When Peter Kasprzyk and several other students from Poland and Slovakia arrived in Harford County in late June to work for the McDonald's restaurant chain, they said they'd been told they would make a lot of money, "more money than you could imagine."

But Kasprzyk couldn't buy an item from the dollar menu with his first paycheck. It was zero.

That's because he and four fellow students were being docked for $2,000 monthly rent on a two-bedroom apartment they share in Abingdon that normally goes for $750 in a longer-term lease. That deduction wiped out every cent Kasprzyk had made flipping hamburgers for $8 an hour at the fast-food franchise on Pulaski Highway in Edgewood.

On top of those deductions, Kasprzyk had to pay $200 toward the apartment security deposit and share the $20 roundtrip cab fare to work.

"We were taken advantage of," said Kasprzyk, 22, who decided Friday to walk away from the job and risk forfeiting his share of the security deposit. He said he was looking for work in Rehoboth Beach, Del.

McDonald's, which was listed as Kasprzyk's landlord on the unsigned duplicate of the three-page apartment lease he received, declined to comment on the students' situation. Officials at the corporate headquarters in Oak Brook, Ill., referred questions to the regional office in Baltimore, which in turn referred all questions to Donna Maertens of Stafford, Va.

She is the woman who has recruited about 400 foreign students this year for temporary jobs at McDonald's outlets in Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia.

"Before they came here, they signed a contract," Maertens said. "They were told everything. They have orientation sessions. They know all the conditions. No one holds the pen in their hands. No one's forcing them to do anything."

Kasprzyk and his colleagues dispute that, saying they were pressured by Maertens' agent to sign the English-language rental agreement without adequate time to read it and figure out what it meant. Similar pressure, they said, was exerted by her overseas agents when the students signed an employment contract.

The students came to the United States under J-1 visas as part of a work-travel program authorized by the State Department. Maertens said the visas were issued through the Council on International Educational Exchange, a New York-based nonprofit that brings thousands of foreign students to this country every year.

Stanley Colvin, head of the State Department bureau that oversees the work-travel visa program, said late last week that the students' complaints were being investigated.

Under the program, foreign students can spend up to four months working in the United States and take an additional month for travel.

Kasprzyk and his fellow workers said they each paid $500 to sign up with Maertens' program; air fare was an additional $1,000.

They expected to spend a profitable summer but were swiftly disappointed. Instead of working eight-hour shifts, they said, they were sent home when business slowed down. "It's hypocritical," Kasprzyk said. "They smile only to tell you, 'Go home.'"

As a result, Kasprzyk worked only 17.22 hours during his first two-week pay period, ending July 6, to gross $137.76, according to his pay stub.

But that amount was wiped out by deductions. The pay stub, which misspells his name as "Piotr J. Kasprzk," shows $2 was subtracted for Medicare and $8.54 for Social Security. These deductions were made even though students participating in the J-1 program are exempt, Colvin said.

The largest amount subtracted was under "voluntary deductions": $127.22 for "crew housing deduction." Added to the payments for Medicare and Social Security, the deductions totaled $137.76, the full amount he had earned.

Kasprzyk was not the only foreign student to have his pay wiped out by deductions. When the students complained to their manager in Edgewood, they were told to take it up with Maertens.

But "after a big [argument], he gave us $40 or $50 apiece," Kasprzyk said.

Kasprzyk said the students also complained to the Council on International Educational Exchange but were told the same thing they had heard from Maertens: You signed a contract, now you have to live with it.

"That doesn't sound right," CIEE spokeswoman Pamela Posey said, adding that she was "not specifically aware" of the complaints.

"It could be a misunderstanding or a lack of clear communication," said Posey, who promised to look into the matter.

Maertens said the rent was higher than normal because the lease was short term and included furnishings and utilities.

"There's a premium on the rent because it's for a shortened period," she said.

"It's really only $15 a day," Maertens said, deducted at a rate of $100 a week for each student. Kasprzyk's housing deduction covered a portion of a second week.

"You're not going to get to talk to anyone else [from McDonald's] - that's why you were referred to me," said Maertens, who would not say whether she was an employee of McDonald's or an independent contractor.

Kasprzyk joined several other students who had already fled, including Pawel Syscz, 25.

"It's just not fair," Syscz said of his treatment by Maertens and McDonald's. Since walking off the job, he has wandered from here to Chicago and New York City in a thus-far fruitless search for other employment.

Like Kasprzyk, his first McDonald's paycheck netted out to nothing. He said he doesn't know whether he'll ever get his second paycheck, which is still due him.

In addition to complaining about their paychecks, the students were unhappy that they wound up miles from any major metropolitan area instead of being in Baltimore or Washington, as they said they were promised.

Maertens said her contracts include a standard provision stating that promised assignments are "subject to change."

"We were hoodwinked into an unfair agreement and ridiculously expensive housing," Syscz said.

Kasprzyk said it is unlikely that he will ever make back the money he has already spent to participate in the program.

The problems became apparent to him as soon as he and Syscz stepped off the plane from Poland. Arriving in New York on a Friday and finding no one waiting for them, the two said they called Maertens and got an answering-machine message saying that she would not be available until Monday.

That left them in New York for two more days, where they used up much of the $475 in cash they had been instructed to bring with them. On Monday, following Maertens' instructions, they said they took a bus to Baltimore, where they were met by a man she sent to pick them up.

Kasprzyk said the driver charged them $15 apiece for the ride to Abingdon and then told them about the security deposit for the apartment. They said they were told that they had to sign the three-page employee lease agreement immediately, plus several other forms, including an authorization to have rental payments deducted from their paychecks.

"If I choose to move out of the company secured housing before the end of this time, I am still responsible for the weekly charged(sic) until the room is re-rented," the agreement states. "I may also forfeit my entire security deposit."

The agreement also calls for forfeiture of the security deposit if they "are asked to vacate the company-secured housing for any reason whatsoever." The only company mentioned in the agreement is McDonald's.

Another clause states that no interest will be paid on security deposits. Under Maryland law, this is permissible for leases of less than six months.

Whenever the students objected to their situation, Andrea Mikstajova, a Slovakian who is part of the group working at McDonald's, said there was a stock answer.

"When we complained," she said, "they said, 'Take it up with Donna.'"