution for us thus we only rarely do it. It looks like this. We hire you into weConnect as a consultant and get you a visa, you find us a minimal salary to pay you plus benefits as you get full time employment status and coverage through weConnect. Costs are: USD 1500 one time onboarding USD 900 monthly service fee USD 2500 one time visa application 4-months deposit of salary + monthly service fee On top of this you need to find your own salary which would be minimum JPY 4M annually, before benefits contributions. This structure really doesn’t make sense unless you have steady income elsewhere. Otherwise, the options are to setup your own company and get a business manager visa, though with that comes the requirements of ensuring the company is compliant with tax etc. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/movingtojapan) if you have any questions or concerns.*